An encouraging sign for the direction of the coming democratic discussion

George Will, for all of his disappointing digging on Barry Bonds, lately, comes through in a big way with his most recent column.

The Case for Conservativism

This is both a strong case for conservativism and for the general direction for the country. Now, I say that as someone who thinks that liberalism also has a strong case to make and who thinks that George is playing to liberalism's current weaknesses that too many liberals are arrogantly parading as their means to electoral victory. The shift that I see occuring among conservatives toward more libertarian themes is a very good sign for the democratic discussion, the country, and the future of liberal democratic values taken more seriously. The future of liberal democratic values needs to embrace greater freedoms, which is where authentic liberal progress lies when it is not being compromised by the fears and cowardice of those who must use force to persuade when their ideas are not strong enough.

But, in this regard, liberals have a very powerful case to make, as well.

The strongest themes in liberalism are in how compassionate, decent people look after the welfare of others and themselves and greater equity on their behalf, in a world where winners are perpetually looking out for themselves at the expense of losers, too often. Liberals are also concerned with a more limited scope for government, in areas of morality and prohibitions on sexual activity (namely, sodomy laws that have effectively been overturned by the Supreme Court after years of liberal and libertarian efforts in this regard), homosexuality, abortion, drug prohibition, alcohol age restrictions (how many people who lived through the 21-year-old alcohol age limit, liberals or conservatives, actually support that limit?) regulations of speech and expression, internet, movies, music, performance and gaming (older liberals, like Tipper Gore and Hillary Clinton, may want to regulate music and gaming, but younger liberals are more than fed up with such prudish efforts), relaxing of laws and penalties against illegal immigration (especially of the sort of immigration that is meant to support families and find economic opportunity and political freedom and leave countries that promise neither), prostitution (liberals are more typically in favor of sensible efforts to legalize prostitution, in my experience, than are conservatives), and many of my liberal friends, myself included, oppose smoking bans even as too many support them (for reasons that are understandable but which also limit the reasonable freedom of people to smoke in public places together, of their own accord, without smoking bans limiting all such congregation).

It is true that there are far too many liberal efforts that limit freedom. The efforts to curb free speech and free thought in places like Canada and Europe are the limitations on freedom that are most serious to me. Laws against criticism of religion, laws against Holocaust denial, laws limiting the freedom of the press and making libel and slander much easier to find civil damages for, and other laws that undermine what I think are the most important freedoms in liberal democracies - the freedoms of conscience, thought, speech, expression, religion, and other similar freedoms - are the most serious legal limitations on important freedoms that I can think of. Liberal efforts to curb economic freedom, freedom of employers and employees to make grown-up and even not-s0-grown-up decisions without the intervention of a court, freedom of citizens from overburdening government and taxation for many purposes that would much better be addressed voluntarily in civil society and with much more economic abundance, I am quite convinced from empirical evidence from well-supported non-profits and universities; freedom of people of different genders, racial, ethnic, and religious groups, immigrants, classes of disabilities, and other individuals from various groups to resolve problems between themselves as grown-ups - freely, through mutual engagement and persuasion and understanding.

There are a million flaws in political liberalism that I do not want to spend all of my time harping on, because it is the strengths of liberalism which led me to be a liberal for most of my life.

When I was growing up, liberals were the people - the adults, especially - who let people and kids (since I was a kid) be themselves, more, with more acceptance. Liberals were people like theater teachers and debate coaches and English teachers and the art teachers and the special education teachers who cared about people for themselves, who listened and engaged ideas, and who let people - and kids, especially, since I was a kid - to think and talk freely without having to worry that they would be judged for their thoughts or ideas or random utterances or taste in music or movies.

Now, as I grow up, I realize that this was a romantic notion of liberalism and liberals. Plenty of conservatives and libertarians were among those less judgmental, more open-minded folks. And plenty of liberals were and are far less open-minded than many of those conservatives and libertarian folk. Many of the liberals I thought were perfectly open-minded have disappointed me in my dealings with them as lacking faith in their own ideals, especially their sense of compassion and understanding and forgiveness and support for all people. Especially when it comes to conservatives.

As I have taken off my rose-colored glasses, it has become clear to me that liberals have often upheld all of these ideals, except when it came to conservatives, who they have viewed as stupid, narrow-minded, bigoted, greedy, mean-spirited, and all sorts of stereotypes that liberalism feeds on too often. Many of these qualities are accurate descriptions of many conservatives. They are also accurate descriptions of many liberals. And the irony to me, always, is that too many of these qualities are as if not more true of many liberals as they are of many conservatives. And worst of all, the liberals who hold such stereotypes closest to their bitter little hearts are the same folks who are, generally, far dumber, more narrow-minded, more bigoted, greedy, mean-spirited, and all of those stereotypes more than many, many, if not most conservatives.

Plenty of conservatives are far smarter, open-minded, unprejudiced, generous, compassionate and all sorts of virtuous qualities than many, many liberals. E.O. Wilson, for instance, is far more of all of these qualities, in my experience, than most people I know, nevertheless most liberals. David Gergen and Andrew Sullivan, as well. I don't know Frederick Kagan, Francis Fukuyama, and John Keegan well, but I would imagine, given their work and my experience with most conservatives, they are more generous than most folks. George Will is not the most generous person I've ever kept tabs on, but he's more of all of these things than most people, nevertheless most liberals. It's really pretty insulting how such stereotypes get thrown around by so many liberals for so many conservatives who are generally some of the better people I am familiar with.

The better people I know are typically the most thoughtful, in my experience. They are far from perfect. First of all because there is no such thing as perfection, which is an illusion that has now and forever haunted humanity with its never kept promise of people who do not make mistakes or who are without serious sin. The best people I know take up pursuits that bore or seem too goody-goody to most people. They are liberals and conservatives, people of faith and atheists and agnostics, people who engage in public service and people who engage in less classical public service efforts like business and law (ok, so law can be a noble pursuit, but so often it is a pain in the ass and far too often undermines more genuine public service efforts, is the truth). The better people I know do things that help others and not just themselves and who maintain a faith that doing so is good for everyone, including themselves. They advocate for unpopular causes for reasons of principle rather than covering their own asses. They care about the bigger picture, and not just their small little role in it.

The better people I know are those who take seriously the knowledge and understanding of bigger and better ideas and who take a world where such a ideas are given room to grow and develop more seriously.

And that world and those ideas are given the most room by a world that takes liberal values - the values of freedom and equity, without trade-off or substitute - seriously and doesn't try to artificially end debate on important questions, as George mistakenly does in this article, I think, when he argues that the debate about the desirability of a welfare state should be over and the welfare state accepted as a needed element of a decent society, something that I disagree with, for all of my very serious liberal callings.

Liberal societies, first and foremost and above all, leave all serious and important questions and debates and discussions up for argument and thought and engagement and more argument, and thought and engagement and more argument for the hopefully and likely long course of humanity.

And the best people in liberal societies take those ideas and thoughts and arguments and debates and discussions and engagement seriously. They do not artifically try to resolve such questions by force, though all of those people, myself included, are very likely and without much doubt in my mind, guilty of artificially closing off such debates in ways that I hope they regret. If they don't regret doing so, they shouldn't be too concerned because no amount of effort to close off such debate will, now or ever, in fact, close off such debates. That's the beauty of liberal societies. I nor anyone else has to ask anyone's permission to engage any debate or discussion that they damn well please.

Liberalism, at its heart, is about a society of hope and openness and freedom to change and learn and grow. Liberalism takes no back seat to conservativism for its embrace of freedom. Largely because freedom is the heart of the best ideas and inclinations of both liberalism and conservativism, when each of them are not giving into the pride and temptation of their weaker variations and their weakers ideas and arguments. Liberals and conservatives of a stronger and more honest faith know that it is liberal values - meaning values that embrace freedom and learning and faith and love and compassion and forgiveness and a commitment to the interests of all people and not ourselves alone - which open up the surest path to responsibility for all of these values and all others which matter and which are the true bedrock and strength of more virtuous societies.

Liberal democratic societies hold no monopoly on virtue. Nor do they guarantee it. Nor should they see themselves or should individuals committed to such values see themselves as holding any monopoly on virtue or wisdom. But such societies and values create more space for such virtue and wisdom to be nurtured and to develop an ever growing Matthew's effect of virtue and wisdom and the wealth of positive consequences that come with both. It is our liberal values and our appreciation for the freedoms it offers and the concern for others as much as for ourselves that provides that legacy as much as our conservative appreciation for virtue and wisdom that have served us for the length of humanity's history. There is no idea or ideology and certainly no person who has a monopoly on virtue or wisdom. I certainly don't, that's for sure. Perhaps people like Adolph Hitler and Karl Marx or Fred Phelps and Noam Chomsky are the true believers and true knowers of virtue and wisdom among us. I'm sure they think so. I have my doubts:).

There is no such thing as anyone or any group or any government or any authority with any monopoly on virtue or wisdom. It never has existed and never will exist. It's an illusion that just ain't so.

I've made plenty of dumb and bad choices for a person whose supposed to be smart and decent. I wish that weren't so. And that is the line that good people cross. They make mistakes. And they feel remorse. And that remorse and the desire to make good, and not any illusion of perfection, is what makes us good. One of the perpetually exploited weaknesses of good people is their fear that they can't forgive themselves and that they'll never be forgiven. It is a foolish way that we treat ourselves and one another since it often keeps bad behavior in place.

Good people are not people who have never sinned or screwed up, because no matter how many protestations about Jesus Christ to the contrary, there is no such thing as a person who has never sinned or screwed up except, perhaps, for those who have died before they could get in any serious trouble. Jesus' most serious mistake, I believe, is that he was arrogant enough to think he was the son of God and to say so or at least imply so publicly, when what he really was a very decent and wise and good man who had terribly important wisdom and virtue to offer to a barbaric society that prided itself, as we do today, as the final arbiter on all matters of importance and virtue.

Jesus was not the son of god or the messiah, one of the many reasons that Jews, rightly, take such issue with his claims of divinity. But he was one of the wisest, most decent, best men of his time who made an indelible impact on ancient as well as modern liberal and, whether they like it or not, illiberal societies, despite his mistakes, not because he didn't make any. The irony of arguing that he made no mistakes is that he never could have learned to be such a good and decent and wise man had he not. Wisdom and virtue and decency don't come in a bottle or in divinity. That's the notion of the proud or the naive. Wisdom and virtue come from thought and practice. And plenty of screwing up.

People, for all their pride, don't get good or better or even approach the most powerful wisdom or virtue because they've gotten it right all the time. They get there with plenty of screwing up. And plenty of love and patience and teaching and correction from the people around them who love them.

Making mistakes is the most common and the most universal way that we all learn. Some of us learn with more mistakes than others. Sadly, many of us never learn before we leave this life. But we all learn, and we all make mistakes. Mistakes, more than the learning, is what all people have most in common. And our mistakes are useful, even as far too many of our mistakes are destructive of others and ourselves, insofar as they contribute to our learning and our lives.

Conservatives and liberals have much to share in this regard, since all of the living, breathing ones have many, many mistakes, sins, what-have-you to learn from and to allow others to learn from as well.

And it is getting honest about this fact and finding the courage to let people share them more openly without fear of hurt or punishment and not forever suppressing it and keeping it under cover which is what keeps so much of it and so much repetition of sins and mistakes in place. Getting more open and honest about this fact and about our mistakes is the most important bit of virtue and wisdom that we could all practice today (me included, though I must admit I'm a little shy as long as I have reason to fear that I will be treated badly by others). It would go a very long way toward removing the persistent denial and bullshit and cynicism that is perpetually fucking up life for all of us.

George's column is a hopeful sign for the democratic discussion. Let's hope that others follow suit in their faith in our ever liberalizing values and conservation of our great heritage.

Love,
Ben

The problem with Rudy (and with all of the Presidential candidates)

Andrew Sullivan references this piece by David Boaz of the Cato Institute as a warning to more libertarian minded voters to beware the temptation of Rudy Guliani.

Libertarians, beware the rigid reign of Rudy

I have to admit that Guliani has seemed a tempting candidate to me for the very libertarian tendencies that Boaz cites in this piece. I am growing more and more wary of his more authoritarian impulses and, as importantly, the more authoritarian direction that his lead has generated in the Republican debates. The aggressive and authoritarian impulses in both Democratic and Republican politics the last 6 years has been kind of scary, really. There are no perfect choices. Ron Paul is the best choice among Republicans for domestic politics, but I'm not convinced that he has really thought through international security issues.

Barak Obama has been my favored Democratic candidate for his promise to transcend a lot of partisan narrowness in favor of more genuine commitment to a more thoughtful political dialogue. But Presidential politics, and Democratic primary politics, in particular, seems to be overwhelming that promise. I just listened to an NPR report yesterday morning that featured Barak telling a Union crowd that he won't shop at Walmart because of labor practices. It's not the worst position to take - Walmart, like a million employers, does have a reputation for treating employees as usable and disposable rather than as human beings; though treating Walmart with the same regard and just the general trend of treating people with that same regard (do you really think that anti-Walmart folks generally favored treating Lewis Libby more decently?) makes the backers of the anti-Walmart sentiments hypocrits at best and no better than Walmart, at worst - but I'm tired of power politics persistently overwhelming more substantial and engaged discussion and thought, which is what make Barak Obama such an attractive candidate.

Bill Richardson is a candidate that has a lot more mileage, today, with me than before those Democratic debates. I like both his libertarian liberal bent and his serious international policy and security knowledge and experience without the arrogance of Joe Biden who I fear would scare the shit out of the world as an American President, right now, unless he got some serious humility. I am impressed, in retrospect, with Richardson's honest admission about his somewhat petty racist reaction to the Alberto Gonzalez "scandal" (Has there ever been more a scandal that really wasn't a scandal? Except for Paul Wolfowitz's crucifixion, that is). I'm proud of any Presidential candidate who admits his faults out loud. It's refreshing. And I'd like to see much more of it. I'll be looking seriously at Bill Richardson in the coming months.

I like Ron Paul because he opens up the discussion about government power. I am not enamoured of his views of international security and have my doubts that he feels comfortable using government power for security efforts, domestically and internationally, when they are necessary. Right now, though this can and hopefully will change. But, right now, he doesn't pass my, "Would you trust this guy to fight terrorists when he needs to?" test. And though his advertising his vote for impeaching Bill Clinton may have played well to his Republican audience, it was bad news for me as someone who still very strongly believes that those impeachment proceedings were petty partisanship at it's worst. I'm not enamoured by Rudy Guliani's far too comfortable relationship with government power, either. I like his more libertarian commitments. But I've never been in love with his James Q. Wilson strictly-enforce-every-lesser-crime approach to crime and government authority, the very reasoning that so many conservatives and liberals seem enamoured of, these days.

Rudy is exactly what the American population is crying out for, right now, which would explain his high poll ratings. Hillary Clinton and Joe Biden are similar candidates among Democrats. There are too many to count among Republicans.

I want a candidate who I can count on to be thoughtful about government and power, who wants as big a sphere for personal and every other serious freedom as possible, and who feels comfortable with the use of power, especially for security needs, domestically and internationally, when it is needed.

I don't know who that candidate is, at this point. But I do know that more than anything what needs to change is citizen attitudes about power. This festish and doomed romanticism that they have with power, right now, needs to end sooner rather than later. It will wear away whether they like it or not because the credibility necessary to make authority work cannot sustain itself when citizens are and feel run roughshot over. But it will wear away the more they are being run roughshot over and it will more quickly the more citizens think about what power really can and cannot do.

Ron Paul has engaged in serious thought about the limits of government authority. He would do well to think about how government authority should be used when it must. Rudy and Barak and the largest swath of both Democratic and Republican candidates would do well to think more about better limitations on authority.

More importantly, all of us, citizens and leaders, alike, would do well to think about the limits of power.

Love,
Ben

The problem with the world

The now and since the beginning of time problem with the world is not whether we're good or bad. We've always been good and bad, no matter how much we try to pretend different.

The now and since the beginning of humanity problem with the world is the bad overwhelming the good. It's all the shit doesn't matter in the world overwhelming all the shit that does.

It's all of our baser instincts constantly overwhelming our nobler, more thoughtful, more decent liberal democratic values. They often do so in the name of liberal democratic values or morality or a million other nobler causes. Because noone likes to admit what dicks we are in public. We're all too afraid of looking like dicks and feeling others' wrath and their self-righteous efforts to make us be better.

That problem will persist till the end of humanity until we figure out that it is our more liberal impulses that allow and have always allowed us to be and become better more quickly, readily, sustainably, and thoughtfully. And when I say liberal, here, I don't mean politically left. I mean liberal, meaning liberty loving. I mean the impulses that we know down deep in our hearts are our truest selves: to be free.

And it is all the shit in the world that has us trapped in so many ways in foolish, stupid pursuits and not taking nearly seriously enough our most valuable and liberty loving efforts. And, sadly, that situation is often created by the more educated and supposedly liberal amongst us trying to hold down and keep out our more foolish, stupid pursuits, rather than just embracing them and us for having them and embracing all of us, each one us, and all of each one of us while we all look for higher ground.

That is the most serious problem in the world more than any other.

The good thing is that we have all kinds of opportunity to live our ideals. It just means letting go of our cowardice, embracing our capacity for thought and honest engagement, and having the courage to let people be themselves while we all work to be better.

Love,
Ben

Making me feel bad for who I am

I don't think in my entire life that I have ever so frequently been made to feel bad for who I am.

It may be that people think I'm too liberal, which would be ironic since I'm not really a conventional liberal at all (I support the surge, after all).

But I think it's because people think I'm too nice. Which has been one of my stronger qualities since I was a kid. I'm not always nice. Noone is. But I think a lot of people, right now, just think of me as too laid back, too easy going, too nice, too soft, too weak.

That's also kind of ironic given how much shit I've eaten, lately, and how much strength I've had to have to make it through all of it without bitterness and jadedness swallowing up my life.

But I've never had so many encounters with people where they seem to imply with their body language, "What's wrong with you?"

I suppose somewhere between Ahmadenijad and me is the right balance. Somewhere between Hitler and Ghandi. Somewhere between Stalin and King.

The inanity of it makes me want to give up much of the time, these days. What's the use of being thoughtful when muscle will always trump?

Because that's bullshit, that's why. Everyone knows that muscle can only do so much. We're all just too big of pricks to acknowledge that muscle just fucks so much up. We're too proud, and too stupid, and too foolish, to face what is plainly the reality if we didn't spend so much of our lives trying to defend our foolish choices. And I, for one, am tired of that bullshit fucking up life for everyone. And I mean everyone. The whole foolish human race.

And our foolishness and pride will be on display for our progeny and their progeny whether we want to face that or not. And I don't care, anymore, how much people try to resist facing up. I just know that all of our lives are over and our kids and grandkids are studying us and our choices, the question they will ask (or should ask) will be, "Did they do the wise thing? Did they do what was best for everyone, and not just for themselves?" And they won't give a shit about our pride. They never do. I don't give two shits about the pride of my parents' generation, who are so full of themselves I can barely stand it. So are their children, unfortunately. And so will be their children and their children if we can't find a way to reduce and end this propensity for us to hide how bad we are instead of becoming good and always better for real. Imposing ourselves on one another has never worked to this end, for the entirety of human history. Ghandi knew that. As did King. We just are too goddamn proud and foolish and cowardly to acknowledge it ourselves.

And I, for one, am tired of being made to feel bad so good people won't have to face their pride. And become great.

Love,
Ben

Too much aggression

I really don't care how I get branded, at this point. There is too much aggression in the country and in the world, right now. Everyone trying to act tough and stare down the tough guy across the way. This cartoon from Kevin Kallaugher in the March 29, 2007 edition of The Economist captures the spirit of the times better than any I've seen and perhaps better than anything I've read. It crowds out discussion and debate and brainstorming and independent thought and genuine concern for people and resolving problems they face, all of the values that matter most in liberal democracies. And I don't care, anymore, if that makes me look soft or weak for saying so. It's just a fact. It is undermining important national and international policy discussions and many of the goals that we say we want to achieve. It is the pride of less thoughtful, more action-oriented folks taking action and failing to thoughtfully reflect on the consquences of those actions. But life tends to have consequences, whether we reflect on them and our mistakes or not. I am becoming clearer that so many of the most serious problems in the world are the consequence of us being less thoughtful and perpetually making the mistakes, first, no matter how tragic, rather than reflecting on our actions and how to be more thoughtful and, thus, effective. The claim on the need for more and more aggression is the perpetual rationalization for all of the ugliest events of human history. We are naturally aggressive animals, human beings. We are born predators. But our aggression and predation betrays us and blinds us to the intelligent thought, engagement, and discussion that is needed to resolve our most serious problems. And I don't care, anymore, how that makes me look. I just want us to face it, sooner rather than later, and to move forward in a more sensible and thoughtful direction.

Love,
Ben

Someone who agrees that force is the necessary and best means of governing

Completely randomly, today, I happened by Paul Hill's webpage on the Army of God website (if you have not seen the documentary on the militant wing of the pro-life movement, Soldiers in the Army of God, I highly recommend it).

Why Shoot an Abortionist?

If you are interested in others who share your view that force is the necessary and best means of commanding obedience from a recalcitrant nation, you will find a friend in Paul.

Enjoy.

Love,
Ben

Rediscovering my innocence

Something's happened for me, here, recently. I'm recapturing my innocence, I think. I've been facing up to a lot of my less noble qualities, lately. My jadedness about some things, especially love and teaching and policy and politics and just more noble efforts, generally. My self-centered attitude toward too many things in my life. Sex in particular.

The world of porn is full of recreational fantasy. But, lately, I've started to face just how far its taken me from more innocent and equitable attitudes toward sex and love in my past. There's nothing wrong with porn, necessarily. And it can be a fun outlet for both single people and couples looking for recreational sexual release without all of the dangers of casual sex or the uniformity or repression of one's own passions and turn-ons or experiences of a less risque sex life.

But the truth is that more loving and equitable sex is the norm I want in my life. I know from my longest committed relationship that lots of kinky sex is, perhaps, a warning sign that something is not right. That people in a relationship are, perhaps, not feeling as loving toward one another and the sex is just a manifestation of that fact. I know from the beginning of that same relationship and my first really serious relationship and sexual relationship that loving sex as a norm is a sign of just how well things are going in the relationship. That is the feeling I want for life with a partner. And all of the cynicism to the contrary on that just leave me a little skeptical that cynical advice should be trusted. Cynicism is almost always based in a reality. But it is, generally, a reality that cynics have resigned themselves to and lost track of the consequences for that resignation and the fatalism that animates it in their lives.

Lately, I've really started to face this loss of innocence in my life and started to reembrace a lot of personal ideals, as much as political ideals, that animated my younger days of learning and exploring the world. Sex is one place where I've explored this. Money and education are two others. I want some level of independent wealth, so I'm not dependent on any job or pension for income or retirement. And I do want the option of a life of independent writing and teaching if I am not happy in a school or university job. But I'm not as jaded about the need to be so competitive in this arena, though I'm fairly confident that I can make quite a bit of money in my lifetime, assuming that I live to a ripe age. And I want an educational experience that is good for both my learning and which helps young people from a broad range of backgrounds. My experience at Eisenhower seriously jaded me about doing work with kids and folks from less advantaged backgrounds since it meant getting shit on regularly by people whom have been jaded for a long time much more seriously than anything I've been experiencing. That is something on my heart I will have to deal with to reclaim some of my younger idealism: the jadedness that I have absorbed out of my experiences at Eisenhower.

But I am realizing, today, that there is nothing quite as nice as living a life out of a more genuine and decent heart and mind. Everything else in life is just one long rationalization for what shitheads we've become. And I just have no interest in rationalizing that because life seems kind of wasted when any of us are always rationalizing what shitheads we've become instead of just facing up to what shitheads we've become.

The nice thing about having jaded folks reject you is that you don't have to live a life trying to pander to or figure out or otherwise rationalize the jadedness. You are free to find a life where jadedness isn't so prevalent, and leave more cynical folks to their own devices. I do see, now, how far the cynical among us will go to rationalize their cynicism. But I'm letting go of my own cynicism about the idea that virtue doesn't pay or that jadedness is more honest or decent or genuine than it really is.

There really is no replacement for a life where you know you can trust your own outlook on life because it is not centered or seriously informed by jadedness. And there really is nothing worse in the world than not being able to trust yourself and others not being able to trust you, for real, because you've allowed your jadedness to substantially inform your worldview.

I don't want to live of life where I am constantly trying to justify my jadedness to my children, as so many adults that I met and knew growing up. It's an unhappy way to live. And I don't want it for my life, like so many of the adults I encountered in my life. I want something better.

And being honest about it with yourself and the pain and disappointment it represents and how it sits on your heart and the role it plays in distorting your worldview and informing bad choices on your part is the most important thing that a person can do to face up to its tragic consequences in their life.

The assistant principal I've written about who didn't seem to care about kids more genuinely suffered with this kind of jadedness and pain on her heart, I'm pretty clear. As did my principal and most of the teachers and administrators I've worked with. It's sad to see teachers with this on their hearts because it is a field where you would most expect idealism to animate their efforts and where it is most needed. But a jaded teaching population very much holds the same pain of disappointment and hurt and the fear that comes with it from lives that have been treated just as shabbily as anyone else and advocates many of the same jaded policies and holds onto more cynical ideas about life and people that keeps all that cynicism and jadedness in place.

That's as much the reality check for me that I want to rediscover my own innocence as any insight into my own psyche: I don't want to end up as unhappy as so many adults seem to end up or to lose track of just how unhappy I've become because I've just been unhappy for so long.

And I want a woman in my life who feels the same or is moving in that direction so that we can have a family that is more genuinely committed to our children's welfare and not just our fear and pain and disappointment with the world in the name of our children's welfare. I saw too much of that rationalization at Eisenhower. It made me very sad to watch adults live their lives like this and for kids to try to grow up amidst it.

I don't want that for myself or for my own children. I don't really want it for any children or any adult. But I must say that many adults, more than children, seem to rally for the very policies which will most entrench that unhappiness in their lives. They may not realize that is what they are doing, much of the time. They may believe it is for noble purposes. But, generally, the people who are responsible for this jaded, cynical, too often ignoble, cowardly, and stupid world we live in is: us.

And I, for one, do not want that in my life no matter how much others may try to justify or rationalize it.

I want something better.

Love,
Ben

Religion, conscience, freedom, and political regression

I very rarely read the Christian Science Monitor, anymore, because we used them in extemporaneous speaking when I competed on our college speech team and I was never much impressed with their news or analysis. Though I should clearly rethink that view and revisit the Monitor when I find excellent reporting on counterinsurgency strategy on its site like this interview by Dante Chinni with Bill Roggio.

But this article at the Monitor, I thought, captured so much that was wrong with our current political moment romaticizing force.

Higher Education's Missing Soul

I actually agree with the story's major thrust - that there is not enough discussion and engagement on campus on matters of religion and spirituality, matters of the soul - but I do take umbrage with efforts to impose such engagement.

In fact, it is the issue among any others where imposing a value is both a serious violation of conscience, counterproductive, and which illustrates the other futility of force to resolve an issue, especially a serious issue.

My major objection to the idea that religion courses should be mandated, which this article implies without openly backing, is not just that most people I know who are not interested in such discussions or who are not interested in mandated discussions of this kind or who are agnostic, atheist, non-religious, or anti-religious and don't always feel comfortable having such discussions or always want to have those conversations on a college mandated timeline, or that doing so is futile and counterproductive when people do not agree with the fundamental purposes of having that conversation or when they are not actively pursuing such conversations, or even that the substantive matters of faith - meaning teaching about timeless values of faith and virtue - are undermined by a conversation that, at the outset, is forced upon a person's conscience. All of these are very good reasons to disapprove of forcing religion on the consciences of students. But none of them are my major objection.

My major objection is that the most important and fundamental value of liberal principles and liberal democratic thought is that conscience, and religious conscience, especially, given our history, needs to be respected and as sovereign and independent as possible to make all of our other liberal values work. This is actually the fundamental point of my larger work - that conscience should both be as respected, independent, and sovereign as possible, that liberal values and the learning that occurs in a free world from ideas and their consequences work, better, with more freedom and independence for conscience, and that, as an empirical matter, choices and judgments are made as matters of conscience and independent thought whether we try to coerce that thought or those choices or not and that better choices are made and more honest thought and communication occurs the more freedom is available for such thought and conscience.

But the history of liberal and secular thought and liberal democracies is fundamentally oriented around such matters of conscience that people like Jesus of Nazareth, Martin Luther, Galileo Galilei, Mohatma Ghandi, Martin Luther King and millions of others have been killed, tortured, imprisoned, harrassed and otherwise imposed upon for their consciences for the long history and prehistory of humanity.

What is disturbing about calls for mandated religious curriculum is that it touches on the very isues that have been responsible for the worst abuses of power and many of the worst crimes against humanity that have been committed in our history. Hitler killed 6 million Jews as a matter of culture and heritage but, fundamentally, as a matter of conscience, because they held religious views different from his own. Stalin killed and imprisoned millions in Soviet Russia fundamentally because they disagreed with the Soviet regime. The Catholic Church in Europe ruled with theocratic corruption and power because they believed that their rule was more important than matters of conscience. Thomas Hobbes wrote the Leviathan as a rebuke of the religious violence and impositions that were derived from religious antagonisms and violence between Catholics and Protestants in 17th century Great Britain which were, fundamentally, matters of conscience.

This issue - matters of conscience and especially religious conscience - is the most fundamental issue to liberal values and liberal democracies. Out of conscience and thought flows everything else.

I am a soft atheist, meaning I don't believe in God, but I do take matters of faith and spirituality very seriously and believe that people of every matter of faith generally have more in common than not and that the substantive matters of faith, namely universal and timeless virtues (and vices), are of more importance than what I regard as an often futile effort to discuss or debate with believers the question of God's existence, which generally lies on a belief and assertion that they have maintained since finding or being introduced to their faith and which they are often not very open to questioning no matter what an empirical exploration of that question might reveal or open up for their lives.

But I love religious discussions. I seek them out. I sought out and was open to solicitation of discussions with many, many religious and not-so-religious people on campus and off-campus around religious and spiritual issues of a very broad range of religions and kinds and ideological orientations of religion when I was on a college campus more regularly. I was a brief member of groups from a Zen temple to a conservative Christian youth ministry. I sang in a Gospel choir, I engaged almost literally every single person who wanted to save my soul on campus and off campus, and I think I even changed a few minds and learned a lot, myself, along the way.

I was a youth leader in my teens at a little liberal Christian church in Wichita, Unity Church. I have a lot of good memories of that Church, a lot of reflections on what a nice experience it was growing up in that church, and take very seriously matters of spirituality and religion, including the life and example and ideas of Jesus. I have much more I can share about all my religious and spiritual views when I have time and inclination.

I would take a mandated religious course without hesitation or bitching or moaning or resistance and with a lot of enthusiasm for the course.

Many people would not. Many young people, in particular, would resist, moan, groan, and otherwise feel imposed upon and be unmoved by such an experience. That is exactly the problem with this current period and with the romanticism of force to resolve matters of conscience: it ignores what people really think. And that is the essence of why such efforts inevitably and have perpetually failed.

I very rarely hear an engaged or sensible argument for force to be used so freely and regularly as it is being argued and used today. It is a popular political moment. It is a sad one that has had and is having some more tragic consequences for those whom force is being used in more tragic and consequential ways - Haleh Esfandiari, in Iran, just to name one - all so that we can learn the lesson on the limits of power and force and of its evils and unfairness.

We will learn the lesson as we do every time we face such matters of conscience. Because, for all of our underdeveloped thought and consciences, we do, generally, care about getting to better thoughts and answers. But many people will and are being hurt in the meantime. All in the name of our hubris.

Mandating religious curriculum is not the tragedy of charging and imprisoning an intellectual with treason for disagreeing with your regime. But it is a violation of conscience that we should begin to take seriously if only to face the ugly consequences that this period of force has had for our consciences.

And our souls.

Love,
Ben

Why I trust the Economist

This is why the Economist is arguably the strongest news source in the world.

Israel's Wasted Victory

The Politics of Plenty

The Peace Test

Why is it so hard to discuss the substance of this war debate?

E.J. Dionne has a column in today's Washington Post that reflects everything that is wrong with this Iraq war debate, right now, and what is wrong with too much democratic politics.

See you in September

E.J., in so many of his columns, these days, does not seem interested, at all, in the merits of the Iraq war debate. What good it's done or not. Whether the surge has been effective or not. What we must do to better guarantee a more peaceful, democratic future for Iraq or not.

E.J. has decided. Decided based on what line of reasoning other than the war was a mistake and is lost I have not seen. And for neither of these positions has he offered a thorough, empirical argument, nevertheless a slam-dunk that would warrant abandoning an imperfect but still largely noble cause of liberating the Iraqi people and helping with the security situation substantially enough so that a democratic government can take over both governing and security.

Frederick Kagan has offered a thorough empirical argument. He has a sound justification for the surge - a material and psychological boost for both American and Iraqi soldiers to demonstrate good faith in the American commitment to secure Baghdad and as much of Iraq, as possible, while Iraqi political representatives hash out details of a political resolution/negotiation and while Iraqi soldiers prepare, until they are thoroughly prepared, to take over security operations for their country. Though it is not a popular idea, right now, Kagan's is the most thorough empirical argument I have yet to read about the war, our next steps, and why we should continue. I say this as someone who opposed the war, up front, and who has had serious problems with how the war has been engaged, throughout. And I am an independent who grew up as a liberal, and a peace activist, at that. So I have no axes to gore, here. Kagan just happened to make the best case. And it's not something that any of the President's critics have been able to touch, yet, that I've seen.

E.J., on the other hand, is counting on the popular winds to buttress his argument. Those are the same popular winds that he decries as unintelligible when they do not support his thoughts, as all politicians and political thinkers do, of course. And all serious political thinkers, E.J. included, know what a weak, unsubstantial, and unsustainable position that is to argue, "The majority of people agree with me, so I must be right." That is the same majority, by the way, that were heavily in favor - so much so that it was very difficult to dissent - of this war, at the outset.

What bothers me about E.J.'s argument is not that I disagree with him. I'm not a big fan of any argument, whether I agree or not, which lacks more substance to it.

What bothers me about E.J.'s argument and his column today and for quite a while, now, is how skittish E.J. seems to be about engaging the substantial debate about what to do to best secure Iraq while political negotiations are being hashed out and how sure E.J. always is that he is right and that people who disagree with him are wrong without a serious engagement of the debate.

E.J. is convinced that the war was a mistake and that it is lost. It's not a terribly involved line of thought. It also happens to be a self-fulfilling prophecy. If we are convinced that the war is lost or a fundamentally unamenable mistake, then we abandon it and it clearly is lost and was a mistake. But if the war was mistakenly engaged - without nearly enough debate and discussion about how it might be done and engagement with Iraqis who needed to be consulted if not have a leadership role; something that E.J. and I would probably find a lot of agreement about - but is still noble and winnable, then E.J.'s got more a case to make than I've read from him, thusfar. I read him fairly regularly, so if I'm missing a more thorough argument he's made, then I'm willing to read whatever argument that I might have missed.

E.J. happens to be wrong on the substance, I think. The war is not lost. There is still much that Americans can and which the Maliki government has still indicated that they want us to do. There is a very legitimate debate about respecting the wishes of a parliamentary vote to have Americans withdraw troops. But that is still a debate that needs engagement since the Prime Minister and the ruling party has made clear that they do not want the Americans to leave until they are ready.

But E.J. being wrong, in my view, is not what is bothering me. What is bothering me is how having the popular winds at your back seems to make people intellectually lazy thinking they don't still have a case to make or a debate to engage. At what point ever in the history of democracy has the popularity of a position made it the right thing to do? Never, is the truth. Either a popular position lines up with the right or better call or it doesn't. In this case, it doesn't, I don't think. At least not until the Iraqi people - who did not ask for this war and who are trying to handle the security nightmare it has created in the meantime - say that it does. I will listen to the Iraqis independent of the merits of whether American help might still be needed or not because it is, much more fundamentally, their country and not mine.

But E.J. is an American. He can say that he doesn't want to help anymore, which is a fine opinion but not more relevant than doing the right or better thing, here. But unless he has a substantial case for why the war is lost or our presence is counterproductive or the security threat is handled or would be better handled by the Iraqis without an American presence or support or something along those lines, he just has an opinion. It's not an argument.

And that's what's bugging me about this Iraq war debate. How so many partisans have become so polarized and self-righteous, conservative, liberal, independent, and otherwise, that they don't seem to think that they need to engage the debate or the serious discussion, anymore, except to horserace or to count votes or power rather than have the more serious policy discussion on its merits.

I understand that a lot of people carry a lot of cynicism about our capacity to have such discussions and to get some substantial resolution in those discussions.

And that is what is fucking up American and democratic politics more than any other factor today.

That is why everyone is turning to force and politics, these days. Because they hope that it will fill the vacuum that their willingness to reason has abandoned. Except that it will not fill that vacuum. Nothing will fill that vacuum. Force and politics are no substitute for reason, which is why so many issues and problems go on unresolved in politics and life for so long. Because what they require is more reason and thought and brainstorming and engagement and discussion and debate and open-minded and open-hearted mature, responsible discussion, with lots of forgiveness when we fuck up so that we can move onto new and better options more readily rather than remaining lost in our senseless and unconstructive bitterness and recrimination.

We want better policies? We are going to have to debate and discuss them on their merits. And then when ideas don't work out the way we'd like them to, we're going to need lots of forgiveness and forward vision both so we can brainstorm and discuss and debate new and better ideas to move us forward and so that we don't have a lot of folks walking around saying, "I know I was right. I'm sure I was right," even when all the signs and the empirical discussion leads us to the conclusion are that they were likely wrong.

I've got much more to say about this but I've got pasta, corn, and mushrooms cooking and Melissa needs to get on the computer.

Love,
Ben

Fighting

Devang and I just saw The Namesake, last night, the new and best of the movies, I think, by Mira Nair, the brilliant and often controversial Indian director.

It's a beautiful movie about culture and aspirations, about an Indian Ph.D. student studying in New York who brings his bride in an arranged marriage to America to learn how to live in the land of opportunity. It is a beautiful film that spans a lifetime of living, growing up, raising children, watching them grow up and live their own lives, and all in the context of a Bengali family trying to find their way in America and its bountiful promise.

I realized both watching the movie and reflecting over the lifetime of the Ashoke Ganguli, the father and lead character in the movie, and reflecting over the course of my own life and especially this last year that most of our more serious conflicts in life occur as much around the fight and winning fights as much as around the issue we are upset about or concerned about. It's foolishness is what it is. It's fighting that creates its own problems. At best it achieves reactive problem solving, and at worst it creates entrenchment and counterproductive results.

Most of our most serious political issues remain unresolved as a function of the fighting and the more aggressive means of enforcing solutions rather than thoughtful and collaborative problem solving that patiently takes time to discuss and brainstorm and revisit ideas as we go along. So much of our lives are lost in this this hopeless speeding train of activity without thought and engagement and brainstorming and open-ended and more honest conversation. We are all so scared of having the difficult conversations,the politics, religion, and sex conversations that our parents and friends all warned us about, thinking that thoughtful exploration of issues is giving ground and losing face. We're scared that taking time and patiently walking through difficult issues and generating collaborative ideas and problem-solving, of having on-going conversations without immediate need for resolution somehow betrays our need to take action and solve problems right now rather than when more thoughtful discussion has taken place. We are all so convinced that people are just not smart enough or willing enough or interested enough in such problem solving. Often they may not be. But my commitment, now, is to engage them and take the risk and find out. I'm tired of being scared of peoples' fears or indecision or confusion or unwillingness to have such conversations. I'm completely convinced, at this point, that this is the only place where the problem solving can happen.

And watching that movie I realize that I want solutions in my lifetime, not just left on a blog or in a book or an article for someone else to solve. I want work done on them before I'm not here anymore and someone else has to take over.

And I'm tired of the stupid and incessant fighting that is persistently blocking up better understanding and solutions to our most serious problems. I want something better because this clearly does not work.

We have recycling to do.

Love,
Ben

The paradox of a life of studying people and policy

You know what the biggest irony of my life is?

For someone who has spent most of his adult life studying people and politics, I hate both.

Aristotle was right, I'm learning. Man is a political animal. And I mean that in all of the worst ways more than the best. We're all cowards, is the truth. We're persistently looking around at each other wondering what each other is thinking and trying, very hard, to track closely with the prevailing political winds. This war in Iraq, both when the war was popular and then when it was not popular, have taught me that lesson of life.

I hate politics. I hate when power overwhelms the merits of the substantive discussion. And I hate how cowardly people are that they will tack so closely with the prevailing political winds, that they will confuse it with something more substantial. I include all people here. I don't care how thoughtful or scholarly they might be. That includes me, too, I suppose. Always trying to keep close to the prevailing political winds. It makes more sustantive discussion of life's most important issues look like a joke since popular political winds always seem to carry the day and cowardice is more common than courage.

It undermines my respect for either politics or people and makes me wonder why I wanted to study or think about either at all, really.

I don't know if I care about anything, at all, right now. I used to. When I had people who cared too to share that with. It's been a long time since I had that. I don't know if I'll ever trust anyone ever again.

I need to walk.

Love,
Ben

Policy and people

I said something today, while checking out for the final time at Eisenhower, that I don't think is true, upon reflection.

I was telling Ms. Toomey - the administrator at Eisenhower that I trusted the most; Dr. Ogburn is the most ambitious administrator, but Ms. Toomey is the one I trust - that most of the most serious problems in special education were at the policy level.

I don't think that's true, actually, when I think about it.

Most of all of our problems in life and in politics are at the people level. They are in the interpersonal dealings we have with one another, the ways we think about one another, and the ways we treat one another.

In special education, the biggest problem amongst both special educators and general educators is that people are not genuinely committed to the kids' interests in a way that opens up as many opportunities for them as possible while being an honest reality check and example for kids' behavior, academic achievement, and aspirations. The biggest problem in special education and in schools, generally, is that teachers and parents don't believe in kids enough. They look too often for what is wrong with kids or what will explain their failures rather than what will support their success. They look at kids through the lens of their weaknesses and failures and not enough through the lens of their strengths and their successes.

Many very good teachers are looking out for kids often much more substantially than likely their own parents do. But better parents and teachers do so more genuinely in ways that both believe in their success and look for every route to get there rather than trying to find an explanation for failure or a area of struggle rather than trying to figure out a way to improve or succeed.

And the truth is that the law and policy could never touch this problem. It could raise awareness, I suppose. It could break down barriers, largely by removing legal barriers and bureaucracy that compete for time and energy needed to create success for students.

But, ultimately, either people believe in the bigger goals and do the thinking and the work and engage the effort to achieve them, or they don't. And there is no law, ever, and never from here on out, that can mandate that kind of effort, thought, work, and ambition. Ever. That was the fundamental mistake of even the best intentioned efforts for the Nazis and the Communists (I know it's strange to talk about the best efforts of totalitarian and mass murdering regimes, but both have their apologists). Neither could come to terms with the fact that freedom and not force was the key to allowing people to reach their highest, best potential, because not everyone chooses to do so, for whatever reasons. They don't believe they can. They have a shitty attitude. They have given up. They have low expectations for themselves. They have been talked down. They only see a future that is like the present they inhabit. For whatever reasons, many, many people do not choose to reach for their highest potential. And many, many people spend far too much of their time and efforts tearing others down. I don't know why people waste their time and the time of others like that. But they do. And there is no way out of that but a world with more freedom and an expecation that if we want to achieve more, then we must take advantage of our freedom and the opportunities and make it so. There is no utopia where the ideal world will be mandated for everyone to follow and achieve their highest potential. There is no utopia where everyone will be mandated to behave well and those who don't will learn because they will face the consequences until they do.

We could have a world where people are given more freedom and support to achieve more of their goals and dreams and where people behave better. But that is a world that we would have to create. It is not a world that could ever be achieved by fiat or mandate.

It's so funny, when I think about it, thinking about so many very smart people, many of whom had to have been debaters at one point in their lives, adopting a governing philosophy that is essentially the same position of those who argued in debate rounds that any of the various problems that a case might have could be resolved by government fiat to just mandate the solution into existence. Everyone who ever debated knew what a cheesy, dishonest way this was to debate because problems in government and society cannot be simply fiated away. Every reasonably intelligent debater knew that if this were true, there would be no reason for debate or discussion or thoughtful engagement at all. We would simply fiat all of our problems away and there would be no need for any more discussion of the matter, at all.

But, of course, that can't happen. As any reaononably intelligent debater knows. Because it is a fairy tale that avoids the real problems and pitfalls that face thoughtful efforts to deal with serious policy and people problems.

The truth is that the most serious problems need thought, commitment, work and energy, engagement, and learning, over time, to get us to more substantial resolution. Everything else is propaganda and bullshit. And it certainly isn't a thoughtful, substantial resolution. In the real world as well as in the debate world.

Policy can help to solve a problem by presenting options that were not present, previously, sometimes in the form of a government effort, that can help find resolution. But, so often, policy can solve a problem by removing so many barriers that we create to more long-term, substantial, and broader solutions in our scurry to pass legislation and create policy to solve a more narrow, too often self-centered, and less thoughtful solution to a more narrow problem.

But real solutions, whether they involve law or government or policy or not, occur with what people choose to do to create them. And that will never be alleviated by any law ever. I don't care how much we pretend otherwise. The most genuine solutions to people problems happen with genuine efforts by genuine people. Other than that, you have a world of people doing their minimum to help out a little and largely look after themselves. If we want that world, it is plenty available to us. But it creates a lot of problems that can only be resolved by the more enlightened among us who are willing to look beyond our more narrow self-interest. That's true no matter where the solutions are coming from. From the market, from government, from liberals, from conservatives, from Americans, from Europeans, and from people all over the world, from educated people, from less educated people, from family and friends and people we identify with or from people who seem more different from us and who we don't identify with. The bottom line to most issues getting resolution is a genuine commitment by people involved to one another and to resolution and to each persons' freedom and self-determination and self-governance to resolve those problems and make those choices independently and with one another.

I need some vegi phad tai, some beer, and to watch some Joe Versus the Volcano, right now. This has been a long year. And I need a little time to reflect.

Love,
Ben

Idealism and happiness

It's all of a sudden dawned on my why so many adults are so cynical and why they are so bound and determined to sap the energy from young people:

They're unhappy.

And all that idealism that some young people - though, by all means, not all young people - carry with them is, at least in my experience, fueled by a life that they are much more generally happy with, and largely because they are freer, I think, than most older folks.

That is the feeling I have been missing, some, lately, facing the prospect of being treated badly and aggressively around whichever corner I happen to turn.

I don't want to be unhappy. And, in that sense, leaving Eisenhower is a unexpected blessing. Because I, too, would have likely learned to live with and accept feeling more and more unhappy just to hang onto a more secure situation, for the moment. I can only hope that I will not repeat that mistake - more than any other mistake I could possibly ever make - ever again in the future.

That is why I am so nostalgic for that summer in D.C. with Brandi. It's not because that time was perfect or that we didn't have a million fights and a million problems.

It's because it's the happiest time I remember in my life.

And that should be a sign that I am not happy and need to find happiness elsewhere, as best as possible.

Love,
Ben

Happiness

It's starting to occur to me the most important advantage to how I've lived my life as I listen to a teacher, next door, who I love very much and think is a very good teacher:

Many, if not most, of the teachers I work with often are very unhappy.

Many of the teachers I work with are burnt out, is the truth. They're scared and they're unhappy, but they're too scared to go find a happier situation. It's very sad. It's one of the most important things I decided when I was in grad school that I am happier about, today, than I was when I first decided to move in this direction: I did not want to spend my life scared. Of losing a job. Of the law. Of peoples' approbation or disapproval. Of poverty or failure. Of anything. I did not want to live my life scared. And, in that respect, I am very, very happy that I have chosen a life that leaves me less scared and learning more and, long term, achieving more, I'm quite sure.

I first encountered how serious burnout can hurt an organization when I worked at B'nai Brith, the summer Brandi and I spent together in D.C. All of the older folks who worked there were seriously burned out, amused and somewhat put off my Brandi's and my idealism and energy, and had just very pessimistic views of the world and their capacities and opportunities within it. I remember we had a fundraising campaign that B'nai Brith was considering and I suggested that someone try to make contact with Stephen Spielberg, who had just reembraced his Jewish heritage with Schindler's List and the Shoa Foundation, and see if he can not only give but perhaps do some publicity for our organization, which was the oldest Jewish organization in the United States. The sign of a dying organization is that noone is interested with ideas that might step up an organization's capacity, and that was the case at B'nai Brith. It was disappointing. But it was also an important lesson in how peoples' attitudes shape an organization and how burnout can suck the life out of an organization as negative attitudes sap the organization of imagination, creativity, ideas to resolve important issues and long-term strength. It is very sad to watch.

Eisenhower is more alive than B'nai Brith was, I think. There are plenty of negative attitudes. And there are too many people unhappy with their jobs and their lives to count. But there's still more energy here than in many places I've worked, likely because of the kids and because of the strong sense of commitment and purpose in the job.

I never could live my life unhappy, I don't care what the payoff is that comes with that.

But I'm pretty sure that the big payoffs come with more thought, vision and imagination, strong and positive attitudes, and otherwise staying focussed on always doing a better job.

I'm sad that people choose to live lives that they don't like or love. But I've accepted that a lot of people would prefer those lives and the illusion of security that it provides than the real happiness and security that comes with a life of freedom and thought and positive commitment.

I couldn't live, long term, with burnout, though I have lived with it more this year than I likely have in the past. Now I just want a life where I either don't have to live it at all, or where I can avoid it as much as possible until I create opportunities that get me away from it, as much as possible.

That's why the money or the power or the influence or the stuff never compensates.

Because people are unhappy. And whether they admit it to themselves or not, what most people really want is to be happy. And when they're unhappy, they have a million excuses for why that's the way things are supposed to be. But what doesn't change is that they are still unhappy.

I have work to do (though work I feel pretty good about, right now, thankfully).

If you have not seen Joe Versus the Volcano, I highly recommend it. It is the best movie on this subject that I have ever seen. I think I've going to go watch it as soon as I get home.

Love,
Ben

Fear and learning

Two things:

1) I was being hard on myself, yesterday. I was looking over my work, today, and looking at my progress over the course of a year and realizing, "I came a long way in a year." The fact is that I've been learning over the course of this year. And there is just a lot to learn on this job. My administrators have just been dicks, is the truth. They've been hostile and aggressive and they've made a learning curve that was already a steep one more difficult. They get no credit for my progress. And their aggressiveness totally undermined my learning and progress.

The biggest lesson I learned, today, while I was reflecting on this is that the quality of liberal societies and institutions that promotes so much more progress is learning. And the degree of aggressiveness and hostility in an institution indicates the degree to which that learning is undermined. It wastes time. It undermines learning and growth that needs to take place. It soils relationships where learning takes places. It undermines common objectives. And it is just, generally, a very poor strategy for promoting progress. It's no secret, then, why more aggressive, hostile societies - the Nazis, Communists, theocracies and repressive societies - why they fail so regularly. Because the aggression and hostility and inappropriate use of force undermines learning which undermines growth - cultural, intellectual, economic, political, etc. - and it creates regressive, more threatening and threatened, less honest and dishonest tendencies. Socieities and communities mired in aggression and hostility stay mired, when they do, because people get less honest about the dysfunctionality of that way of handling life and because they begin to accustom themselves to its fear-driven ways because they give into the fear rather than expecting better. I came from more aggressive, less thoughtful poor communities and I have no interest in expecting less than more thought and less aggression and hostility in my own personal life, nevertheless the larger politics and society, anymore.

2) The best thing that's come from the last 5 years for me is watching just how scared most people live their lives. How easily cowered they are and how easily they will settle for less in their lives as a consequence. The fact that people are so circumspect about what they talk about on their jobs versus how much more freely and openly they will talk with one another on a university campus is evidence of just how accustomed people get to this kind of fear. I have no interest in doing that and do it as little as possible. And I am really proud and glad that I didn't choose a path of least resistance that might have led to a life like that for me, as well.

That is the source of the term "path of least resistance": people are coerced down a certain path that others want them to take, and they follow it to avoid resisting the flow and facing the consequences that come with that life.

And I could not be more pleased with myself for resisting that temptation and taking a stronger route even when others took a less resistant one.

I'm going to go take a walk and enjoy the freedom that I've earned this year.

Love,
Ben

Exactly

Still convinced that intimidating our way through difficult policy issues resolves problems more effectively or quickly?

Read on.

The showdown goes on

Intimidation as a means of governing and dealing with the world

A substantial number - the great majority - of the world's conflicts are derived from people trying to intimidate one another and those they are trying to intimidate trying to prove to the world that they will not be intimidated.

The conflict between the United States, the United Nations, and Western nations and Iran, right now, is a classic example of this stand-off and its ineffectiveness.

It is the hubris that intimidation instead of reason is the most powerful force in the world.

And if that were the case, wouldn't you expect a culture that celebrated its power to intimidate more than its power to reason?

Either one of two things is the case: either we are lying about the things that we say that we value, or we doubt our values for fear that they are not as strong as our power to intimidate.

But one thing that is for sure that gives me hope amidst all of this foolishness is that reason is how we will end up resolving this issue, because reason is the only way that we can make sounder judgments when the world is not moving forward in the way it needs to.

And that is how reason sustains our culture and why it is the pinnacle of our cultural values.

If only we could have more confidence in that fact of life.

Love,
Ben

Failure

The more I've thought about it, the more I've come to conclusion that the bottom line is that I failed at Eisenhower.

I have a lot of strong qualities as a teacher. I'm smart. I've got a positive attitude. I have excellent people skills. I genuinely believe that kids who a lot of folks don't necessarily think can do very much can do much more than people give them credit for. I teach kids to the highest standards possible (or at least the highest I know), with realism about how much they are likely to learn how quickly. I have a lot of good qualities as a teacher.

But my organization has been shit, this year. I have improved substantially. I am much more organized, prepared, manage time and resources much better, at this point, and just constantly thinking about all kinds of organizational issues than when I started the year or when I started teaching in November of 2005. The bulk of that has involved getting my head wrapped around it. For whatever reasons, I haven't done that very well up to this point. I think it is likely because I was just so used to running on adrenaline and someone else's structure and organization, in the past, and that these last two years have involved, more than I've experienced in my life, the responsibility to create the structure and provide the organization that I have taken for granted that others have provided for me in the past. I also think is is likely because I was really smart in college and high school and could always get by without it, alright (though this was my most serious challenge all 12 years of my post-secondary experience). And I also think that I was genuinely engaged in more rigorous intellectual thought substantially enough that organization and time management and other such skills seemed kind of mundane and boring.

But mostly I think it is because it has only been in my post-graduate school period of my life when I have much more seriously thought about limits of time and energy and other kinds of limits that presuppose the need for organization, time management, and the such.

But if there is one thing I have learned this year it is that organization is one of the most important skills that a teacher brings to structuring a learning environment and learning experiences for kids, who do not and cannot offer such skills, and which they need to be successful and to learn the lessons they need to learn about how they use their time and engage their efforts and the consequences this has for their learning. And special education, in particular, is a sea of bureaucracy and red tape that must be organized to keep all of the paperwork straight.

I failed to do that well enough and my bosses found someone who could do it better, which is exactly what they should do, in retrospect.

I do think that my other qualities - my intelligence, my people skills, my positive attitude no matter the circumstances and the persistence and determination that come with it, and the fact that I think I genuinely care about a lot of kids that a lot of folks find it very easy to give up on - I think these qualities are likely more important qualities than organization alone. And I also very much resent how aggressively I was treated by my principal and assistant principal this year in ways that completely shut me down, at times, making it difficult to recover emotionally enough to complete the very work that I shared a very strong commitment to. Their treatment was clearly counterproductive.

But the bottom-line is that I failed and my organization was not up to the task.

My principal has a job to do. And part of it means looking after the school around this paperwork and all of the legal and bureaucratic issues that it touches. I think it's a classic case of CYA overwhelming the central mission of a school or an organization. But it's not my call to make.

I failed with a lot of good faith and strong effort and long hours and nights and weekends. And I did it working my damndest to get my head and heart wrapped around all of the challenges that I was facing this first full year of teaching.

But the bottom line is that I failed and my principal brought in someone who could do the job better.

Failing in private is difficult. Failing in public is one of the hardest things I've ever been through. It's really tough watching everyone give you looks like they have to keep their distance for fear of facing the same fate, especially friends. And its really difficult watching everyone give you looks like they told you so and people condescending who haven't give a scintilla of the same effort or thought you've given to both what will make organizations and schools function more effectively and have not a clue what your own experience was with a strategy they are justifying and romatincizing. If there is any reason at all for me to not trust more aggressive strategies to accomplish results with people it is that that strategy both failed so miserably with me and it completely undermined my ability to do a stronger job. All of the intimidation just made a job that was already overwhelming and intimidating enough all that much more intimidating and overwhelming. I have a tough exterior like a lot of folks. I don't like to show when I'm feeling overwhelmed or intimidated. But I felt it enough this year trying to do my best when my weaknesses were all out for everyone to see.

But the bottom line is that I failed. It is something that I will spend my entire summer working to make sure never happens again. And I am working extra duty to make sure that my paperwork is as clean as possible for the guy taking over for me next year.

I know the guy they've hired to take over for me, next year. I like him. He's a good guy and a good teacher. He'll be good for the kids. And I want him to succeed next year.

I have to get out of here before the janitors string me up. They hate it when I stay so late:). But I'm bound and determined to set the next teacher up well as I move on to next position.

Love,
Ben

Laws, judgment, and our honest motivations

Shankar Vendantam has an excellent article in the Washington Post, today, that very much gets to the heart of the current period: getting revenge.

Are we judging actions, or the people behind them?

Shankar is right when he says that when we identify with others, we tend to cut them slack and make observations about their actions without necessarily judging them, personally. But when we see people as a member of an out-group, we tend to think of them as bad actors, not just people who make mistakes.

The wrath that has been brought down upon Don Rumsfeld, Lewis Libby, Don Imus, Alberto Gonzalez, and Paul Wolfowitz is not about constructively dealing with mistakes that people have made. The same folks who have taken after these men - Lewis Libby, especially, since his punishment was much harsher and his crime almost identical to the crime that Bill Clinton committed in the course of the Monica Lewinsky investigation by Independent Prosecutor Kenneth Starr - regularly defend liberals who make similar mistakes. Bill Clinton and Lewis Libby both committed perjury when they lied to grand juries. As did Ronald Reagan, likely, when he claimed not to remember important details of the Iran-Contra affair.

These scandals, and most political scandals, really, are public demonstration of our tendency to defend those we consider friends or allies and to take down those who we consider enemies.

It features largely in both politics and life, including and especially the law, the civil justice system and the criminal justice system, both being political institutions as much and sometimes more than impartial institutions of justice.

The truth is that most of us reason this way. We support our friends. We relish the fall of our enemies. It is not just a matter of partiality or impartiality. It is a matter of the heart and mind. Most people would like to believe that they are impartial and treat all people fairly regardless of their relationship. That is, of course, foolish nonsense, much of the time, despite our pride otherwise. It is something that people tell themselves while, generally, rationalizing whatever sense of judgment that they derive to argue for themselves that they're particular judgment is the most impartial or the wisest or the most reasonable or the most technically sound or the most respectful of the law or most moral or ethical or whatever rationalization that we/they can come up with for why their judgment is sound despite its inconsisencies or the fact that good, decent, and wise people disagree with their judgment.

Judges who say that they reason impartially in their courtroom relish the downfall of political opponents in elections. Supreme Court justices who say that they are impartial interpreters of the law make partisan decisions that favor their positions or candidates as a rule, really, rather than as the exception (Bush v. Gore being only the most stark example that we have seen recently). Politicians who say that they faithfully execute laws execute them as they see fit, including avoiding the execution of laws they disagree with or more cooperation with those they identify with and more animosity towards those that they don't. Interpretations and executions of the law regularly shift in their broadness or narrowness, their leeway or their strictness, their punishment or their mercy, and, by the interpretation of some, their conservative or liberal rendering, depending on the political moment, their political, moral, and historically attuned temperament, their experiences, their study, their relationships, their understandings, their perceptions, their interpretations of the world as much as their interpretations of the law, their religious, educational, class, race, gender and other backgrounds, and every other element of their lives which affect their judgments and interpretations of events and people.

This is and always has been the rule rather than the exception. This is the only rule that has ever really governed how people in power have executed or interpreted laws. This does not mean that they have been wholly arbitrary. They have not. It is the arbitrariness of human judgment that introduced the need for the law. The law was meant as a means of avoiding such arbitrariness and bringing some regularity and predictability in the relationships between governments and people. It has definitely achieved that in great part. It is a very serious progression from periods where more arbitrary rule have dominated. But it has done so not because of the presense of law alone. If that were the case, the law of Rome or previous governments or generations of civilization would have done just fine and no improvements or reforms would be necessary. The arbitrariness of government rule has been largely lessened and the predictability and better judgment derived from wiser, better educated, more reflective, more decent interpretations and executions of law and its relationship to the lives of the people it is meant to govern.

Police and prosecutors who do not enforce laws against adultery or sodomy are engaged in wise judgment, not being scofflaws. Those who commit and committed adultery and sodomy in places where such laws are in place are breaking laws that are bad laws. An impartial interpretation of such law enforcement might argue that they should be enforced regardless of their wisdom because they are the law which supercedes any other wisdom or fact. That would be a bad interpretation, I believe, and I would have very little respect for any other interpretation of such laws and those events, regardless of the argument, I imagine (I'm now and always open to such arguments, but I'd have to hear a very good one on this matter).

Liberal societies have rightly supported and celebrated - at least after the fact - those police and judges who exercised such wisdom in cases where laws were inappropriate. And that is much of the reason why people reason they way they do about the law. Because we all know this and we apply that interpretation to whichever laws we disagree with and apply our stricter interpretations to those laws we agree with. That's what is so dishonest about this current period. It either involves each of us lying, to ourselves and others, about what we really think about laws we disagree with, or it involves celebrating those who enforce all laws strictly in order to defend our pride that laws should be enforced impartially, even if people are hurt or their lives or liberty seriously disrupted or abridged by such reasoning.

Enforcing adultery or sodomy laws is wrong, regardless of arguments of impartiality by prosecutors. The enforcement of the death penalty law for homosexuals in places like Iran is wrong independent of arguments of impartiality of application by prosecutors. And the enforcement of such laws is wrong by any objective standard of liberal democratic values, which are higher values and more touch the purposes of law and government and their relationship to the lives of people and citizens than do narrow and often self-serving arguments about impartial prosecution of laws.

Enforcement of Nuremburg laws or fugitive slave laws or laws imposing death sentences on homosexuals or political dissidents are much clearer violations of those values. But it is clear, by such examples, that it is those values which decent people are more seriously accountable to than to a narrow argument about impartial application of the law. Those who enforced Nuremburg laws or fugitive slave laws or laws imposing death sentences on homosexuals or political dissidents are morally wrong by any decent standard. Those who enforce them are making profound and serious mistakes and crimes against humanity, even if those crimes are not explicitly outlined in or prohibited by law. How could behavior that is clearly within the law be immoral by any reasonable standard of humanity? Because moral judgment, as Martin Luther King and Mohatma Ghandi and Henry David Thoreau understood when they theorized about and engaged in civil disobedience, an explicit challenge and disobedience of the law for a higher purpose, is far more serious a matter than any narrow writing, passage, interpretation, application, enforcement, or prosecution of the law.

Moral judgment, for those who take such judgments and the consciences that make them seriously, supercedes and should supercede the law.

But that is not just a matter of the world of what should be or what is ideally. That is an empirical fact of peoples' relationship to the law. People, all people, make judgments about the law and live their lives in conjuction with the law or circumventing the law as their judgments - good and bad - lead them to do so. All people, no matter their position in society. They defend their interpretations. They defend their choices as it concerns the law. But they all make their judgments based on their best understanding of the law and their lives. Often they do so for bad purposes. Other times they do so for good purposes. But it is those purposes and not the law which ultimately matters and which ultimately carries each day and each decision, including passage, enforcement, prosecution, and interpretation of the law. There not only is no escaping this fact. It is this fact of life which allows decency to guide our civilization, especially when laws are wrong or illiberal or morally repugnant, rather than forever leaving civilization vulnerable to the machinations and manipulations of people like Hitler and Stalin.

It is our consciences and moral judgments which can make the distinction between enforcement of the Nuremburg laws and enforcement of laws against murder or genocide. They are both laws by any technical standard. Nuremburg laws mandated genocide. International law makes such behavior illegal. We make our distinction not based on which law has the jurisdiction or which law is likely to be enforced or held constitutional or be given power by those governing, or at least we shouldn't, though, I'm afraid, too often we have and still too judge laws by that immoral standard today. We make that distinction based upon our consciences and sense of decency and compassion, our liberal values and our moral judgments. We make that distinction because we know, down deep, that that decency and humanity matters more than any law or rule, at least when we are not rationalizing our baser, less noble instincts. Sadly we do this, as well, often with the law. Jim Crow laws allowed such rationalizations to oppress African Americans in the South. Laws against women voting have enforced such tragic gender discrimation and still do so in jurisdictions all over the world. Laws authorizing child marriage rationalize and codify support for pedophilia and the abuse of children in Iran and wherever such laws are in force.

The truth is that now and since the beginning of humanity laws are used to favor our interpretations of the world and are ignored when they contradict such interpretations. There has never been a time when that has not been true, just as there has never been a time when people have not sinned or violated one another's trust. It is now and forever true, no matter the pretensions otherwise by everyone involved.

And the only way out of such arbitrary and self-serving and often destructive facts of our human judgment and how it relates to the law is not a narrower, stricter interpretation of such laws and rules, narrower interpretations being the enduring fact of our less decent, more destructive and oppressive pasts. The only way out of this fact of arbitrary, often self-serving, and destructive application of law is the embrace the very liberal values which are the heart of more moral, decent, and wise judgments about life and the law. Those liberal values tell us to embrace freedom, as much as possible, and to facilitate the self-government and self-determination of individuals, even when that judgment is often flawed, except when it physically interferes with the freedom of others or when legal remedies are the only, most just remedy available.

I've got grading to finish up. But I needed to share why I am so mistrustful of the political rhetoric of the current period and what alternative judgment about this period and law and society I think is necessary.

Love,
Ben

Our need for a stronger discussion

Robert Dallek has a column in the Washington Post, today, that exemplifies a disturbing trend I am seeing in the debate and discussion about the war in Iraq.

Iraq Isn't Like Vietnam - Except When It Is

The war in Iraq, Dallek argues, is lost. All that is needed is for President Bush to recognize this.

As he argues:

"But unlike Johnson and Nixon, who eventually accepted that victory in Vietnam was probably impossible, Bush can't bring himself -- in public, at least -- to admit that success is out of reach. He and GOP surrogates pilloried Senate Majority Leader Harry M. Reid, a Nevada Democrat, for saying recently that "this war is lost." But even LBJ was wiser than that. In 1968, after the Tet Offensive, Johnson finally understood that South Vietnamese ineptitude, Viet Cong strength and American impatience with the grinding conflict meant that the United States simply had to end its involvement and cut a deal at the Paris peace talks."

The study of history, apparently, from Dallek's comments in this column, creates an ominiscience that stupid people like President Bush and Frederick Kagan and myself just don't have access to. Iraq is Vietnam, if we would just open our eyes. Liberals were right about Vietnam and they are right about Iraq - just as they are right about every serious policy issue is everyone else would just open their eyes or trust their clearly greater wisdom - and what they are waiting for is for conservatives and independents, like me, to face this reality that is so plain to them.

It is an arrogance about the better wisdom of liberals and liberal academics like Dallek that bothers me. Conservatives have it too, especially when the political moment favors them as it does liberals, today. What bothers me most has nothing to do with ideology. It has to do with people in powerful and influential positions like Dallek's acting like there really isn't even a need for more engaged discussion and debate, if we could all just accept their wisdom. That is the reason why liberals are in love with force as a means, today. Because they are tired of people questioning and challenging and disagreeing with all of their wisdom. What they need is for people to finally just do what the hell they say, because noone is smart enough to really be trusted to offer any other credible option.

Dallek has no crystal ball. He has an expertise, that is now and forever limited, in 20th century history and history around President Lyndon Johnson, in particular. He is a good man. He is a very smart man. I really enjoy listening to and reading everything he has to share about Lyndon Johnson that I've read and heard from him. But he is still a man. As is President Bush. As is Frederick Kagan. As am I.

Hubris, the Greeks whisper to us. Hubris that we have finally figured it all out. Especially when we are all engaged in one big political and cultural civil war, today, where each of us is going to finally prove that one ideology or the other has really figured out all of the answers that we need.

I sincerely hope that every student or person I read is seriously skeptical of everything I say and write, because I and everyone else who wishes differently is remarkably full of shit to wish that they or anyone has all of the important wisdom that they might want or need in life. Our wisdom and understanding of the world is now and forever limited by our limited outlook, study, and experiences. There is no way to escape that fact, no matter how hard we might try. Our efforts matter. But they are limited. Now and forever. There is no exception to that very real fact of life.

The arrogance of so many more established and less established people, these days - and likely all days - that they have finally figured out everything that we need to know to make wiser choices in the world is remarkable and bullshit all at once.

This is why we all need so much more freedom to make our calls. Because noone knows for sure what the future holds. Ever. We are lying if we say that we do. We may have wisdom that can help guide us through the uncertainty. But the uncertainty is far more present than our certainty. The more we know, as Einstein said, the more we realize what we don't know. And what we don't know far outstrips what we do, now and forever.

What we need in America and in the world, right now, around all of the issues that matter most in our lives, is a more patient, engaged, decent, humble, noble, committed, constructive, and intelligent discussion about how to deal with all of our most serious issues, including the war in Iraq and so many issues that we face together.

We need more people who take those discussions more seriously, who take the thinking and the reflection and the engagement that makes them stronger more seriously, and who take the ambition that makes our common goals more achieveable, and more understanding when our goals are not always achieved. We need more genuine open-minded and open-hearted thinking and discussions around serious issues like the war in Iraq and so many issues that we face in America, the world, and in our own lives. We need more people who can make better realities of so many of the issues we face and who treat one another better in achieving those realities so that they will be more genuinely achieved rather than all of the lying and ass-covering that occurs with more aggressive, forceful approaches. We need more appreciation for the liberal values that make so much of what we have available to us, currently, possible, and an appreciation for the need to constantly enlarge those values, not to shrink them in the name of whatever cause we advocate for.

None of us are the gods or the clairvoyants or the masters of all knowledge and wisdom that we would all like to pretend.

That is the most important lesson this war has taught me. That all people, no matter how smart or wise or decent or rich or successful or whatever - everyone - are kind of full of shit. Me too. Me especially.What we need in this world is more people who know that so that we can root each other on more, support each other more, know our own shit stinks, and otherwise stop trying to prove, all the time, that we have all the answers or that peoples' lives would really be so much better is everyone just followed our advice. There is noone, no matter how smart or ambitious, who has all the answers. Noone. That is the real lesson to be taken both from this war and probably the most important lesson from history. Will people use that fact to rationalize all kinds of bullshit pursuits or treatment of other people? Sure. Sadly. People use it all the time to rationalize whatever they might do other than be more honest and decent with one another. Me too. Though I try to honest about the important stuff and lie only when it really is the more decent thing.

This world we have full of violence and pressure and murder and mayhem, full of pain and hurt and selfishness, in the name of power or wealth or whatever purposes we might pursue with our more insensitive and indecent ways. It does not have to be this way. But it will take letting go of this cynicism and pursuing more common decency and engagement and non-threatening opportunities for honesty and sharing and thought to make that possible.

That is what made Bobby Kennedy a great leader. It wasn't his policies, necessarily. I disagree with many of this policies and think many of his intentions have likely resulted in counterproductive results. What made Bobby Kennedy great was that he was a political leader who took the idealism and the high-mindedness that made politics purposeful and he infused his speeches and commitments with them. He did not get lost in bitterness and dispair after his brother was murdered. After John's death, he experienced as he said announcing Martin Luther King's death and as Aeschylus once wrote:

Even in our sleep,
pain which cannot forget
falls drop by drop upon the heart,
until, in our own despair,
against our will,
comes wisdom
through the awful grace of God.

Bobby forgave his brother's murder and he found deeper wisdom in it. It is the opportunity that all of us have to face the ugliness and hardship and meanspiritedness and selfishness of the world and build something better in its place.

And the most serious and important place that could start, I am convinced, is in a more humble, decent, and honest, and unpretensious discussion about our most important issues without a need to figure out who is right all the time and who is wrong all the time because that is most certainly not any of us. Ever. There is no way around that fact.

If there is any more important wisdom that we could all have about this war and about policy and humanity, generally, I think that may be it.

And bringing that spirit to our work together makes for a far stronger discussion and far better choices and support for one another, even when our choices are not so hot, in the long haul.

Love,
Ben