Coming to terms with self-righteous pursuits

As I watch this godforesaken and poorly argued Iraq war debate in Congress, between Congress and the President, in the media, and in international circles, I am coming to terms with the fact that some people will only see the world the way they are already for damned sure that it is.

This post isn't about the substance of that debate. I've written about that ad nauseum. Especially about what should be some humility on this debate, but, inevitably, is overwrought and self-righteous claims of certainty.

I'm even less concerned about the lack of depth in this discussion and the simpler and more polarized divisions that characterize the discussion than I am with the fact that so many people seem so convinced that they are right on every question that's ever occurred to them at this very moment, no matter how much they might have felt differently at another time or might feel differently in the future.

I'm more concerned, right now, with what self-righteous asses we all can be. How certain we are the difficult matters of conscience for so many people most assuredly can be resolved by our superior wisdom. So much so that we would be better to compel their submission to that wisdom than share it, since persuasion is just so fraught with uncertainty and force so guarantess our success.

I think about all of the folks who have taken a series of fairly predictable self-righteous stands during one political period - the 1960's is a popular period for this phenomena for baby boomers - only to be convinced that they were wrong and now are right about another set of fairly predictable self-righteous stands during another period - for those same people, typically today. And it's not just these more obvious folks like David Horowitz or Michael Medved or Christopher Hitchens or David Brock. It's all of us.

"I may have been wrong, at times, in the past," we reason, "But now I've got it figured out. And may God have mercy on the soul that doubts my wisdom or my will."

It's sad. We spend years studying the similar failures of past generations to finally compel righteous behavior from their fellow citizens and all of the tragedy that is wrought from our impositions and self-righteous witch hunts. But we never fail to think that we have somehow all escaped that tendency in the present.

Our forebearers were often fools when it came to regulating the lives of their fellow citizens, we reason. But thank goodness we have learned from their mistakes and finally figured out how to get it right.

Puritan values may have led to scarlet letters and burning of alleged witches, but we've figured out how to protect the moral order today. Alcohol prohibition may have been a miserable failure that led to historical murder records in the U.S. in an underground vice industry that was enforced by a violent underworld, but our current war on drugs is a more noble pursuit that only deals with more serious threats to our civil order. Money and politics may be a marriage that dates back to the invention of government, but we have finally found the rules and finance regulation that will weed out the peddlars of political smut. We may have been more harsh, more brutal, more violent, and more destructive in eras past, but this generation we must get tougher to mirror the strength of our more ruthless legacies.

It's a sad and not terribly well-reasoned spectacle. And it is a perpetual sense of self-doubt in our liberal democratic commitments. We want to be humane, but not too humane. We want to be open and forgiving about our faults, but not too open and forgiving. We want people to be free, but not too free.

And the saddest thing to me is that our self-righteous tendencies never have to face up to themselves. Instead of just acknowledging that we are making uncertain calls in an uncertain world, we constantly argue that we know more than we really do or that our efforts are more successful than they necessarily are. It's a sad, somewhat comic self-fulfilling prophecy. It's Marx and first time tragedy, second time farce without all the revolution. If I never question if I am right, then I am never wrong. And there certainly is no reason for me to take seriously the arguments or concerns of those who disagree with me if I am right all the time.

I don't know whether to laugh or cry at this uniquely human tendency. No other animal has to justify its actions, because no other animal has the intelligence to think otherwise than what their simple experiences with the world allow them.

Humans, uniquely, have the capacity for intelligent thought. And thus uniquely feel any responsibility to justify their thoughts and judgments to others and have the capacity to make up any justification that suits them, especially when their careers or their reputations or their liberties feel threatened.

How refreshing it would be to have those same discussions with a sense of humility and without feeling threatened and just making our best calls with a sense of openmindedness and openheartedness and no need to justify bad calls just because we made them. How refreshing it would be to acknowledge the much more thorough reality that we tend to make more mistakes than we are want to admit for fear of looking foolish to one another, when the larger foolishness is that we are both so want to admit those mistakes and that it is all the threats that we make against peoples' careers and reputations and families and well-being and lives and freedoms that make us all such cowards and fools. Unless you're Mark McGwire, that is.

To anyone who isn't part of this debate or who aren't making the calls that we are making today, namely our progeny, we have got to seem like a bunch of dimwits and simpletons, heads full of steam and little else. And that goes for almost every political issue that we opine about these days.

We know that's true about our forebearers because we study it for years in schools that we are compelled to attend (and that too many are all to eager to escape as soon as it is possible). And yet, somehow, we all convince ourselves that we have finally escaped that legacy, despite the fact that all of the even most recent history that we have available contradicts that notion.

The way out of that mess is not to make no calls, at all, obviously. But it is to walk more lightly with the calls we make and with the notions we grow attached to. And to presume that perhaps our neighbor may know more than we give him credit for, not necessarily because he actually does, but because perhaps we or anyone know better substantially less than we are more want to acknowledge.

That's the most important lesson that this war has taught me. How little I can trust that most people know for sure anything. Especially the things that matter most. And including the people who know most.

Sadly, the people who are most eager to compel their neighbors are the least likely to bring with them that kind of humility about the matter. And in our own particular brand of democratic irony, we generally call those folks political leaders.

And the sad thing is that so many of those calls really do matter. It just matters more that we have that more humble discussion to get to more right answers than it does to constantly threaten and protect our egos, as we currently tend to do with all of the threats to things we care about, namely our self-images, hanging perpetually over our heads.

Perhaps we are doomed to be self-righteous fools to the ends of our days. But perhaps the hope of liberal democracies is that we might figure this kind of thing out. Because the beauty of that big brain of ours that so many other animals might envy if they had the sense to think about the matter is that we have been given an unprecedented opportunity to reflect on our foolishness and correct our course.

If someone thinks I'm wrong about that observation or that hope, I will, of course, listen. Because it is that capacity to argue and to consider the alternatives that uniquely makes us human. Even when it means that we argue ourselves in circles. And often at our neighbor's expense.

Love,
Ben

A clarifying moment around forgiveness

I'm feeling much better today.

I've been upset with my administration because they've been pushing me too hard. I think they still think they can pressure their way to better results. And I've resented the shit out of it. It's clearly not working and has been seriously counterproductive both in dealing with me, without a doubt, since I just can't be emotionally up to being as productive as long as I am feeling like shit, and I think when dealing with the kids, as well.

A lot of folks who are responsible for others feel like they need to pressure others as long as they are going to be providing for them in some way: paying them a check, providing them an education, raising them to be grown-ups, etc. And especially when people have no alternative, they will often take that. But I'm way past taking it, whether I have an alternative or not. And I'm quite confident that I have other alternatives. I have lots more to learn. But I learn best when I have plenty of room to learn and to make mistakes and make better judgments and I have a much harder time, as do most people, when people are riding me or pressuring me.

And amidst all of this craziness, amidst the general mood for force and against more forgiveness, openess, communication, discussion and debate and space to resolve issues, and as I reflected today with a friend about situations I've had with other friends at different points in my life, something occurred to me.

There is this paradox that we all face that is at the heart of some of the ambivalence we are feeling about a more forgiving and openhearted, openminded spirt, right now.

The paradox goes like this:

We all screw up. Sometimes we screw up big. I've done it. I hope to stop doing it now with some reflection and responsibility on the matter. When we do, we violate peoples' trust. Either in big ways or in small ways. And we are responsible for the screwups. People do not have to forgive us. And, sadly, too often, they do not. But we definitely need to forgive ourselves and take responsibility for the consequences of our actions. Many of us do not. Many very powerful and wealthy people do not. It's far too common, really. But it's a sad fact of life. But it's only in the screwup and in the forgiveness that we learn a lot of lessons in life, including this one.

The paradox is that though noone owes us forgiveness and we do not owe others forgiveness, necessarily, we cannot function as individuals, as communities, as societies, and as a species without it. We function terribly without it, actually. All kinds of violence and hatred and oppression and terrorism and genocide and all the worst forms of oppression find their source in our failures to forgive some past wrong or legacy.

We need the forgiveness, big and small, to do the learning, big and small. Without the forgiveness, there is no learning. And without the learning, we are stuck with the same old poorer ways of doing business.

Both facts of this paradox are important truthes about the world.

Noone owes us forgiveness. And we can't function without it.

So something's gotta give.

At the very least, we need to learn to forgive ourselves. And we can always control the fact that we can forgive others, even if those jackasses won't return the favor or do the same for someone else.

But if we're going to function better as friends, family, lovers, and neighbors, we're going to have to learn how to forgive more readily. There is just no way around this one.

We shouldn't go around assuming that people owe us forgiveness as an excuse for taking advantage of their generosity. But we need to give each other that kind of generosity if we are going to be able to do the learning that is the foundation for our forward movement.

So our trust in one another is built on a necessary paradox. We must be able to trust one another to not take advantage of our decency and kindness. But we need that decency and kindness and forgiveness to make our lives bearable, functional, and with any capacity for thriving in this otherwise cold world (although to be fair to the world, it offer plenty of hot spots and mild weather, as well). Without forgiveness, we can't learn from our mistakes. And without that learning, we can't move forward. As individuals and as nations.

And my experience on this one has been that the larger the stakes - meaning both the importance of the screw up and the harsher the consequences we threaten to impose - the harder it is to cough up the apology or to face the shortcoming. And the harsher we treat one another, the worse we make that predicament, no matter how much we may pretend otherwise or sometime get a lucky strike and call it genius for the forces of repression.

Repression drives the shortcoming from our own good sense and judgment, nevertheless from the view of others. It and the threats and harsh treatment that enforce it make it harder for us to acknowledge our follies and serious and not-so-serious errors to ourselves, not just to others. Which makes it all the more difficult for us to take responsibility and to cut the bullshit out.

There has never been a time when our more threatening or mean-spirited efforts have made those same mistakes go away. Ever. We just pretended more, kept things to ourselves more, kept one another in the dark more, and otherwise kept our secrets closer to our chests.

The only way to end that cycle is to do what wise men like Jesus of Nazareth and the Buddha and Mohatma Ghandi and Martin Luther King and Desmond Tutu and others have implored and encouraged us to do which is to take forgiveness and letting go of the pain seriously as a personal and societal commitment. As Jesus argued, it is the only way to see better our own faults rather than forever being obsessed with the faults of others. And as Desmond Tutu has argued, it is the only way to work through the most serious sins, like genocide and crimes against humanity, nevertheless the ordinary sins in our ordinary lives.

That part I knew before today. What I wasn't as clear about that I am more clear about today is that it is actually important that people know and be clear about the fact that we are not owed forgiveness. Not because we don't need it, when we've done wrong and when others have wronged us, because we surely do. But that forgiveness is not an entitlement. To be given genuinely, it must be given freely. And to be given freely, it cannot come out of any sort of pressure to be better than we are ready to be when we finally get around to doing the right thing.

A clarifying moment. I'm getting used to them these days. Makes life so much easier to understand and navigate when I can get peek at a little more wisdom than I was planning for.

Love,
Ben

Resignation

I think I've finally succumbed.

I am now resigned teacher. Resignation is a softer version of jadedness.

I just don't care anymore.

Who would have guessed that it would be liberals who would beat the idealism out of me?

Defeated

Today I don't feel anything, really.

I just feel defeated. I'm preoccupied. I'm less energetic and proactive.

All in the name of being under someone's thumb.

But I feel no impetus to do more or better work.

I just feel defeated.

And I don't care anymore about anything, including whether my bosses recognize that their efforts have been counterproductive.

Forced choice

I had a clarifying moment, today, when my principal created as social scientists might call a forced choice.

Either go with the pressure and force as the governing philosophy of interactions between people or don't.

And like the vast majority of my kids and the teachers I work with I'm choosing not.

Love,
Ben

The wisdom of Lord Acton

It's beginning to occur to me just how thoroughly arrogant the push toward force as a governing philosophy is. Lord Acton was both right - that power corrupts and absolute power corrupts absolutely - and, if people won't choose differently, inescapably so. There will be no end to this if people can't find the courage to choose something better.

I can't imagine just how scary it must have seemed to Germans and Jews or to Russians when the Nazis and Bolsheviks raced to power. To watch a group of people trying to create a sense of inevitability to their dominance. And to never be satiated with creating that sense until their enemies had been thoroughly decimated or put down.

The kids and I studied Benjamin Banneker, today. Banneker was a free African American in 18th century America who was one of America's first black mathematicians and scientists. Benjamin Banneker built some of the earliest clocks in the nation's history. He was an astute student of mathematics and astronomy who developed almanacs that predicted solar and lunar eclipses more accurately than many of his white brethren. We talked about how seriously Banneker took education, despite so many obstacles and hardships. Banneker was legally prohibited from getting an education. He lived amidst serious prejudice that his race was intellectually inferior. He was outraged at the hypocrisy of one of the most important living proclaimers of the equality of man, Thomas Jefferson, keeping slaves in captivity. Banneker opposed capital punishment and supported a Department of Peace alongside a Department of War long before such thinking became common, as it is more common today. He spent an entire lifetime independent at a time when most men of his ancestory spent their lives in chains. And he took education more seriously than most people do with much more freedom and opportunity.

It's beginning to occur to me just how arrogant this push toward force as a governing philosophy is. How arrogant all of its practicioners are. Liberal, conservative, or otherwise.

It cannot possibly hold because it is so enanthema to our basic human nature.

And that basic human nature is not good or bad.

Our basic human nature is freedom.

Abraham Maslow knew that. And he was right.

And this is the period that must bear that out.

Because it will not end until we have freedom.

Love,
Ben

My new rule

I have a new rule that I'm going to force pressure-oriented folks to deal with.

You pressure me, I won't do your fuckin' work. Except really lackluster and at a speed that suits me.

Fuck you, you fuckin' pricks.

Those are the new rules.

I give up

I'm tired of all the pressure at my job. Shit gets done when it gets done. I need another job.

By the way, to all the assholes still bucking for pressure to get things done: Fuck you you fuckin' pricks. You get zero credit from me for jack shit.

May you be bounced from every position of responsibility that you currently and undeservedly enjoy.

My thinking on this is becoming much more staunch at this point as I see people deciding not to back off.

You pressure me, I respect you not in the least. I think of you as an unappeasable asswipe whom I will relunctantly cooperate with, at best, and resist, at worst. You will never get my wholehearted cooperation.

I was working long hours at work, lately. That will not be happening anymore.

I keep thinking it's going to let up. And then I realize, I just need to give up and go do something else.

I say let them find someone else to eat their shit. I need a new job.

Ben

The current apex of progressive wisdom

The Economist writes the only article, likely, that I could take too seriously about the most recent U.N. report on children.

Suffer the children?

The Economist actually gives this report more credibility that I likely would. Not because I'm not concerned with children, obviously. But because the U.N. clearly has an angle.

UNICEF is a notoriously liberal organization. And the conclusions that the Economist reports - though, clearly, I will want to read this from the horses' mouth and from liberal reports as well; but I've spent enough time with the Economist to trust its reporting, especially around matters involving liberal bias - are clearly designed to trumpet more socialist policies in Europe and speak ill of the more market friendly countries of Anglo-America.

I agree with the Economist that it is important to take the conclusions seriously, even if it very much seems like hand-wringing on the part of the liberals looking to convince the world that they were right and conservatives were wrong all along that a socialist-style social security net really is the only thing that will make childrens' and everyones' lives better.

There is a much longer discussion on that theme that I need to get into when I'm not finishing some work.

But the long and short of my take on this report is that it seems that many liberals, right now, are very convinced that they are finally hitting their period, where they can prove - and enforce - once and for all, that they were right and conservatives were wrong.

It's almost as if all those pesky intellectual debates aren't really all that necessary after all. They distract, really, from the clearly more intelligent liberal arguments on these matters.

And this report, UNICEF believes, is the unblemished evidence of their intellectual superior take on this issue.

If only the rest of the world could just comply with their wisdom.

David Frum has this excellent commentary on the controversy over the American Enterprise Institute and the global warming debate on Marketplace on NPR tonight.

An honest attempt to heat up the debate

And David is right. The best thing for any policy debate is to consider the arguments and the evidence and engage the debate and discussion.

I've got a U.N. report on children to read this week.

Love,
Ben

Why forcing our views upon one another creates so much havoc in public and private life

E. J. Dionne hits exactly on why forcing our views on one another creates so much havoc in public and private life.

Litmust Test for Hypocrisy

What we call discipline is typically our misplaced efforts to enforce our views which only drives peoples' real views and thinking underground, which undercuts our ability to talk openly and out loud and with the humility of people speaking with one another and not anyone with all of the right answers, and to brainstorm and consider ideas out loud and engaging one another more honestly to resolve problems between us, rather than the silence and lying that features most prominently in our relationships, today, whether we want to acknowledge that or not.

That goes for politics. But it also goes for all of us in all of our personal and professional relationships.

And then when all that force and repression has thoroughly fucked up our relationships, we engage in the biggest lie of all.

We pretend its all going well.

Love,
Ben

What Hillary Clinton says about us

I couldn't have said it better myself.

The Explanation Hillary Clinton Owes

The truth is that Hillary Clinton is like most people. She's a coward. She looks around at everyone else and says, "What do they think I should think?"

And the Presidency is no place for a coward.

But that's exactly what we want. Someone whose hand we can force. Whether we know what we're doing or not. And, generally, we do not.

I opposed this war, up front. I thought and said that I thought it was a mistake, up front, for all of the concerns about Vietnam that so many people also shared. For whatever fucked up reasons, no matter how noble it often seems to liberate an oppressed people, they often clamor for repressive leaders, and find them preferable, at least, to foreign invaders, as seemed to have been the case in Vietnam. I attended protests. I argued against going when it was very unpopular to do so at a time when there was very little room to dissent. I was wrong about a lot. I didn't realize that the invasion would get the support that it got. I didn't anticipate the level of diverse, engaged and I must say, as I think about it, thoughtful debate on the matter that we got during this period, in contrast to the Vietnam War. I thought it was probably true that Saddam Hussein would have to be removed by force, but I thought that it should have come from an Iraqi led effort with, perhaps, overwhelming U.S. or international military support, which was the major impediment to it happening without U.S. involvement. I thought the U.S. should have engaged opposition parties and their alligned militias in an effort to covertly (or perhaps opnely?) plan an Iraqi led democratic revolution, which would have undercut political support for the insurgency, I believe, which is the oxygen off of which it feeds. But I opposed the war, even though it didn't tack with the current political mood.

And I am supporting this surge at a time when it is comparably unpopular. I'm not 100% sure that it will resolve this situation better. But I've not heard a better case than Frederick Kagan's case for the surge - that securing Iraq is a necessary prerequisite for a political resolution, that American forces are better prepared to support Iraqis in doing that, and that Iraqis need and their government is clearly requesting our assistance in securing Baghdad for that purpose - from those who oppose it as of yet. I just have a much stronger sense of responsibility for this war and for my thoughts on policy matters than Ms. Clinton does.

I'm not concerned with the fact that so many people, like Hillary Clinton, did not. Many people did what they thought was best. Many people did what they thought everyone else thought was best. And God knows I've had my moments of cowardice. Sometimes some pretty serious moments of cowardice. But I don't respect this kind of self-righteous cowardice that holds tight both to its own notions and to the political winds in the pursuit of power, either. And I know it is a dangerous instinct for a politician, nevertheless a President, to have. It is a dangerous dance between an ego driven public looking to absolve itself of responsibility for its popular notions, for the zeitgeist, as Richard Cohen says, and the tragedies they produce, and an ego driven leader willing and ready to appease those egos.

I am learning that the most important form of courage in the world that most people lack is the courage to admit when you are wrong. It is not President Bush alone who struggles with this kind of courage. It is all of us. On every side of every important issue that we face. And exactly the reason why we should not be trusted with the power or the assertion of the right to constantly force our neighbors' hands. And exactly the reason why liberal democracies, liberal democratic cultures, and people with the most genuine liberal democratic commitments are the most authentically strong amongst us.

Hillary Clinton is the alter ego to President Bush. She is someone whose self-righteous unwillingness and lack of practice and developed capacity for self-reflection makes her dangerously ego-driven, constantly rationalizing any decision in the name of being popular and pursuing her political ambitions.

We like Hillary Clinton because she is us. She's a coward who is attuned to our self-righteous selective memory and our willingness and desire to force peoples' hands to get what we want when we want it. She embodies our cyncism. And she forestalls our need to self-reflect and challenge our own assumptions about the world and ourselves.

Hillary Clinton is our egos working so desperately not to face our consciences that perhaps it is not President Bush, after all, who is alone responsible for this messy war.

It is us.

Love,
Ben

Today was one of those days when I regret teaching

Today was a shitty day, overall.

I had some bright spots with two kids who are starting to take speech and debate seriously. And I had a student who normally does not take school seriously volunteer consistently in class today.

But, overall, this was one of those days when I regret teaching.

I collaborate with a general education teacher in a reading class in the morning. And we have a whole slew of real shitheads in there. And, today, they were being particularly shitty.

I guess I just don't understand people, even 11-14 year olds, who wallow in their own ignorance. I don't understand why anyone would pride themselves on being stupid and finding clever ways to draw attention to themselves, to talk about a million stupid things, and to otherwise find ways not to do work.

I encountered it as an adult. I worked several jobs before I taught, full-time. And I encountered so many adults who would waste mine and their time trying not to do work. And it annoyed the living shit out of me. Why would I waste mine and everyone elses' time with that kind of foolish bullshit, I thought? And today, I saw where it starts. As I watched this whole gaggle of sloths and morons and otherwise kind of shitty little kids wallowing in their ignorance. And disrupting other kids who wanted to learn. And treating me and the regular teacher in that classroom really shitty (me, in particular, because I was confronting their rude behavior).

I just don't get this at all. This whole being stupid and taking pride in it. Kids do it. Adults do it. People all over do it. And it's just stupid and foolish to me. Lying and being rude and creating disruptions and being mean and stupid and lazy and otherwise avoiding doing any real good in the world.

I don't understand the kind of lack of self-respect that is involved with that kind of choice, by adults or by children.

What leads people to be so full of themselves, to be so animated by their egos, that they would prefer to do the convenient or self-centered thing over the right thing, even it means that others are treated badly in the process? And why would anyone think that this is any kind of decent way to live life except to validate their own foolish egos which tell them that getting what they want for themselves is more important than doing something worthwhile in the world?

Except for a world where adults are constantly validating their own foolish egos that tell them that getting what they want for themselves is more important than doing something worthwhile in the world.

And so the shitty self-fulfilling prophecy of the world continues and unfolds. Unless adults, children, all of us make different choices with our lives.

Today was one of those days when I regret becoming a teacher. Because I hate the idea of wasting my life trying to help people who don't want it because they are more infatuated with their foolish and small-minded little egos.

For some reason, as someone who grew up poor among ignorant and stupid folks who engage in this ugly and mean-spirited kind of stupidity, this kind of small-mindedness has always been much more disgusting to me than the other kinds of small-mindedness. I've never really been able to understand how anyone could be stupid and full of themselves at the same time. I couldn't live with myself being as stupid and foolish as so many adults and kids who have egos out of proportion with what they have to contribute to the world.

And today was one of those days when I wondered if anything could be done about that fact of life, at all. Except for people choosing to be more decent and smarter.

Now I see why concepts that seem so simple to me seem so difficult for so many folks. Because so many people don't really give much of a shit, is the truth. And these kids really made me regret doing this work at all, today.

Love,
Ben

"The Adventures of Thomas Jefferson Bailey"

...or something like that. "Emma Finds Her Way," "It Happened One Christmas"...something...

I just got done myspacing my friend, Leslie. And as I read about her kids I was feeling totally inspired to work on my childrens' book ideas.

I have three ideas for scholarly books that I will try my damndest to combine into one, largely because I know that it's hard enough for most people to read one scholarly book, nevertheless three. So only the most nerdy biographers will read all of my work if I spread it out too much. And I'd like for people to get a lot for their money in that one purchase, if possible.

But I also want a legacy as a humorist and a childrens' book writer, if I could. That will first require that I be funny. Which, like common sense and auto repair, I can do with effort. But I'm willing to be unfunny for awhile until I write something that kids and adults alike don't have to toil so hard to read as a tome on the nature of humanity. Just seems to me that one should be able to gleam that sort of stuff with real people bearing witness to some small bit of wisdom rather than having to listen to some philosopher tell them how the world is as if they really know. And I'm for damned sure that what we need more of in this world is a little humor and little humility about ourselves and how much wisdom we have to offer the rest of the world, because my experience is that the amount of wisdom a person actually has to offer is almost totally inverse to the passion with which he wants to impose it on his neighbor. The less you know, the more you're convinced that noone could manage without your ignorance superimposed on their lives, is my experience. And I've got to have a story or two that can speak that fact of life, I imagine.

And younger people, adolescents, in particular, understand that fact of life better than their elders, in my experience. Although it might do them some good to see clearer why their parents and teachers have so much reason to want to send them to their rooms until they're in their early 20's or so and then send them on their way. Everyone knows it all. And I am the worst of the bunch. So it's appropo, I suppose that I write about the foibles, failures, and shortsightedness of people like me. Who better to tell the story of humanity's blindspots than someone whose got a standing collection.

And it would be fun to write about adventure and romance and imagination and courage with kids being the kind of people that their parents wished they themselves might be.

Roald Dahl, C.S. Lewis, Jim Henson, Harper Lee, J.D. Salinger, Charles Dickens, John Knowles, Charles Schultz, A.A. Milne, Beattrix Potter, E.L. Konigsburg, Ray Bradbury, George Orwell, M.E. Kerr, Barbara Robinson, and especially Mark Twain all wrapped up in one or two or three stories for young people (I figure I've got to fail a couple times before I get something right, and maybe try to get it right again).

I've never been one to necessarily want to write the great American novel. Until I think about all the great stories that made my childhood magical.

Love,
Ben

Great and ordinary expectations

Devang and I just watched Great Expectations, the modern update of Dickens' novel starring Ethan Hawke and Gweneth Paltrow.

It's a great story for me because it captures so much of what it was like to grow up poor and to aspire for something bigger, to fall madly in love and to lose it inexplicably. I had much to do with my break-up, but the feeling of deep, abiding love going unrequited is something I very much identify with.

I realized watching it that I really don't care what kind of life I have financially or who I impress or which circles I swim in.

What I do care about is falling in love and raising a family with someone I really love and respect. I love and respect everyone, really. But I wouldn't mind finding a settled life with someone who has a similar deep and abiding love for me.

The tragedy of unrequited love is one of the most serious to live with. But life and hope spring from an open heart. And that's what I'm looking for more than anything else. An open heart. An open mind. And someone with something important or interesting or unique to contribute to my life. Isn't that we're all looking for?

What I care about is being a good dad and a good teacher to young people like me when I was a kid, a kid very much like Finn. And I want to raise my family with someone who is a special mom to my kids.

I don't want money or fame or power or prestige or any of that bullshit anymore.

I just want to be ordinary, and do good work. I want to have a family with a woman I love and respect. And I want my kids to live lives that they love.

I'd love to do some great things in the world in the time I have here, maybe. But truth be told I just want an ordinary life with a wife and kids. And I want to love someone who loves me as deep and abiding as I love her. And raise kids like me and my brother and sisters (maybe a little better behaved? A man can always wish:).

You know why being a nice guy, a good person, is its own reward? Because it means you get to lead a nice little life, a good life.

And that's enough for me.

Love,
Ben

Friendship

One of my very best friends in the world when I was a sophomore and junior in high school, Leslie Shoniber, just got in touch with me last night. And it meant the world to me.

Leslie was one of my closest friends at that time. And we had a falling out my junior year. And I haven't heard from her or talked with her since. And when she got in touch, I totally realized how much I had missed her.

She just happened to get ahold of me while I was watching When Harry Met Sally and reflecting on how much more mature I am today watching that movie and living through everything I've experienced up to this point.

And today I realized that there is no way around this one. I'm going to miss Brandi something terrible every day for the rest of my life. Because she was the very best friend that I have ever had in the world. Love definitely is a part of that picture. But its not the whole picture. And its not even the biggest part of that picture. You just miss anyone who you share that kind of close friendship with and you have any falling out, no matter how stubbornly you might try to think otherwise.

It was so nice to hear from Leslie. We have so much catching up to do.

And, for better or for worse, I am learning that the people in our lives are forever in our hearts, no matter how much we try to pretend otherwise or no matter how much we lose track.

I need a nap in a serious way. I have a headache from so little sleep.

Love,
Ben

Why Francis Fukuyama is one of the best

Francis Fukuyama proves his mettle yet again with two brilliantly argued posts on his blog.

How Scared Should We Be Really?

Keeping Up with the Chavezes?

There is so much good to say about these two articles. But I am tired and I must get home and doing so will have to wait until I have the brain power and the energy to do so.

In the meantime, enjoy brilliance at work.

Having a substantive debate on Iraq

Charles Krauthammer has an excellent article in today's Washington Post that deserves a serious look.

The War and the Words

The essence of Charles' argument is absolutely true, which is that the substantive debate about what to do in Iraq is being swamped by a trite debate and how to refer to the war and how to frame positions without really debating them.

Being a conservative who has, last I read, opposed a surge, Charles' should have some credibility in trying to refocus us on a substantive debate. He doesn't have an ax to grind in a conventional political way because he doesn't seem to support the efforts of his fellow conservatives, even as he supports their aims. Paradoxically, I am someone who has been a liberal most of his life (though I'm much more of a moderate independent in my old age) who supports a surge. But what I appreciate most about Charles' column is his desire to hear and have engaged a much more substantive debate about alternative proposals rather than so much of the political positioning without a more engaged and thoughtful debate.

As Charles' ends that piece:

"The problem with this battle over words is that it is entirely irrelevant to what is happening in Iraq. There will be real troops on real missions regardless of what label they are given. The country is engaged in a serious debate about exactly what strategy to pursue to either prosecute the war or withdraw in an orderly fashion. The Senate might consider putting such a debate on its agenda."

Iraq above all other policy priorities, right now, would seem to warrant to gravity of a more substantive policy debate and discussion. It has not been afforded that debate because the players in power are not accustomed to engaging thoughtful discussions that consider at length alternative arguments and proposals. Democrats and Republicans are accustomed to playing politics to win, not to engage one another to develop better policies that account for the deepest and most serious concerns of those impacted by them. They are used to having opinions, not rigorously engaging and sorting through better arguments to arrive at sounder policies.

That sort of debate has been usually saved for the eggheads in universities and academic circles rather than serious power players with elections to win and bases to play to.

And as Charles argues in this piece, that is a reality that needs to change.

On growing up

I have grades to get in and tons of work to do tonight.

But I had an experience today that really humbled me.

I had two girls, this morning, who were so out of control during a computerized assessment that I was supervising. The girls both decided to talk incessantly, after repeated reminders that they needed to be quiet during the test, and I asked both, at different times, to leave the room and to sit in desks outside of the room since they couldn't keep quiet. Both argued loudly with me about their fates amidst the test. Both refused to go where I told them to go. One of them went when I threatened to call security. One of them left the room when even my colleague and the official classroom teacher on the scene asked her to stop. Both ended up in the office on referrals from me and both continued to argue their cases loudly, disrupt the office, and each time they were asked what happened from someone new ,they would respond to the effect of, "Nothing."

It was an insane morning. And it was humbling for me because it led me to reflect on the million moments in my own childhood when I was completely convinced that I was right, that I was smarter than the adults I was dealing with, that I was not in the wrong, when I felt persecuted, and when I was otherwise being a similarly spoiled, arrogant little brat.

And I was humbled.

It occurred to me after this incident how manipulative we all can be, myself right at the top of that list. And how important it is for parents and teachers and adults to back one another up in calling children's attention and the attention of too many less mature adults to their out of control behavior. I've had many times when I've refused that reality check. And I realized, today, that I must have looked and seemed very much like these two out of control girls making scenes and playing dumb when it was time to take responsibility.

Raising children, I'm learning from teaching, is a lot of hard work.

And I am terribly humbled by how difficult it must have been for my parents and teachers and professors and friends to deal with me when I've acted arrogant, spoiled, out of control, and otherwise like a remarkable ass.

Growing up, I think, has a lot to do with recognizing what a total ass you must have been as a kid as you see children at ages that you can remember being and hope you were never that snotty and immature.

Today I realized what a hard job all those parents and teachers and adults had in raising me and the kids I grew up with.

My hat goes off to them, today. And I can forgive but also be mindful of what a total ass I was at various times in my youth and young and not-so-young adulthood.

Here's to growing up, despite how shitty I and all kids start out.

Love,
Ben

A sign of progress in thought around Iran and nuclear proliferation

Vali Nasr and Ray Takeyh write an excellent piece in the Washington Post today that I can only echo as the best hope for dealing with the Iranian regime and more effectively working towards a less confrontational relationship between Iran and the United States and Israel.

The Iran Option That Isn't on the Table

Unconditional dialogue would be a more effective and much more authentically democratic way of resolving this stand-off that has clearly humbled the propensity of Western countries to prevent Iranian nuclear aspirations through force.

Iran and North Korea are two very clear failures of the international community to force its way through the thorny issue of proliferation, if anyone is keeping count.

Nasr and Takeyh point us in a much more constructive direction.

Nancy Letoureau

Last night, I had this awesome dream about a girl I had this enormous crush on in high school and college - Nancy Letourneau.

Nancy was so many things that I wanted in a woman. She was smart. She was sensual. She was competitive. She was really talented. And she and I had a fairly close friendship. Everything I wanted in a woman. Except she wasn't interested.

Well, in my dream last night, she was more than interested. She was eager. And it was a really nice reminder of what I want in a woman and why I've held out and why I admire smart more than anything else. Because smart people, and smart women, especially, since I'm a red-blooded heterosexual male, are the most interesting and reasonable people I know.

It was nice being reminded that despite the dearth of woman as smart as Nancy in my life, right now, that those women do indeed exist. And I need a woman like Nancy, Brandi, or any of the very smart women in my life to feel fulfillment in a committed relationship.

Thanks, Nancy. Even if it was just a dream.

Love,
Ben

Being more honest

It's starting to occur to me, after a somewhat heated conversation with my principal, today, about the often arbitrary work load that administrators forever assign with little accountability to peoples' real capacity to complete it, to the peristent consternation of teachers; as I'm reviewing the progress reports of a colleague and as I reflect on what I've learned about the underbelly of the teaching profession over the last year or so, that what I am and have been throughout this whole crazy first year of teaching that I've had; and as I reflect on a whole busload of issues that have not been resolved in the many, many years before I got here and that I am making patient but persistent efforts to try to resolve.

It's starting to occur to me that Brandi was right. That I am far more honest than most people, is the truth. I care more about actually resolving a problem than I do about looking good and making myself look good.

And it's all that focus on appearance over substance, reinforced and held in place by a means of accountability focussed on hurting people who might honestly acknowledge their foibles and limitations rather than creating space for them to more openly acknowlege them and work to build strengths, all that focus on appearance and reputation and how others might judge you that I've always found so base and meaningless among so many middle class and other class folks.

And the truth is that I just care about all that bullshit so much less than so many people do, because I care far more about the substance of life, of relationships, and of problems, so they can more substantially get resolved rather than constantly swept under the rug.

You know why there's so many elephants in the middle of so many rooms in this godforsaken dysfunctional world?

Because there is so little room to face elephants for fear of being stampeded.

And the truth is that I have lot more courage than most people to face those kinds of issues more honestly and to work, as a consequence, to get more genuine resolution on them.

I am more honest than most people. I face difficult realities because I care more about getting problems solved than I do about keeping things looking pretty, no matter how fucked up the realities may be.

Of all the things that Brandi and I disagreed about, it was the most serious disagreement we likely had. Brandi admired my honesty. But she couldn't quite ever fully pull herself from the desire to look good for others. And I grew up giving two shits about how I looked to people, because people always looked askance at me and my family. It was the best part about growing up poor. Learning to not give two shits about how people look at you.

And I'd take honesty and that kind of much more substantial honest commitment and responsibility over all the appearances and luxuries and less substantial substitutes for that kind of honesty and responsibility any fuckin' day of the fuckin' week.

That was Brandi's most looming weakness, I'm convinced. I think she likely got wrapped up in all of that, though I really don't have any way of knowing since I don't know anything about her life, these days.

The sad thing, to the extent to which that is true, is that it was Brandi's substance that made her so great.

And I'd take that kind of substance over all the bullshit in the world that people fawn over any fuckin' day of the fuckin' week.

And the lack of commitment to that kind of honesty and honest commitment is why the world is such a fuckin' mess.

Love,
Ben

What it means to be liberal

It's so funny. When I was a kid, to be liberal meant to appreciate differences. To appreciate diversity. Different peoples' perspectives, religions, styles, forms of expression.

Today, to be a liberal means that everyone does everything the same or else.

How times change.

Creative uses of the term "force"

The more I hear the word "force" used in ways that play so fast and loose with the term to dillute any meaning - "I was forced to think," "You are forced to deal with the reality," or "I'm forced to use bad metaphors" - it becomes clearer and clearer to me just how much people will wallow in their own bullshit before they face up to their big lie.

Here's to a little honesty in the current democratic discussion: when you make no distinction between your idea and its alternatives - in this case, the freedom to choose - it's probably to cover for a bad idea.

Love,
Ben

Who I am

It's becoming clearer to me, as I think about this, that what people object to with my outlook on things is the same thing they've always objected to. It's not what I think as much as who I am.

I'm a nice guy. People think that means soft. They want to be tough. Not as tough as the terrorists. Not as soft as me. Just right.

And when I hear that moronic bullshit, I want to be tougher than terrorists. I want to the son-of-a-bitch in your life that you are sorry that you have to deal with.

But I'm not a son-of-a-bitch, except when I need to be. I am, generally, a nice guy.

And I have nothing to apologize for in that.

People who reason like the above are not reasoning at all, really. They are rationalizing why they are such dicks. And the lesson I'm learned about people who rationalize, is that they will make up excuses for anything and everthing they do. They will always explain away their failures. They will always look to someone else to blame.

Because that what it means to be a dick.

We're all dicks, at some point in our lives.

I'm just listening to a lot of people make excuses, these days, for why I need to be a dick with them.

It's the worst kind of peer pressure.

Come to think of it, that's exactly what it's meant to be. Peer pressure. Though, this time, the assholes engaged in it are sure that it's for good purpose and not all of the bad purposes that they've used it for before.

Thank goodness, because this world would be a mess if we had a bunch of assholes running around applying peer pressure on one another, especially if they were all arguing that it was for the common good.

Thank goodness we don't have that mess on our hands.

Love,
Ben

This is what pressure really looks like

Robert Mugabe knows how to apply pressure.

Zimbabwe Paper Hits 'Big Nerve'

This is how you control something you don't like.

Americans are pussies.

Thank goodness for our ability to force people to do the right thing

Michigan court: No same-sex benefits

Force is an important element of preventing gay people from living in sin.

What would we do without it?

Charles Krauthammer is right

Who's to Blame for the Killing

What America is experiencing in terms of blame and blowback is the consequence of making the decision to go to war for Iraqis without consulting them. But Krauthammer is right. Americans are not slaughtering Shiites and Sunnis today. Shiites and Sunnis are.

Americans are the people who can never, ever get responsibility straight because the spend so much time shifting blame. That, as it turns out, is a universal problem.

And one that I'm quite confident will finally be resolved now that we've figured out that what was needed all along this whole time was the ability to force people to take responsibility.

Now that we have that cleared up, everything should run good as new.

Either that or it won't and none of us will take responsibilty for it and everything will be same old, same old.

That's what progress looks like.

Being an asshole

I've had it.

I have completely had it with every intimation and implication that my problem is that I'm not enough of an asshole.

A teacher and a priniciple argued as much today.

So I'm changing strategies.

I'm going to be an asshole.

To everyone.

If if they don't like it, they can fuckin' eat shit.

I'm tired of it.

So now I'm going to show them what an asshole I can be.

And see how they fuckin' like it.

Ben

This is why I love Ted Koppel

Former Nightline host and a journalist with plenty of liberal credentials Ted Koppel had a dead-on commentary on the Iraq War debate this morning on NPR.

How Honest is the Debate over Iraq?

This is the money quote:

"The administration is right. The consequences of a premature U.S. withdrawal would have disastrous implications for the region...

...So setting benchmarks for Iraqi achievements and behavior is nonsense. What are we saying? It's too dangerous to leave because of possible consequences to the region; but if the Iraqis show that they're incapable of preventing anarchy and chaos by not meeting our benchmarks, then we're going to leave?

I think what we ought to be saying is that U.S. troops will start withdrawing as Iraqis do meet the benchmarks."

Exactly. And the exact same problem with the No Child Left Behind Act and politicians and activists and journalists and even citizens pressuring others to be responsible for results that they themselves are not responsible for creating.

That is the problem with pressure versus genuine commitment and support to solve problems.

And it is one of the most fundamental problems in the current discussion of policy.

I'm reposting the whole commentary in full because it's just so chock full of good stuff.

"There is something profoundly dishonest about the way the current debate over troops in Iraq is unfolding.

The administration is right. The consequences of a premature U.S. withdrawal would have disastrous implications for the region. And the region, in case anyone has forgotten or is too polite to mention it, is the oil-rich Persian Gulf.

So setting benchmarks for Iraqi achievements and behavior is nonsense. What are we saying? It's too dangerous to leave because of possible consequences to the region; but if the Iraqis show that they're incapable of preventing anarchy and chaos by not meeting our benchmarks, then we're going to leave?

I think what we ought to be saying is that U.S. troops will start withdrawing as Iraqis do meet the benchmarks.

We've been given so many bad reasons for why we went to war in Iraq — those weapons of mass destruction, Hussein and his neighbors, Hussein and al-Qaida, establishing democracy — that we've actually convinced ourselves that we did it for them… for the Iraqis; not because it served the U.S. national interest.

That makes it easy to depict the Iraqis as a bunch of underperforming, ungrateful wretches; and if they don't start shaping up, we're pulling out.

Well, despite the vice president's bravado, things are not better in Iraq and the Persian Gulf than they were before the U.S. invaded. They are much worse and much more dangerous to American interests.

That's something the Democratic candidates for president seem to believe also.

So, exactly how and why do they justify pulling our troops out? Their slant on the debate, it seems, is equally dishonest."

Exactly. The whole thing is so self-serving, by Democrats and Republicans, that I can barely stand it.

What we need is a genuine commitment and proactive support of the Iraqi people and their need for security and a workable political arrangement. But so much of the current debate is about people trying to get out from under a mess that they don't want on their plates, anymore.

That is why I love the best journalists. Because they cut through the bullshit better than the rest.

Love,
Ben

Why compelling priorities doesn't work for proactive commitments

I just got a really great concrete lesson in why compelling priorities does not work for proactive commitments (which are most of the commitments that we compel for).

Force is most useful, really, for negative priorities. It's needed when you want to keep someone from doing something. It's far too blunt and just doesn't work to compel proactive commitments because people always find ways to resist. Passive resistance is the form of resistance that most people take on, whether they be teachers, students, administrators, politicians, activists, or whomever in the education field and everyone else everywhere else. The only people who cooperate in life, for real, are the people who want to cooperate.

Force creates artificial cooperation for a limited period of time - when the threat of consequences are imminent - and then wears off as the consequences are not imminent. That's why force based regimes like the Nazis and Communists applied so much force. Because it was the only way that force could sustain any impact, long-term. Because it wears off, otherwise, even for negative priorities - trying to keep someone from doing something - without proactive commitment.

Proactive commitments needs people on board. It needs people convinced of your idea and working actively and collaboratively to achieve goals and solve problems along the way. Collaboration, by its nature, is genuine cooperation that is proactive rather than passive cooperation. And it can't take place when it is forced because, by its nature, it cannot be forced. It's not genuine cooperation, otherwise. No matter how much we might make excuses otherwise.

And today, I just had this really great lesson in why you, ultimately, can't compel long term development of whatever goals you want to achieve between people. Even to reduce and end violence and murder, two of the clearer cases for the use of force, will only stop, in the big picture - plenty of individual murderers can be shut down by jailing them or killing them - when people commit themselves to nonviolent and least possible and necessary aggression in resolution of problems, generally, and build a culture that better supports those commitments.

But when it comes to a goal like improving student achievement, pressure, force, and compulsion cannot create proactive commitment.

Today, we met around those goals and developing lesson plans to improve student achievement.

I teach math, which is the big area that the district is compelling efforts to improve achievement. They've developed benchmarks in the 8th grade that students have to pass before they move onto 9th grade. They've compelled teacher improvement. They've compelled the development of lesson plans according to very specific criteria. They've compelled a pacing guide for a district proscribed curriculum to achieve all those objectives. This is all on top of the millions of mandates from special education on my time and energy.

There is no lack of compulsion in American public education (and yet, it is never enough for its advocates, is my experience. The Nazis had the same problem).

Today, my teacher colleagues and I shared our lesson plans for comment and critique. I shared my plans on my team. And from every comment I got, it became clear that the thing people were most impressed with was how closely I followed the mandate for how the lessons were to be done.

Translation: noone else was doing it.

The reason, I'm pretty clear, is because I, ironically, have a much better attitude about these things than most people. Most people like to compel others and hate to be compelled themselves. And resist it like crazy when it is imposed upon them.

I hate it. And I spend time venting to friends, on my blog, and in life, generally, to have a release of all of the anger and frustration and hate I often feel having my hands tied to achieve results that I generally - and most people, really, if you ask them - will have better ideas for given a freer hand than I will if someone arbitrarily imposes a structure on me that may or may not be the best structure.

The thing that everyone forgets and that is the source of the hubris that the Greeks spoke about over 2000 years ago as the fundamental human error is that there is noone who has final knowledge or real, final authority - beyond their always artificial roles as authority figures - about how anything should be done, and even whether it should be done. No group of people, no matter how multilateral or built on consensus or otherwise legitimized has that power. Noone does. And it doesn't matter how much I or we assert it. It doesn't exist. Not in reality.

The best we do is we assert it and hope people go along. And induce, force, and otherwise manipulate them.

But the only way that any great effort ever gets achieved for real - meaning proactively with people on board - is if people believe in it. Period. There is no working your way around it. Because people always do, will, and should resist those things that their consciences and judgments are not convinced of. It's a good instinct that we have. And yet, it's not really an instinct at all. Fucking is an instinct. Eating is an instinct. Shitting is an instinct.

Critical thinking and skepticism are learned behavior.

And good for us for taking it more seriously than the current advocates of force to achieve their ends.

The irony in my life is that I more happily comply with laws and rules, generally, than do most people, because I understand that they are generally created from good intentions. Not all the time. I break rules and laws all of the time. As everyone does, no matter how careful they are not to. There's too many of them for us to keep up with all of them, is the truth.

And as Winston Churchill brilliantly observed:

"If you have Ten Thousand Regulations, you destroy all Respect for the Law "

And that is what we are and have been in the process of doing for the last 6 years, and for quite a long time, now, truth be told.

We've done it before, obviously. Hence, Prime Minister Churchill's observation.

And that, I think, is the engine for liberal reform when those with a regulatory instinct do not want to or will not let go.

And that is the process we are in the middle of, right now.

As I watch my teaching colleagues, the one thing that comes clear more than anything else is that they resent and resist the impositions and regulations and coercion.

And their resentment of it interferes with their ability to do what I do: to look deeper and understand intentions, even as you disagree with the means.

I don't even do this as well as I notice I need to as things move along.

And I'm a best case scenario. Most people just resent and resist.

And you can't create more genuine proactive commitment and collaboration with resentment and resistance. Genuine proactive commitment and collaboration come about because people are persuaded that the goals matter and when they genuinely work with one another through all of the pitfalls to solve problems that inevitably face all kinds of obstacles.

That's why a volunteer army is so much more effective than a conscripted one.

Because people who freely commit themselves will give exponentially more to the effort, and to any enterprise.

That's why Stephen Ambrose was right that Allies would inevitably win World War II and that the only question was how quickly and how many people would die in the process.

Because free people love their freedom more and will work harder and longer to keep it and expand it than compelled people will work to appease those who enslave them.

That's why the American military outstrips every other military in the world in its manpower, technology, and development. It is freer than other systems and has more people more collaboratively dedicated to achieving it's goals. And it is supported by a free economy that creates technology, resources, and services that is one of the freest and most proactive in the world.

You can't imitate or substitute that with force. It isn't possible. Our military certainly has a long way to go to have more of this kind of advantage that comes from a freer institution. But is far better than almost all militaries over the course of civilization, and most militaries today.

The same is true of education and journalism and business and even politics and the law and every field, when they stop to think about it.

Force achieves narrow and minimal objectives. It cannot produce genuine commitment and cooperation and collaboration. Because genuine commitment and cooperation and collaboration, by their natures, cannot be forced. That is the nature of them being genuine. And force, in the meantime, as Churchill wisely observed, undermines that kind of genuine commitment and collaboration.

I hate all the regulations and impositions that I have to deal with. But I do them more happily than most people and with a clearer effort to live more within the spirit of the law than the letter of the law. Because I take seriously the spirit of the law and the politics that created it and understand that it means something, even if it is flawed or wrong-headed or ill-conceived.

That is what the advocates of the contemporary political moment of force as a governing philosophy do not see, understand, or recognize as the mistake that is, currently, undermining all their efforts.

But eventually you have to face it. It took the Soviet Union 70 years to face it. It took the Nazis 26 years to face it until they were forcibly deposed, one of the classic and most important examples of how and when force, even considerable force, must be used because no other sufficient alternatives exist.

Leftists in Cuba and North Korea and their cheerleaders in the West have still not faced it. Right-wing ideologues in Pakistan, Syria, Iran and elsewhere, and their cheerleaders in the Arab world and the West, still have not faced it.

But eventually you have to face it. Not because you are forced to by others, necessarily (though elections are nifty ways of doing just that; and an excellent example, especially in less mature democracies, of where people can resist such imposition unless they are proactively committed to purposes of democracy and regular elections).

You have to face it because the failure becomes too obvious.

So many people were killed, imprisoned, and hurt in the old Soviet Union and Nazi regime until the failure and grotesqueness of their ideologies became completely clear for enough people to end their rules.

I do wonder how long it will take liberal societies to fully embrace their liberalization. Their freedom. And the far superior abilities that such freedom gives space to breathe and learn and grow.

All I know is that no matter how long more repressive ideologies march ahead (30 years for Naziism, 70 years for Communism, thousands of years for the more repressive history of humanity pre-democracy), they cannot sustain themselves. It is both a matter of morality and commitment by free peoples, where power distorts morality and loses touch with its higher purposes, and a matter of reality, where more repressive philosophies and governance and ideas and cultural commitments cannot sustain respect for the law and governance and even ideas that undergird them, and where, in reality, free people and cultures always dance circles around their repressed brethren on the things that matter most.

I am very proud to take a liberal education and a more genuinely liberal outlook on life much more seriously than most people, even in liberal societies. Because I'm completely clear that it is our liberal worldviews that afford us every most important quality of life that we have in a world that takes advantage of all that liberal education and all those liberal commitments and is forever taking them for granted.

And I would rather have a liberal democratic culture that is taken for granted, than a repressive culture to abandon or overthrow.

What we need, all of us, is a liberal democratic culture that we more genuinely appreciate, expand, and sustain, rather than perpetually undermining its opportunities and the freedom that creates them.

And the first thing we need to build that more liberal culture is more genuinely liberal schools, universities, educations, and engagement, in and out of schools, to sustainably support that kind of culture for the long haul of humanity.

Love,
Ben

The real case for controlling peoples' lives

John Hawkins has a shockingly argued case for the drug war on Human Events that I think more plainly than anything I've read, lately, illustrates the arrogance of those who limit peoples' freedom in the name of looking after their lives.

In Defense of the Drug War

His closing argument really illustrates how morally repugnant his case is:

"That's why once, way back when William Bennett was the drug czar, he responded like so to a caller on the Larry King show who told him that he should 'behead the damn drug dealers.'

'I mean what the caller suggests is morally plausible,' he said. 'Legally, it's difficult. But somebody selling drugs to a kid? Morally, I don't have any problem with that at all.'

Bennett was right then, he's right now, and my guess is that most parents, upon finding out that someone was peddling drugs to their kid, would agree with him. Since that's the case, do we really want the federal government to take over the role of a pusher and get our kids hooked on drugs to make a profit? No, we don't."

It never surprises how the less people respect the freedom of others, the more they will rationalize anything in the name of their cause.

Bill Bennett and John Hawkins don't even find the most minute of moral qualms with the idea of beheading those who traffic in any of the various substances that they don't want people to use.

Because moral and political self-righteousness become the perpetual rationalization for every form of ugliness that their advocates favor.

The real case for controlling people's lives is because they can't do a fuckin' thing about it, whether they wanted to or not.

And that's really how John Hawkins and Bill Bennett and a whole load of conservatives and liberals think that life should be.

John Kennedy challenged us: "Ask not what your country can do for you, ask what you can do for your country."

His Democratic and Republican contemporaries tell us: "Whether you fuckin' like it or not, we're in charge."

Inspiring.

Love,
Ben

Too pussy to admit that we might be wrong

You know the worst part? Of all this rationalization of pressuring and bullying to impose our will and get our way?

Is that it is THE rationalization for terrorism.

You don't think Hamas and Hezbollah don't think that they're killing innocent Israelis to create a credible threat and pressure a better land deal for Palestinians?

You don't think that the Weathermen or Black September were created to enforce various left wing agendas?

You don't think that the KKK and many neo-nazis aren't concerned with terrorizing minority groups and putting the fear of God in them?

You really think that all that terrorism is really so different than the efforts to bully and pressure and otherwise impose our will on one another?

Yeah, terrorists do too. They think others are just too pussy and hypocritical to acknowledge that they do the same thing, just with a less credible threat.

And so it all goes on and on and on and on and on into perpetuity. Terrorist and other radical groups perpetually get cover from the self-righteous associations and impositions among moderate folks.

Maybe they're right. Maybe we are too pussy. Because there is definitely one place in life where everyone, apparently, is too pussy. Too pussy to admit when we might be wrong.

Love,
Ben

The need for thoughtful discourse

Joe Nye has a blog, it turns out, with the Huffington Post. And he writes another excellent article on the discourse about the Iraq war that I found myself nodding with.

Our Impoverished Discourse

Money shot, as Andrew Sullivan would say:

"If Republicans and Democrats continue to ignore soft power and our public discussion is limited to a competition about who can sound tougher, our truncated debate will remain like the sound of one hand clapping. America's current partisan atmosphere has ossified our foreign policy debate. What the nation needs is a discourse that recognizes the importance of both hard and soft power and debates a smart strategy to integrate them."

Joe's argument, that Democrats and Republicans need to be smarter with power rather than tougher and that our discourse should be about how to use soft and hard power to tackle the situation in Iraq and other policy objectives, is a welcome and important one.

Joe opposes a surge, which I think is a mistake, and seriously humbles any sense I have that anyone really knows what will improve the situation in Iraq (I still support a surge, at this point, because I think Frederick Kagan's arguments on the matter, that a pull-out will undermine the necessary security for Iraq to negotiate a political settlement, are the strongest I have encountered).

And as I watch the most brilliant policy minds in the world disagree about how to best approach this situation in Iraq, I think, "Why would we think, given the diversity of opinion on something as serious and as clearly a matter of goverance of any question that we face, that somehow we have divined the ability that has eluded every past generation to know exactly what matters upon which we should force, pressure, repress, and otherwise impose our will?"

We don't, is the answer. What we maintain is the hubris to believe that we do, and the shortsightedness to think that doing so will have no impact on the credibility, the soft power, of governance.

Politics and policy in Iraq

It is so refreshing to just read something and nod, every once in awhile.

Grand Delusion

Robert Kagan cuts through the political posturing pretty well in this piece.

It is very strange to watch liberals clamor for an intervention in Darfur, Sudan and simultaneously set up Iraq for a similar fate with an American withdrawal.

I'm pretty sure that they are doing so both because they're giving up on Iraq (which, as Kagan argues here, is a recipe for more headaches and more human slaughter to deal with later, and lots of people dying, unnecessarily in the meantime), and more nepharious, as Kagan argues in this piece, because they're positioning politically, because, truth be told, they don't really feel much responsibility for Iraq. Iraq is President Bush's problem, as far as many liberals are concerned, I am convinced. Failure in Iraq has an easy target for blame. So who really cares if we fail there, they reason at some level. It's not our problem anyway. Or, like Carl Levin, they have become convinced that the only thing that stands between them and a sustainable security situation in Iraq is pressure from America. In Levin's distorted worldview, it is people like him who have made the world safe and good. If it weren't for his pressure or the pressure of liberals, reason Levin and millions of liberal activists and politicians, this world would be in a right bloody mess, as Michael Palin says in Monty Python's Life of Brian. It nevered occurs to them that perhaps their ideas might be persuasive, and, more importantly, that sometimes, they may not.

It's so sad to me to find out how little people really care about the important priorities, so wrapped are they are in smaller priorities. Petty partisanship trumps a more thoughtful Iraq policy discussion, because so many people are more interested in proving that they have the right ideology and the President has the wrong ideology, and duking it out, politically, legally, and rhetorically.

And the tragedy of the whole thing is that noone has the right ideology, anymore than the foolish notion that Protestants were better than Catholics or vice versa in the civil wars in Great Britain.

Americans have given up on Iraq resolving its civil war, I imagine, because Americans have given up on finding any authentic resolution to their own civil war, their political civil war between liberals and conservatives, who look just as foolish as Sunnis and Shias who fight one another over who has the right ethnicity or religious affiliation.

It is definitely possible and likely that we will get over our foolish squabbling and engage in a policy discussion that is more thoughtful and engaged and address one another's concerns with a collaborative commitment to success in Iraq or wherever else we must work together.

But, right now, so many people seem more committed to exactly what Robert Kagan is writing about, here: singing to their choirs and hoping that the gods strike down their political opponents and solve this whole Iraq mess for them.

And the sad thing is that their choirs don't mean shit, pardon my French. Choirs for the political churches of liberalism and conservatism are just like choirs everywhere, singing for you what you want to hear and never challening your doctrine.

These days, I belong to both churches and no church, at all, simultaneously, forever frustrated with how every churchgoer puts on heirs and makes all kinds of effort to prove just how pious they are to their political gods.

And all the while, not giving two shits about whether they are actually doing good by one another and by the world enough to consider that, just perhaps, they might need to listen to one another and identify with one another like people who have more in common than they have different, and engage one another and debate one another and discuss with one another what we're going to do with this godforesaken mess like we're grown-ups who are all playing on the same team, in the big picture.

Too many people don't want to play on the same team, is the truth, so wrapped up are they in their own self-righteous sense of the world.

Our hope lies in either our capacity to transcend our narrower visions of the world, in our own lifetimes, or that one day we will die and our children will have an opportunity to do the same.

There is no genuine hope in a world where we are persistently undermining one another and ourselves in the name of ideological or any other kind of dominance.

The only sustainable hope is leaving it behind.

Iraqis are not the only people who have internal divisions that undermine their own interests. Americans and the people all over the world have a long way to go to transcend their small-mindedness.

Why is it so hard for us to transend the petty polarization?

Because, truth be told, we don't really give enough of a shit to try.

Love,
Ben

The heart of being a liberal

This is how the whole Scooter Libby affair should go down and why.

Scooter and Me

Forgiveness and an appreciation for people's humanity and the complexity of life is the heart of being a liberal.

And that is what should determine the outcome of this trial and of Scooter Libby's life.

Love,
Ben

Sovereignty and self-determination as a democratic principle

Robert Carlin and John Lewis, two North Korean experts, make the general argument that I made in my review of Joe Nye's article on North Korea's nuclear ambitions.

What North Korea Really Wants

What North Korea really wants, argue Carlin and Lewis, is respect for its national sovereignty and a more constructive diplomatic relationship with the United States, to stave off efforts by China, Russia, and Japan to control and influence it, argue Carlin and Lewis, as much as anything else.

I didn't make the argument that North Korea, as with Iran, I believe, want their national sovereignty respected because I have any specific North Korean expertise.

I made the argument because it only makes sense if you take the democratic principles of sovereignty and self-determination seriously and the argument that even unfree and undemocratic peoples and governments want those principles respected, when it comes to themselves, at least.

Which country want other countries dictating its defense policies? Aren't defense policies, by their nature, the most fundamental issues off national sovereignty and self-determination? Which country would the United States and China or Russia or Japan trust to defend them for them or to determine their defense policies?

The trick is that when liberal democracies are all rationalizing force as the most effective and inspired form of governance, they do exactly what Kim Jong Il does in his own hypocritical expectations of the those trying to dissuade his nuclear ambitions: they value their own freedom, without any expectation of respecting the self-determination of others.

Where Iran and North Korea really have a strong argument is that in our haste and stubborn resolve to bully our way through both of these situations, we ignore the very democratic principles of sovereignty and self-determination, constructive debate, discussion, and diplomacy that we otherwise say is the basis for our right to make these kinds of demands in the first place.

How much failure will finally dissuade us of the current policy, I wonder?

The why of liberal, secular, free and democratic values

I'm realizing over the last few days of reflection that the why of freedom and liberal democratic values is so that we can see ourselves, and the world, better, for who we really are and how the world really is.

The reasons for secular thinking about the world are obvious really, after many years of thinking and writing and sacrafice dedicated to the subject by secular and more liberal thinkers: to understand the world better for what it really is.

Galileo and Descartes study science and philosophy, respectively, to help us all see the world, better, as it really is, and not just according to our romantic ideas of how we believe it should be.

The reason for secular and liberal democratic thought in understanding ourselves and one another is exactly the same: to help us see ourselves, each other, and the world, better as we really are, and not just according to our romantic ideas of how we believe we should be. But it has always been in tension with more traditional and romantic moral and theological notions of what makes for a good life. More traditional and romantic moral and theological notions tell us that doing good involves committing ourselves to a particular theology - Christianity, Judaism, Islam, Buddhism, etc. - doing good and not doing bad, and being subject to punishment, with varying degree of harshness in different historical periods and in different cultures - more in the past, progressively less in the present - when we do bad.

But secular and liberal democratic values take freedom and free will more seriously than does more traditional theology. Those values entail freedom to think about, question, challenge, and make choices around our values. And as Maslow wrote eloquently, it is in that freedom and in those choices that we learn about what values serve us and what values do not. Such a commitment does not, at all, assume a final stance on questions of value, by individuals or by a culture, except that they are always subject to questioning, challenging, debate, and discussion, even as it might acknowledge universal truthes. Universal truthes may exist, and it is the challenge of secular and liberal thought to uncover them, but they are uncovered and our ideas constructed, as is the term used in education circles, by individuals and cultures, and are always subject to challenge and questioning, never being taken for granted.

Ancient Greek writers and philosophers conceived of Gods as so in control of their lives because it reflected their own lack of freedom and the helplessness they felt - learned helplessness, as psychologists refer to it - in the face of the substantial control that existed over their lives in Ancient Greek, culture, I believe. They yearned for freedom that they needed to develop their thinking and their cultures, but which they lacked because of these very backward and backward-looking fears. The same kinds of fears that still dominate contemporary liberal democratic cultures.

The problem of contemporary liberal democratic cultures is that they embrace the benefits of liberal democratic life while being perpetually wary of the risks that come with such freedom.

And so they perpetually curb the freedom that make those benefits possible.

It is ever recurrently tragic and irrational, with those cultures perpetually looking back with regret at those curbs on freedom and the ways that it undermines their values, which were only made possible by that freedom.

We are liberal democratic peoples embracing secular thought and the freedom that makes them possible, but only when we are not perpetually afraid of the risks that come with that freedom, as well.

And it is that fear, of course, which has rationalized all curbs on freedom since the dawn of humanity.

Our rationalizations are only different from those of the Catholic church, various dictators, and more repressive cultures of yesterday and today in degrees and for what cause.

But the result is always the same.

Repression and control that undermines the very values that make our better quality lives possible.

It's a very tragic irony of history. That humanity has spent more than 2000 years trying to escape its inhumanity and propensity for control on the basis of fear. And yet, 200 years into the triumph of our liberal, secular, free and democratic values over our inhumanity and values of control and brutality, our fears still so dominate our own lives and have us dominating our neighbors.

For those who love liberal, secular, democratic values, societies, and their virtues, as I do, it is, perhaps, the most tragic irony of history.

Love,
Ben

Status

I've been thinking a lot, last night, about how status and status anxiety and insecurity is the source of so many of our problems of equity in the culture. The money doesn't do enough good after a certain amount to warrant obsession with it. The fame is as much a disadvantage as an advantage much of the time.

But the status is what drives too many of us. Including academics who both have one of the highest status positions in most cultures and which, in liberal democratic cultures, pride themselves, the most, of being more equitable and less status obsessed.

The truth is that status drives much of what happens in academics. And, hence, where many of the problems in our culture derive.

I have much more to say about this. I have an IEP to finish up:).

Ben

Trust and why confusion about it is the source for so many of our problems

I am seeking out Francis Fukuyama's book Trust and other similar books around matters of policy and trust, lately, because I am beginning to see what I think Fukuyama sees: trust as the cornerstone of relationships into which authority and power enters, for good and, too often, for bad.

The more I work with kids, and the more I reflect on my own childhood, and especially my young adulthood, the clearer I become that trust - its presence, its absence, and its consequences - is the basis for so many problems in our culture, and so much of the confusion that young people, in particular, and older people, as well, feel in their lives. Confusion about what trust is and what it isn't. Confusion about who to trust. And perhaps, most importantly, confusion about how to handle relationships when trust is broken.

It's pretty clear to me, at this point, that there is a paradox of trust that too often is reduced to far too simplistic equations of power rather than dealing with the trust broken and the need for trust restored.

There is a need by most people, I think, to both trust others and to be trusted. But paradoxically, one of the more fundamental trusts that kids, especially, seem to need and take for granted, and that I very much remember as an important part of a childhood and especially a young adulthood that I took for granted was the need to be forgiven and trusted even after trust was broken.

I didn't understand this issue the first time I really broke a serious trust in my life. And life turned out very different than I expected it to, as a consequence. I've lost some very important relationships in my life because of trusts broken, and I'm saddest to say that I've given some relationships long hiatuses because of trust broken (I'm sorry to say that because I very much believe that forgiveness is the cornerstone to a decent, happy, and secure life). But my experiences taught me a lot about trust, and the confusion surrounding it, that are more universal than just my experience, I think.

I'm beginning to understand, better, that the classical liberal maxims that people are self-interested and that everyone wants freedom for themselves and not for their neighbor runs deeper than that. It is a corollary to Jesus' teaching and aphorism that people pick at the splinters in other peoples' eyes before they pick out the beams from their own.

What I'm learning is that everyone comes at trust in a million different ways. Many people try to find trust through control, when it is over others. Most people prefer not to be controlled, when it is over themselves. And most people are relunctant to forgive, I'm learning; certainly far more reluctant than I am, despite what I agree is the need to face the honest breaches in trust that take place when they take place. But one thing that everyone has in common is that they both want, expect, and need forgiveness for all their screw-ups. We literally would not be able to function hardly at all without forgiveness, which is the source of the decency and humanity that allow liberal democratic cultures to function so much more effectively than less liberal, less trusting, less decent and humane cultures, I'm convinced.

And yet, despite the fact that so many of us are often so relunctant to forgive, feeling hurt and afraid of being hurt more - a completely understandable reaction in the face of a serious breach of trust - all of us want, expect, and need forgiveness when we breach trust, because we - individually and interdependently - would not be able to function without it. We cannot function well at all without forgiving ourselves and seeking forgiveness. And we cannot function very well without forgiving others, as well, as it turns out.

And yet it is that forgiveness and perpetually bigger-heartedness that allows us to function better within the world, as individuals and as cultures of people.

I want to explore this theme in depth in the near future. I have an IEP I need to work on right now, that is a part of a relationship between a mom, a student, and me that I need to give my attention.

But I'm fairly convinced after my experiences with this issue in my early adulthood that this issue of trust is the one that really functions at the core of our relatioships with one another and which is the source for so much confusion, misunderstanding, and unnecessary misery, and, at the other end, is the source of the most profound happiness and genuine security that we can experience in our lives.

Love,
Ben

The right way to begin this discussion

Barak Obama and Hillary Clinton both open the health care discussion on refreshingly open-ended notes:

"Obama's call was an echo of a speech he made last April when he said Democrats 'need to cling to the core values that make us Democrats, the belief in universal health care, the belief in universal education, and then we should be agnostic in terms of how to achieve those values.'"

And Hillary Clinton remarks:

"'One of the goals that I will be presenting ... is health insurance for every child and universal health care for every American," she said at a community health clinic in New York Sunday, the day after entering the 2008 Democratic field. 'That's a very major part of my campaign and I want to hear people's ideas about how we can achieve that goal.'"

This is exactly how that discussion should be opened. A firm commitment to universal health insurance with an open-ended discussion of ideas about how to get there.

Including the very decent idea, with all its flaws, introduced by President Bush.

I'm not enamoured with the President's efforts to penalize generous health insurance. If people want to pay for better health insurance or if they get it as a deal with their employer, so be it, I say.

But the general idea of encouraging univeral health insurance and access while maintaining consumer freedom within an exceptionally high quality health system is exactly the right direction for this discussion, I think.

And what I like about Obama's and Clinton's opening up the discussion is that it allows us to explore all of the our best ideas to provide for universal health insurance, ideally, in my view, without overburdening all of us with a massive government bureaucracy.

There are plenty of really great alternatives to a national health service and all of the pitfalls that come with that system that we can explore in a more open-ended conversation.

I was just talking with my friend and roommate, Devang, about how public education in the United States did not begin, at all, as a Federal program. Federal legislation was not passed around public education, thankfully, until the beginning of the 20th century. The common education movement of the mid-19th century was a movement of Protestant social reformers led by the likes of Horace Mann to bring schooling to all children below the college grade. It was not as glamourous as a national public education system initiated by the Federal government. But it built upon a very important value in American democracy - citizen participation and voluntary association and commitment to values like universal education, or universal health care.

It is the fact of American democracy that Alexis DeToqueville features in his observations of the new American democracy in Democracy in America. And it is a much taken for granted feature of American democracy that is quite possibly the most important check on perpetual acquistions of power by the Federal and state government. Sadly, it is also one of the things that facilitates that acquisition of power, sadly, as groups lobby for state and Federal governments to take on more resoponsibilities and, consequently, more power and control over how important issues like education and health care operate in our lives, for better and often for worse.

The major problem with Federal and state power and responsibility over so many various responsibilities for Americans and communities - as long-standing and perpetually unresolved debates over how to fix problems in social security and medicare illustrate - is that Federal and State programs are often quick fixes that often avoid long-term problems that come with investing so many responsibilities and so much power in so few people. They are programs that are perpetually short for money because taxes and government revenue is not as sustainable a means of funding important values and priorities as for-profit or non-profit fundraising models, which are freer, more flexible, run by people closer to the day-to-day responsibilities and professionals who can specialize in a field, can diversify to offer a whole host of different kinds of services, products, options, etc., more dynamic in terms of people being able to identify and avoid programs that lack real credibility in dealing with serious problems and supporting and developing newer and more credible organizations and programs to deal with new or old problems.

Government is just a really terrible place to try to innovate and engage in efforts that add real value to a commitment like education or health care. Long-standing dissatisfaction with public schools reflects much of this problem and the difficulty in seriously correcting the situation. And the failures of the No Child Left Behind Act (and I would add the Individuals with Disabilities Education act, as much as I'm sure this would not be popular in a special education field that loves to tout their association with and development of this legislation) illustrate the problem with Federal fixes. They are one-size-fits-all, run by bureaucrats and politicians thousands of miles away from the problems faced day-to-day, and it, consequently, lacks any of the opportunity to flexibly and innovatively deal with new and even old problems.

There is much effort that has been dedicated by non-profit folks committed to univeral health insurance in the United States and internationally, and it is these efforts that need our support and expansion, I think, rather than introducing public bureaucracy and rigid legally-bound solutions to problems that need flexibility and diverse service options to sustainably deal with new and old problems.

So opening up the discussion of health care with a commitment to universal access but with an open-ended discussion is a good way to open this discussion since it allows these kinds of problems to be discussed.

Americans should be cautioned as much as encouraged by the efforts of Canadians and Europeans to nationalize health insurance. National health insurance has not made the problems of health care in these countries go away. To the contrary, it has many many resolutions much more difficult without substantial private for-profit and non-profit sector capacity built and invested in to deal with issues like medical technology, perscription drugs, medical rationing, and wrangling betwen various levels of government over how public health commitments get funded (like in American, the Federal government in Canada is fond of taking the cheap way out and passing mandates for provincial government to fulfill and to find funding for without providing adequate funding, very much like special education in the United States).

Government commitments are a quick fix that are favored by far too many liberals, I believe, that ignore the very serious problems that come with government and bypassing the very important opportunities in the for-profit and non-profit health sector.

And legislation like Massachusetts' most recent entry into the health care foray and Governor Schwarenegger's similar effort in California create a whole new level of impostion on people with limited income, similar to car insurance - as someone who was briefly jailed because I drove without car insurance for a job that I was in no position to turn down, I am particularly sensitive to the problems with mandated car insurance for low income folks - and which seems to ignore people's right to not carry health insurance if they choose not to.

And Barak Obama's and Hillary Clinton's opening to this discussion is a refreshing one. It is one that should include the proposals of the President and everyone who is interested in the idea of universal health insurance with an open-ended discussion of the problems and opportunities and the implications for peoples' health and freedom that come with various proposals.

Universal health insurance is not lacking the political will to pass legislation that will, rightly, prompt a backlash without broad support.

Universal health insurance is in need of a sustainable commitment and model for providing it that accounts for the various concerns about health care and with as much respect for peoples' health care freedom as possible.

If Obama and Clinton intend the former, this will be one more chapter in a long history of failures to comprehensively address the very complicated issues associated with universal health care.

If Obama and Clinton, intend the latter, perhaps we will embarking on a path that might finally deliver access to high-quality universal health care that we, our children, our grandchildren, and our and their great-granchildren can all be happy with for the long run.

Rarely does such patience, engagement, and vision feature in this debate. Without it, we will be having this debate until the issues that require that kind of patience, engagement, and vision get resolved.

Love,
Ben