A clarification about my administrators at Eisenhower

I've lamented much the problems I've had with how my administrators have tried to resolve important and difficult issues that we've faced with curriculum, discipline, and paperwork issues here at Eisenhower.

I do want to point out that I think my administrators are good people. They are very good people. They are not perfect. They have made many mistakes, I think, which are really pretty plain if and when they will be honest with themselves about them. But they are good people making those mistakes largely in good faith, I think. I have made many, many mistakes as a teacher at Eisenhower (as I would expect and hope I and everyone - including my administrators - would, if I or they are going to learn anything). There is no other learning than when we are making mistakes. Anything else is rationalizing to ourselves and others about our choices, always pretending that they are better than they really are. It is being on defense about our choices rather than honestly reflecting on them. And that is the problem with the use of force in achieving goals. It puts people on the defensive in a way that has them constantly rationalizing their choices, good or bad, rather than honestly reflecting on choices and taking responsibility for mistakes.

My administrators face this kind of pressure and force, just as I do. From their bosses in the district; from Congress, the state legislature, and the school board; from parents and advocates who threaten and often follow through with formal complaints, lawsuits and other punitive measures; from the press, which can threaten aggressive means of highlighting problems to try to force solutions through shaming and other forms of coercion, and social pressures from their friends, families, churches, the media, and other sources.

They face pressure. And, like me, they are responsible for their choices in the meantime (though everyone must be cut slack in an environment where their choices and freedom are limited by constant threat and presence of force; that is the purpose of all of that force and pressure, after all).

My administrators are good people doing their best job, right now. It is not always the best job that could be done, potentially. But it is the best job that they know how to do at this point in their careers and lives. I have much confidence that they are in good faith. And, in so many ways, they are very competent at what they do. My principal is the most intelligent person in the building, other than me, and she is likely the most responsible (though the kind of responsibility I've been demonstrating is a something different than I think she is used to demonstrating or dealing with; responsibility to one's conscience is not the most common or popular way to operate, sometimes, and she has, to her credit, been wrestling with her conscience as I wrestle with mine).

The assistant principal for my team of teachers I have more confidence in as a matter of giving people and kids space to both be themselves and make mistakes. She is not as ambitious as either of my other assistant principals, I do not gather. But she is committed to kids in some very profound ways. The final administrator in the building and my other assistant principal is more ambitious, in many ways, but less capable, I think, than either of her colleagues. She prides herself as the tough administrator. But it is that pride that undermines the more genuine development of her abilities, I think. She is a good woman who is very competent in many important ways. I have a lot to learn from her in terms of organization skills and her knowledge of the inner workings of the Kansas City, Kansas and general school bureaucracy. But, sadly, she has not aspired for a stronger standard for her work. Namely, she does not care about kids or people as genuinely as her colleagues. It is a standard that she needs to aspire to if she is going to be a stronger administrator. She could pride herself otherwise. But pride is not real ability.

I care about and even feel a profound sense of respect and love for all of my administrators.

I have been frustrated with what I am clear were very important mistakes they made, this year, in supporting (or not supporting, as the case may be), and, at times, undermining my efforts to be as strong a teacher as I can be, this year, and the efforts of all of the teachers in the building to be as strong as they can be and for students to be as strong as they can be.

But I also respect and appreciate all of them and all of the many very serious and important strengths that they bring to their efforts here at Eisenhower.

Anyway, I just felt like I should say something about how much I really do respect and appreciate my administrators and all of my colleagues, really, even as I have had differences and frustrations with how to handle best a million different issues with teaching and learning from kids.

We all have lots to learn. Me, especially. And it can and always could turn out that I'm wrong about everything I've thought up until this point and that there is more wisdom to be gleemed that I am seeing, at this point. I'm sure there is, actually. For all of us.

Love,
Ben

A clarification of principles of least possible necessary aggression

I just wanted to clarify something around principles of least possible necessary aggression that has concerned me ever since I started working with/on these principles. And that is around the propensity to rationalize any principle of governance to leverage for maximum force and aggression.

At least one of the reasons that power corrupts is that both more legitimate authority figures and those who use authority more wisely and less legitimate authority figures, power-players, and those who seek to use and abuse authority less wisely are constantly either leveraging for maximum possible use of force or being manipulated to do so or to move in a direction that is more in this direction.

In some ways, this may be or seem inescapable. The most important means of escaping this rationalization is to have a culture committed to as much freedom as possible, save those limited areas of governance that need more serious limits on freedom. The idea that there might be limits is not taken well by those who will rationalize their own freedom to limit the freedom of others as much as they would like, which is exactly why democratic institutions were developed: to check the power of those various groups and forces which might limit freedoms when such limitations serve the interests of some at the expense of a minority or individuals or other groups. James Madison's warning against factions is a wise one in Federalist Paper #10, not only because of the collection of interests to limit the freedoms and work against the interests of others or the common good for their own interests, but because it demonstrates the self-centeredness with which so much politics is engaged, including by political representatives, and the degree of skepticism that every citizen or individual should bring to limitations on their liberties, efforts to impose on their interests to serve the interests of others, and responsible engagement that is necessary that looks after common interests and common good to prevent such encroachments.

But no matter how much wise observers warn of this propensity to limit freedom for more narrow interests, including the narrow interest in limiting freedom for what is presumably peoples' own good without giving them final say over such matters - what many observers call the nanny-state propensity of government and what George Orwell more bluntly called Big Brother - people will now and likely into perpetuity try to limit freedom as far as they can and to use as much force and aggression as they can get away with to preserve self-righteous notions of the way the world should be (even if their use of force and aggression often makes that world they are critical of more likely than if they used less or no force or aggression; the alcohol prohibition is one such example of the use of force and aggression that made the world of alcohol, alcoholism, and the underground crime scene they became associated with far worse for the use of legislation and force rather than better).

So I want to clarify something.

The term least possible necessary aggression is not a tool of negotation. It is an objective reference to the amount of force that should always be presumed when force is needed and valuable. It is a flexible but objective ideal that will often and regularly not be met, I am sure. But it is an ideal that should guide our efforts to constantly be seeking out methods that respect freedom of individual conscience and judgment most and hurt others as least as is possible and only as is necessary.

It is a term of limitation, not a term of elastic negotiation so those who would cynically use it to squeeze as much justification for as much force as they would like or as much force or aggression out of those they have carry out their power grabs can manipulate this term as those same cynics and power-mongers and power-players persistently use terms like liberal, conservative, democratic, constitutional, moral, force, freedom, war and many other terms and who are persistently talking about the world in aggressive terms - aggressive efforts instead of vigorous efforts, attacks instead of criticism, offensive and defensive rather than engaged and a substantive discussion of issues and disagreement and many other ways that the press, in particular, feeds the much too aggressive and not nearly thoughtful enough instincts of political players and citizens' ideas about politics - and every term they can get their persistently intellectually dishonest and inconsistent hands on to justify as much force as they want to exercise at any particular moment.

I probably do it, as well, as a teacher and when I exercise authority. It's a propensity of authority and power that I am persistently keeping an eye out for and which I spend much time reflecting on and which I will use much time reflecting on this summer to reevaluate how I have used force and aggression to accomplish tasks I want accomplished. I likely fail and use more power and force than is necessary. And I will spend the rest of my life learning how to be as consistent as humanly possible with these principles.

Because the truth is that noone else has consistent principles that they use for matters of freedom and force that does much more than rationalize all of those place where they want to use force and as much force as they want to accomplish their ends, which generally undermines more responsible behavior, often unintentionally, counterproductively, and counterintuitively but nonetheless, in my study and experience.

Least possible necessary aggression does not need to be one more in a perpetual line of principles that is rationalized by various aggressors to use as much aggression as they see fit without genuine concern and attention to the purpose of these terms: to reduce aggression as much as honestly possible, not what is rationalized by the current, if often dismal reality. The Soviets or Nazis, for instance, could very easily cloak their ugly and power-corrupted behavior behind principles like least possible necessary aggression by persistently claiming that the amount of force they use is the least possible and necessary even if it very plainly is not. Propaganda has the advantage of not taking the truth seriously, and big lies and small lies, alike, are the tools of its trade which is exactly why a more honest, intelligent, scholarly and open marketplace of honest ideas and discussion is needed to be the only genuine reality check for this kind of manipulative use of words, ideas, arguments, images, and power that we have available to us. Worse, the propaganda of good people manipulating for what they believe or perceive or want to believe are good ends is subject to the same kinds of lying, big and small, distortions of perception and honest engagement, failure to more honestly engage those who disagree, failure to be responsible and genuinely accountable (meaning when someone holds themselves accountable; external accountability, by its nature, is not the most genuine form of accountability) to intellectually honest arguments and disagreement, can be more persuasive when people engaging that discussion believe they are doing so for good cause. Sometimes lying is very plainly for a good cause, as when Germans lie to hide Jews during the Holocaust to avoid the capture of Jews and the reach of Nuremberg law or when slaves or abolitionists lie to escape capture to avoid being held captive and the reach of federal, state, and local fugitive slave laws. But often lying for good causes becomes a dishonest habit of mind and engagement that both distorts the discussion and debate and makes honest engagement and judgments very difficult. It is this propensity that undermines efforts to have and nurture a more honest, reasonable and reason-respecting, decent, trustworthy, and otherwise better functioning liberal democratic society and all sorts of cultures, groups, organizations, familes, and other places where people need to function well together.

Least possible necessary aggression means what it says. The least possible necessary aggression is the only amount that should be used for any purpose that genuinely needs aggression or force, because no other means are either available, usable, or possible.

No aggression and force, at all, is always the least aggression and force that should be preferred. And all aggression should be genuinely accountable to that standard as much as is possible.

But liberal democratic people clearly need flexibility with the use of aggression and force. They need as much as they need and no more. They will take more. I can almost guarantee that. And the only genuine form of accountability for that fact is when people internalize the principle and the commitment to respecting people, their freedom, self-determination and self-governance as a matter of honest commitment rather than as a matter of external pressure, force, image-management or other forms of less honest means of being committed to principle.

People who are committed to being good people as a matter of fear or because of the threat or presence of force are not being good or moral or honest or decent honestly. They are doing so for reasons other than a genuine commitment to being good or moral or honest or decent.

Least possible necessary aggression works the same way. People who are less likely and willing to be good or moral or honest or decent honestly and not because of the threat or presence of external pressure or force, including myself when I am less honest with myself and others, are not likely to be committed to any principle, nevertheless some abstract principle of governance.

Our propensity to get more honest will only happen as we get more committed to honest embrace of this and any principle without fear of the threat or presence of force or aggression to make us internalize the principle. Everything else is just less honest, is the truth. People who reason as a matter out of external force and aggression are generally more self-righteous - in the literal, objective sense, meaning more likely to try to self-validate than to honestly consider alternatives including the likelihood that one is wrong - and just not very honest with themselves or others about their more honest motivations.

There is no magic way to make that problem go away. It will only wear away as force and aggression wear away as principles that are persistently used and abused for whatever causes people see fit. Like every other important matter that has ever faced liberal democratic peoples, this problem of power and its propensity to be abused, manipulated, and otherwise rationalized will be dealt with as we get more honest about it and as our consciences grow more genuinely aware and willing to face the problem.

One alternative is that someone will demonstrate to me why my arguments are wrong and why some other way of thinking about force or aggression should be preferred. I've not seen convincing arguments to the contrary. But I am open to such arguments.

In the meantime, everyone should be skeptical of the arguments of everyone who proposes to know best how to use force and aggression, including me and my arguments.

The tough part is that force and aggression are a natural and regular part of our lives while we are considering those ideas and arguments and squaring our consciences and thoughts with more realistic and genuinely ideal conceptions of how force and aggression should be used.

Meaning, we're going to make a lot of mistakes, no matter what we do. Not just around this principle, but around every principle we operate from in our lives. That alone should humble our sense that we should be out working to take everyone down for what we believe to be their mistakes. And that really is the rub and often the tragedy of it all. Too many people want freedom largely around their ability to take away the freedom of others. It is those mistakes which they perpetually rationalize that propensity to limit always-too-small sphere of freedom that individuals enjoy in a liberal democracy. Interdependence is an important and irrevocable part of modern, liberal democratic life. But genuine interdependence must genuinely respect genuine independence before it can become more genuinely interdependent. And that is an inescapable reality of modern, liberal democratic life, as well, whether the proponents of force to solve every problem want to face that reality or not.

That was the final undoing of both the Nazi and Soviet regimes. Nazis underestimated the need for independence and the commitment to free and democratic principles that liberal democratic peoples brought to their relationship with the Nazi regime and World War II. And the Soviets underestimated just how serious that same commitment was felt by both its satellite states and its own citizens, despite so many irrational impulses they all often brought to Soviet politics to the contrary.

The proponents of force, pressure, and aggression as a general governing philosophy are similarly underestimating the seriousness of the commitment to freedom and independence that free peoples will and do bring to this question currently. Free peoples can be cowered by a show of force for a time. But they always find the courage to fight, work, think, write, protest, and otherwise demonstrate that serious commitment to their freedom and independence.

And the most liberal democratic values and principles always will out in the end because they are the strongest values that humanity has yet developed.

And the brilliant thing about liberal democratic values is that insofar as they are lacking in their capacity to understand and deal with the challenges to those values that they regularly face, they have as a fundamental principle that gives the freedom and responsibility to those who would elaborate, expand, and otherwise improve upon those values and principles and understandings.

That principle cannot be accomplished by force. It can only be accomplished by freedom of responsible, engaged thought. And such responsible, engaged thought cannot take place in an environment where force is the primary philosophy of governance. So it must take place in the hearts, minds, and thoughts of those who care about those values more than do those who would otherwise cripple that capacity.

Someone will rationalize least possible necessary aggression to achieve ends that have nothing to do with an honest appreciation for these principles, I almost guarantee it.

And the only antidote to such abuse is for people who are more genuinely committed to liberal democratic values and the freedom that it is predicated upon to engage it honestly and to argue the more genuine case. Abuse of force can sometimes be checked with modest uses of force. And often, as with Al-Queda, for instance, where there is very little that seems negotiable or reconciliable in their ideology, much more substantial force is necessary to defend against attack.

I also happen to hold the now unpopular view that a war may have been the needed action to liberate Iraqis. The question for me was how to avoid the problems of Vietnam and a foreign army liberating an indigenous population that may identify more with its oppressors than with its liberators. I opposed the war, up front, because I thought this issue was far too serious to ignore and to not discuss and debate, up front, how a war in Iraq might be engaged to avoid the problems of Vietnam. I think collaborating with Iraqi opposition groups and their alligned militias, allowing them to lead an effort that we would back with overwhelming force and working closely with local, indigenous groups of Iraqis could have helped us undercut this insurgency, politically, where all of its political and, thus, military oxygen is derived. Without political support the insurgents have very little to fight for and very little psychological and material support for their efforts (the same would be true in Palestine if the Palestinian people would find the courage to give up their support of terrorist groups that clearly and objectively undermine their cause, their security, their culture, their economy and their day-to-day lives if they would find the courage to face that fact, that their support for terrorists is the single most important cause of the misery in Palestine, despite the admittedly miserable conditions also created by Israeli occupation). A more open-minded, open-hearted, open-ended debate and discussion about this war, up front, might have elicited ideas like this to avoid the problems we have experienced. I'm sure that there are many other very good ideas that thoughtful folks might have offered. But they never got much of a chance, is my point, because people got into a mad dash for action rather than taking thought and engaged differences and discussion more seriously.

Ultimately, all matters of the mind and heart are won or lost in and by minds and hearts, not by force. Force is a temporary fail-safe. It is not a sustainable means of persuading hearts and minds more honestly. And it is only that persuasion that can possibly sustain a genuine commitment to the principles and ideas that liberal democratic peoples or even peoples with less experience with liberal democratic values, like the Iraqi or Palestinian and all peoples, take seriously.

Love,
Ben

Independence

I have three posts about the debate in Iraq about withdrawal of American troops, wealth inequities, and middle school teaching and management that I've started but not finished because I'm trying to get schoolwork done. I'll post them as soon as I have some free time to finish them.

In the meantime, I want to say something about my experiences here at Eisenhower and at KU.

This period of my life has taught me one thing more than anything else:

I no longer trust any one group, ideological, class-based, which side of the tracks they are on, or otherwise, inherently for any reason at all, anymore. I look at individuals much more closely, these days.

And in the future, my sole and most important criteria for how I want to work, where I want to work, who I want to work with is who will respect my freedom and independence most. Knowing that this may not happen in any group of people in my lifetime, I want as much independence from all groups of people, as much as is possible.

I now and always have plenty to learn to make me better at whatever I do and to have that kind of independence. But I no longer want to ever be dependent on any group of people as long as I live. I don't trust groups, generally, anymore, unless they respect my freedom and independence. And I don't care what they call themselves or what cause they are alligned with anymore.

When I think about it, this makes it worth it to have my life turned upside-down the way it has been in the last 5-6 years (since Brandi and I broke up and since I left grad school).

Because I do not want to spend my life with anyone who can't respect my independence and conscience more seriously than that.

Contrary to Caleb Carr's assertion in the first What If? series that America would have been better served under British rule, outlawing slavery earlier in its history and avoiding a bloody war in the process, the American Revolution was not, primarily, about slavery or taxation or representation or preserving fortunes.

The American Revolution was about independence. It was about freedom and democracy. And the liberal values and institutions that freedom and democracy made possible to flourish were more important than any other issue that American faced.

That is my feeling for my own life. My efforts, right now, are not, primarily, about ideology or politics or any particular issue. They are, primarily, about independence and the liberal values from which all other decent things bloom.

And I don't give a shit, anymore, about any particular group who I may affilliate with, anymore, except insofar as they respect those liberal values and independence and freedom. I don't trust anyone to look after me better than me ever again.

Love,
Ben

I am so tired of this bullshit clogging up the political dialogue

Richard Perle writes this bitter, recriminatory piece for the Washington Post today that epitomizes everything that is fucking up American politics today.

How the CIA failed America

I have to say that I am beyond tired of this shit. Perle spends an entire column pillorying George Tenet for a comment he made about a comment he argues Richard Perle made about what rationale was responsible for the run-up to the Iraq War.

I am beyond tired of this shit. And, more importantly, I am beyond tired acting like it accomplishes a goddamn thing.

Perle and Tenet, both, are doing exactly what you would expect from a recriminatory, aggressively investigative, and whether they want to admit it or not, a bitter and cynical Washington culture that is a fucking cancer on the body of American culture.

Why do we continue to mindlessly engage in this kind of bullshit like its actually accomplishing something?

Does constantly going over what wasn't done leading up to 9/11, what stupid arguments got made or lies were told leading up the Iraq War, what mindless strong-arming and brow-beating that took place 40 years ago, 20 years ago, 10 years ago, and even today...

Does any of this really accomplish a goddamn thing?

No, is the short answer. The long answer is that it is all meant to cover up and pretend that such behavior is less bitter, recriminatory, vengeful, thoughtless and otherwise ignoble than it really is.

It's not just thoughtless and ignoble. It's this massive, insane, persistently denying and deflecting waste of time. It is all this aggressive posturing and these aggressive take-downs, threats, and otherwise ugly, nasty behavior that leads to all of the lying, the blame-shifting, the avoidance of responsibility, the denial, the pretending like things are going better than they are, the cover-your-ass mentality, the everyone-keeping-their-mouths-shut-for-fear-that-they-are-next mentality, the cowardice, and this long-running hope that if everyone just sticks to script on this one then all those problems will go away or that everything will just go back to way things were in the past which is always imagined and dreamed up as somehow more hunky-dorry than it really was or is.

I am so fucking tired of all of this bullshit. I am most tired of all of the really fucked up consequences following this bullshit and everyone saying, "Yep, things are going good" or "Things can't get better than this" or "This is what progress looks like" or "Nothing we can do about things today, because they just aren't the way they used to be" or every other fucking excuse that people have for why their bad behavior has so fucked shit up, in Washington and in everyday life.

There are consequences for bad behavior, including and especially pretending like recrimination and bitterness and cynicism and rash and petty "action" really are the noble means of dealing with life and that forgiveness, decency, constructive vision and engagement, room for conscience and discussion and disagreement, thought and making mistakes and learning really are just the bane of civilization that has held us back all these years because people who allow for it just keep undermining the otherwise brilliant methods of the more recriminatory among us.

Fucking drives me crazy.

Recrimination is bad behavior. I don't care how you cut this one. People who maintain recrimination and bitterness as virtues are rationalizing, creepy people who need to face up to their bitterness and ugliness and stop pretending like it is better than it is.

This is not just Richard Perle or George Tenet or Elliot Spitzer or Robert Byrd. It is the whole goddamn bunch of political folks in Washington and around the country, save for some much more decent and good-hearted folks like Bill Bradley and Dick Lugar. I don't agree with Bill and Dick on everything. But, down-deep, they are more decent people than so many of the cynics and the vengeful, recriminatory pricks who are constantly fucking up Washington and politics, generally, in this country.

I am tired of this shit. I am tired of it masquerading as something better than it really is. I am tired of people treating it like it is better than it really is. I am tired of it constantly fucking up relationships between folks and trust in government. I am tired of it constantly holding sway.

And most of all, I am tired of it pretending to be progress for the last fucking 7 years.

It is bullshit, is what it is. It is ugliness pretending to be pretty. It is pettiness and bitterness pretending to be better than it really is.

It is all of us rationalizing our small, petty, ugly, indecent instincts and pretending like they are better than they really are.

9/11 and the War in Iraq are done deals. This whole godforesaken political period is a done deal (that really is the most cynical part about it, since many of these people, right and left, I read and watched rationalize this fact as a part of their lead up to this period. They knew that more forgiving folks would have to forgive them for their bullshit. And they did it anyway, to take advantage of and manipulate their more decent, forgiving, good-hearted ways. Because they're manipulative fucking pricks is why. But manipulation isn't leadership. So eventually people will see through this bullshit. Until they do, I will call bullshit on it every fucking chance I get).

9/11 and the invastion of Iraq are done. They are behind us. What is ahead of us is the opportunity to constructively avoid more of the same bullshit. What is ahead of us is the opportunity to think and discuss and debate and disagree and reasonably and realistically consider what we might do next to avoid these kind of tragedies and to make the best of the situation in Iraq so that we can make sure that as little tragedy as possible takes place and so that opportunity can be found even amidst danger, as John F. Kennedy used to say.

I am so fucking tired of this bullshit clogging up the political dialogue. I am tired of us pretending like it is better than it is. I am tired of us pretending like we are better than we are when we are engaged in it. And I am tired of people pretending like this is the only goddamn option when it is perfectly fucking clear to those same people that there clearly is a better, more decent, more good-hearted and noble way forward; they just keep refusing to take it because it's harder than being a prick and there is nothing they hate more than taking the harder, more thoughtful, more decent route.

I am tired of this shit clogging up efforts in schools like the one I teach in. I am tired of this shit getting so much political traction in Washington and around the country and around the world. I am tired of this shit being treated like it is moral and noble when it could not be farther from either of these things. The ways that this stuff is rationalized in the name of Islam, Communism, and all sorts of despotism really is the worst ways in which this ignobility and corruption of spirit are most clearly confused with real deal morality and nobility that it makes my stomach turn.

It makes my stomach turn that people would confuse it here at the beginning of the 21st century after we spent an entire century earlier turning back all this nonsense in Germany, Italy, the Soviet Union, and elsewhere where people got so stuck in it they couldn't, and wouldn't, just face up to what a nasty, terribly, inhumane, indecent, and ultimately stupid, foolish, and destructive way it was to lead a country or humanity. It makes my stomach turn that people could pretend and pretend and pretend that they are more decent and good and thoughtful than they really are and that people will just keep eating that shit up and being taken in like fish on a line just because they can't face up to their own ugliness or their own gullibility.

I am tired of this shit festering and being nurtured among the cynical realities of a world too cowardly to face up to its cynicism or its cowardice.

I am tired of people looking at all of this bullshit and saying, "Well, there's nothing we can do."

I am tired of living with and being subject to all of this cowardice and lying and bitterness and nasty human behavior and everyone saying, "This is how it is supposed to be."

This is not how it is supposed to be. Where is all the fucking progress? Where is it? In Nancy Pelosi becoming the first female House Speaker? Give me a fucking break. In the firing of all those attorneys from the White House? Or the firing of Richard Clarke? Or the firing of all these conservatives? What the hell kind of progress is that? In the outcasting of Mark McGwire and Barry Bonds from Baseball's Hall of Fame? What kind of bullshit is that?

This is not progress. I don't care how much you lie about it. I don't care how much you try to manipulate it.

What is progress is people like me calling bullshit on it rather than cheerleading it and acting like it is somehow better than it is.

This is repression and regression, pure and simple. This is the repressive amongst us looking to make all the bad stuff go away by punishing it, hurting it, pushing it down and our own repressive instincts creating a regressive reality that we are responsible for whether anyone will take responsibility for that fact or not. This is humanity regressing to its lowest common impulses. This is not humanity embracing its base instincts. This is humanity pretending they don't have them and all the while resolving to beat the shit out of the ones they see and acting out on their basest impulses while calling them something more noble than they are.

This is human ugliness is what it is. And it is all the rage these days. And it is getting play in Washington, in the press (which is where the really corrupting power is at, these days) on television, on the radio, in the music industry, in the movie industry, in schools, in churches, in families (sadly).

This is human ugliness pretending to be something better than it really is.

And it is really, really, really old, at this point. It is really old to watch this bullshit constantly disrupt and fuck up more decent engagement with one another because people just can't let go of the bullshit.

If you can't let go of the bullshit, shut the fuck up, sit down and get out of the way of people who will be more decent than you. And work on being more decent. But stop pretending like your bitter, recriminatory impulses are something better than they really are. And stop stomping all over people around you who are trying to make things genuinely better.

I am tired of this bullshit clogging up the political dialogue. And I am tired of it clogging up my life. I am tired of this bullshit dominating dialogue rather than the real deal, thoughtful, decent, deeply considered, engaged, open-minded, open-ended, give-and-take, freedom-respecting, conscience-respecting, forgiving, loving, good-hearted discussion and thought and debate in the world.

I am tired of all of the ugliness dominating the good.

And I am tired of all of us looking at it and saying, "Yep. That's the way things are supposed to be."

I am going home. And finding some sanctuary from all this ugliness.

Love,
Ben

Needing something better

I've been feeling shitty all day, today. Feeling taken advantage of, used, and otherwise shit upon.

I've realized since visiting other schools that the school I work at is really shitty. I'd never let my own kids go here, is the truth. Not with how it is run, currently. This is a school of last resort. That's why I wanted to work here, because I have a genuine commitment to kids who are more often left behind that no law could ever mandate that teachers or anyone else have.

But I'd never let my kids go here, is the truth, as long as it was run the way that it is. Meaning, as long as kids and the job is treated like a neverending burden rather than a responsibility freely taken up.

Today, it feels like a burden. In a serious way. If I felt like this every day, I would hope that I would leave this job or any job, especially one where you are working with people or children, and go find something better.

But many people don't. And many, many teachers and administrators teach and work in my school feeling the way I do today most of their time in schools. That is a sad fact of life.

I have an assistant principal who epitomizes this fact more anyone else I know. She clearly doesn't like her job, most days. She clearly doesn't seem to like life much, most days, is the truth. And she doesn't say or do much that inspires much respect for her, except that she keeps slogging it away in a job that most people wouldn't want. Someone needs to want her job because someone probably needs to replace her. She just isn't that good an administrator, and I don't suspect that she was that good of a teacher. She just climbed the ladder with ambition that outweighs her abilities. It's the saddest thing to see happen anywhere, especially in positions of authority. But I imagine it happens all of the time. She was largely responsible for my dismissal, I suspect. And she has been a miserable administrator to work with most of the time.

And I cannot wait for my 6 additional days in this job to be up more than anything else because I do not want to feel like this in any job for any period of time and hopefully never (a guy can always wish). And one of the more important things I've learned in my life is that I would never want to grow up to live the miserable life that this assistant principal leads, who doesn't seem to like people, at all, much of the time, including herself.

I am making plans for how I can have a much happier life, largely. A job where I get hassled least and constructively challenged most and independent wealth are both routes that I will be working on developing. I just can't ever see myself, again, living a life that is subject to the whims and groupthink and popular impulses of a persistently feverish, inconsistent, and often intellectually dishonest mob of whatever folks I happen to settle down my career and life with.

I want a life of independence. I want to spend my life with people who have something constructive and decent and thoughtful to contribute to it. I want to never again or a little as I can possibly encounter be under the thumb of anyone, especially someone who doesn't think as much as I do. But I really don't want to be under the thumb of anyone, is the truth.

I don't want to ever deal with a situation like this, again, and wonder, "How did my life get turned upside down? And who are these people condescending me?"

But, most of all, I just don't want to feel like this all the time. How I'm feeling today. I don't want to feel like this, at all, is the truth. And I will do anything I can to make that a reality in my life as much as possible for the rest of my natural born life.

I used to love school and respect authority, generally. I respect people of all stripes. And I follow authority, generally. But I don't respect authority figures because of their authority, anymore. If you have something deep and significant to contribute to my life, then I respect you. If you don't, and especially if you think that authority is some kind of substitute for that, I pity you, is the truth. Because your life is so bankrupt that you don't even know the unique thrill of studying or learning or teaching or sharing insight into those deeper truths of life.

I got an email from my advisor/professor from grad school the other day. And I remembered why I loved professors so much. Not because they were perfect. They're not. But because they are, often, the least arbitrary and the most thoughtful of the people I have dealt with in life, generally.

But maybe it's just mostly because they live in community where ideas and deep thought is taken seriously, even if they don't always have their heads completely wrapped around those thoughts or ideas or even if some of them are boorish and rude and overbearing just like so many people outside of a university.

At least they care about something that matters.

And I need to get back to that life, as much as possible. And perhaps I need some level of independence even from that life.

But anything would be better than how shitty I feel right now, frankly.

Here's to hoping there is something out there that might fit the bill. I really need it.

Love,
Ben

The beauty of freedom

I am discovering in my 5 years since leaving school the risks and pitfalls of freedom, but more importantly I am learning the possibilities, real world lessons and experiences, and beauty of freedom.

Do you know what the best part of freedom is? That no matter what choices you make - good or bad - they are your own.

And 5 years of more substantial freedom since leaving grad school has done for me exactly what I wanted from it (and more, really).

It has put my life squarely in my hands.

And you want to know the best part?

For all of the scares and concerns that people have had for me and for the world where more freedom was available, I have far more confidence in my abilities, today, to have the life that I will love - a life of teaching and writing, a life of financial security and wealth, a life of helping others and being an example of self-discipline and responsibility and contribution, a life with freedom and free time to be with people I love, especially family and friends, and a life where I can be the kind of example that my children and others can learn from and then improve on my example as much as they are able and with as much potential as is humanly possible - with all that freedom, including all of the trial and error. Lately, I've experienced a lot of both trial and error, but that is where the learning takes place and it is where living a life without a safety net - until I build a more substantial one for myself, that is, than I could ever depend on government or a family member or a job or anyone other than myself to possibly create for me - becomes so worth living.

This experience, more than any other I've had, has made my life more genuinely secure upon my efforts and intellect and habits for a more genuinely secure future than I ever could have found in a job pension, a government check, or the hopes for an inheritance or a lottery payoff.

It also is the single most important learning experience of my life, I'm convinced. And this kind of life, I'm convinced, even though it is just beginning in a meaningful and self-directed adult way, is exactly the general sort of life that most people would benefit from were they to think beyond their immediate gratification, their fears for their financial future, or their perpetual efforts to fit in with the crowd. As Benjamin Graham, the successful investor and investment teacher who Warren Buffet most credits with his wealth and who he says influenced him most besides his father, argues accurately, I trust, it is not what others think about a stock, and I would argue about politics or parenting or teaching or science or life or anything. It is the facts and the analysis. And the kind of intelligence that can take advantage of those facts and analysis is the kind that is as free and independent as possible. That is why freedom, and intelligent use of that freedom, is the single most important factor in overall life success among the most successful people in the broad array of fields of which I have kept track.

My fortune is not made yet. Neither is my career as a policy theorist, writer, teacher, citizen, political participant, and school, university, and community leader (perhaps I will run for some office at some point; it's not my main ambition, in the least, but I'm open to the idea if the opportunity looks right). I have no family. Or wife. I don't even have a girlfriend, presently.

But I do have a thoughtful, realisitic vision for my life and for the world, generally, and a patient commitment to see it realized and for the ideas to be left behind that can realize it if and as people make better choices. And I have the confidence that only freedom and responsibility can offer a person.

Any person. Without freedom and responsibility, we are all slaves. As Bill Buckley argues, the greater degree to which we are taxed or have our freedom limited, the greater our slavery is.

And, for all our fears, it is ironic that only with freedom comes the only real confidence and security that we can ever really know that our lives are on solid ground.

And that is the beauty of freedom.

I have to try to sleep if I can. Enjoy the cool spring evening, if you happen to be lucky enough to have one like ours.

Love,
Ben

Focussing on my weaknesses

I'm really sad.

I can't seem to get anything right, these days.

Everyone I encounter seems to look at me through my weaknesses. I can't ever seem to be appreciated for my strengths, anymore.

I don't know if it's good guys finishing last or the fate of a strong and independent mind or people assuming I must not be tough enough or hard enough or imposing enough or rules-adhering enough or if I'm just an ordinary joe-schmoe having life not work out, sometimes, like anyone else.

I've decided that I'm going to spend the next few months giving very careful attention to my major areas of weakness around organization, financial issues, legal/rules issues, appearance, and anything else I can think of. I give all of these issues considerable attention. But not as much as some people.

The bottom line for me is that I don't want my ideas to given short shrift ever again for any reason whatsover. I don't want my mind to be overlooked ever again for any excuse that people can find. And I don't want my heart to be an excuse for anyone to ever take me for granted ever again.

The woman and people I'm looking to spend most time with, I'm sure, will not have these problems with taking such strengths for granted, I can only hope, since I can only hope that my strengths will be as important to them as they are to me.

But I don't want anyone ever again to have an excuse ever again to take me for granted. I want to beat all other relevant expectations so soundly that I'll never have to experience this feeling with people ever again.

I am tired of being an exotic oddity with people and to have them focus on weaknesses that, for them, are strengths, all because they don't appreciate, well enough, the significance of intelligent thought in their own work.

It's important whether people recognize that or not. It may not be the most important thing on a basketball court (although it's important there, too). But most other places, it is more important than anything else because it is the resource from which every other problem is resolved.

And my job, now, is to make that so abundantly clear that that fact can never ever again be avoided by anyone I ever work or spend time with again in my life.

Anyone who fucks me over with good intentions only gets credit for their good intentions from here on out, and anything, honestly, that they might have contributed. But I don't romanticize Brandi or KU or Eisenhower, anymore. I love what I do. And I love people, generally. But I don't romanticize them anymore. I want to fall in love. But I want to fall in love with someone on her merits. I want to do and work somewhere I love. But I want to work and do what I love based on its merits. I always want to be paid and promoted and honored and appreciated for what I love. But I want to be paid and promoted and honored and appreciated based on my merits.

I'm on a mission to make so crystal clear my merits that noone will ever be able to credibly say boo about them, again, except to help me and others improve and only have credible criticisms in those situations where they are right. And my efforts will be to anticipate those criticisms as often and as thoroughly as I can as much as I am humanly possible. And when people do have criticisms that say that I can't play on the team ever again, they better have a good argument.

I just hope I never develop dementia. Because I will be hell to deal with if I do:).

Love,
Ben

I can't live like this

I can't be someone who fucks over others to look after my own ass. My conscience won't let me. After this week, I find myself asking, "Who would you be becoming if you became a dick just to join the crowd?"

I'm just tired of being pushed around and eating shit. I can't be that kind of person, is the truth. I'm a decent person and no amount of bullying can really ever make that go away.

I just want to have a life, again, where I can be decent and have that be appreciated and not always have me as a target for what it means to be too nice.

Love,
Ben

My life really fuckin' sucks right now

Can I just say that my life really fuckin' sucks, right now?

The problem is that I don't trust anyone else, either. It's everyone dick for himself, these days. And I'm learning that as much as I'm frustrated with myself, these days, there is noone else I can trust but myself.

The one good thing I have going for me, right now, I think, is that I am as determined as hell to beat the shit out of any competitor I come across anymore. I am tired of getting shit on. I am determined to win at all costs, at this point. And I have no loyalty to anyone anymore.

I do wonder who I am becoming, these days. I also know that I don't trust anyone anymore. This life of pressure and leverage and force is every man for himself. And in a world like that, I only want to come out on top. If people become willing to face up to that legacy, then perhaps I will give up my more aggressive stance. Until they do, my new resolution is that if the world is one of survival of the fittest and who has the most leverage and power, then I will do everything in my power to outleverage every son-of-a-bitch I encounter.

Aren't you proud of the progressive world we have created? Hooray for progress, huh? It's just kind of overwhelming how much better it has made everything, isn't it? Economic slowdown. Mild stagflation, says the Economist. No resolution in sight for a reasonable, thoughtful Iraq policy. Not to mention an education policy that is full of good intentions and unintended consequences.

But the liberals and conservatives I read and talk with don't seem to be, generally, open to rethinking this road.

So I guess I'm thinking it is time to get into a position to strongarm others rather than be strongarmed all of the time. I don't want to ever lose a political or otherwise arm-wrestling match ever again. And if I do, I want to make the lives of the people who beat me to be the most miserable fucking existences they ever could have imagined in their worst nightmares.

I guess this is how power corrupts, huh? I guess that's how politics gets so cynical, huh?

Well if giving into the cynicism is the price of not getting fucked again, I'm diving right the fuck in and I'm not coming out until I have the strongest arm around.

This is what progress looks like. Congratulations to the progressives of all stripes, liberal and conservative, who made this happen.

Love,
Ben

Seeing my most serious blindspots

Randomly, today, I was reading about Warren Buffet, his investment strategy - called value investing - and my roommate passed me his biography.

And I saw two of my most serious blindspots, today.

Buffet is a much more conservative investor/risk-taker than I am used to being in my life. He prefers the simple, he likes to know his limitations, and he looks for enduring value (which is the essence of value investing).

Two quotations in Andrew Kilpatrick's book about Buffet, Of Permanent Value, sums up the lessons I learned today:

"Summing of Ben Graham's teachings (Ben Graham is the business professor whose teachings are the basis for Warren Buffet's investment philosophy): 'When proper temperament joins with proper intellectual framework, then you get rational behavior.' (Forbes, October 19, 1993).

And, "It's just not necessary to do extraordinary things to produce extraordinary results."

Warren's wisdom in investing and life helped highlight my two strongest weaknesses or blindspots, I think.

The first, and the one that's gotten me into trouble so often, is that while I have plenty of intelligence, I have a temperament from hell. I am passionate, but far too passionate. I am easily upset. Far too easily. I have discovered how to have more genuine control over that tendency by letting it loose enough that the temptation soon gives way to a more authentic self-discipline. It's been a good strategy, often. But as I see it, I understand why I shoot myself in the foot with this one far too often. Often when I want to be working, I cannot concentrate because I am overwhelmed with some strong feeling. I am learning more honest self-control as I see the mistake and internalize the lesson. But it has caused me a lot of problems, in the meantime.

The second and more important blindspot, I think, is that I prefer the complex to the simple far too often. It leaves me blind to the simple answers and the simple habits and truthes that show a clearer way if I will only pay attention. When I want an answer I go complex, even when, often I should look for something simpler. Buffet is an example of someone who knows how to navigate the complex world of investment with an appreciation for the simpler truthes in life. Instead of just choosing the simpler, more straightforward option, I prefer the complex, even when it gets me in trouble.

Both of these are examples of strengths that have metastasized because I have overdone them. Passion is great, but an even-keel is often what I need. And intelligence is useful, but complexity can often become overwrought. Often what I am missing is a simple appreciation for the more moderate and simpler habits and truths that make for a happier and more productive life.

Warren Buffet is brilliant, by the way, if you have not studied his strategies. If I was going to be an investor, this is who I would study. Not a bad idea, given that he is the richest investor in the world. But more importantly, because he's such a decent guy.

And, today, he helped me see important blindspots I've been missing in my quest for a life of freedom with responsibility.

Love,
Ben

Humbled

This is hands-down the most brilliant writing that I have read about the Iraq War, from military historian Frederick Kagan.

Congress and Iraq

Friends, Enemies, and Spoilers

Fighting to Win

And brilliant analysis of the tactics of the surge from another favorite military historian, John Keegan.

How will it work?

I am humbled, to say the least.

Love,
Ben

Cutting through the bullshit

Iraqi national Hoshyar Zebari pleads in today's lead Washington Post column:

Don't Abandon Us

Something that really cuts through all the bullshit.

Love,
Ben

Learning not to trust anyone but myself

I have learned a really important lesson after this experience at Eisenhower.

I don't trust anyone but myself, anymore. I don't expect loyalty or to be treated well by anyone except, perhaps, my spouse. I look after myself and have no interest in looking after others except insofar as it is a mutally supportive relationship.

I just don't trust anyone anymore.

I think that could be different. But not the way people are behaving, right now. And I have no interest, anymore, of putting myself in anyone else's hands, anymore, except for my own.

I completely understand why my Aunt Connie left teaching (an inner city school, no less) now. And why so many quality teachers leave the inner city for better pay and better school districts.

Because the truth is that helping others carries a significant burden, even for the most idealistic. It involves being bullied by do-gooders and by less noble folks, alike, who whine persistently about the poor state of their schools and their communities and, all the while, are often responsible for that poor state. I want no part of that, anymore, if people aren't willing to critically analyze their situation and engage in anything other than the aggressive, less thoughtful approaches which have gotten them in trouble in the first place. You want a dysfunctional community, I say, by all means. It's all yours. I just don't want to hear your whining when you refuse to change the very things that create your situation. It is very much like Palestine. If you want a better life, you will have to renounce the aggressive ways that have created your situation. If you refuse, you live with the consequences.

I have no interest in sacraficing myself for such causes anymore.

My future is completely open, at this point. I would like to teach and write, but I'm not wedded to it, at this point. My one, single, important criteria for my life is that I want a career and a life that I can feel good about and feel happy doing and perhaps contribute something to others. I have no interest in being a martyr anymore. And I have no interest in being bullied for the rest of my life, anymore. So anything that involves as little of that kind of treatment as possible.

But I feel no loyalty, anymore, to the cause of wealth inequities or inner city schools or poverty work as long as everyone involved refuses to face up to the very kind of self-centered, aggressive behavior that creates those conditions.

I don't trust anyone but myself anymore.

I know we can give up the more self-centered behavior that gets us into this mess. I also know that we will refuse as long as we refuse to face up to what shitheads we are.

All I know is that I won't be supporting shitheads, anymore, no matter what flavor they come in. And I know, at this point, that I can only trust myself while we pretend like this path is more noble than it is.

By the way: Notice how bullying renders you completely irrelevant to the people you bully? Yeah, and the crazy thing is that you didn't do any damn good.

And, at this point, I don't really give a shit either way about people who do this with me.

Or their causes.

Love,
Ben

Taking responsibility

I'm a little underwhelmed by this sad little political period and with myself.

The truth is that my organization is a mess. I've improved significantly and I'm on a steep and ambitious learning curve. But I still stink. I've worked very, very hard at it and I am getting things, slowly, under control. I'm frustrated with the slow pace. But I've dealt with this problem for most of my university life - 12 years - which were the bulk of my young adulthood. So the fact that I'm making as quick of progress on this, at this point, is a big deal for me.

But so many of the more aggressive ways that people dealt with me and this issue - many of which were outgrowths of a period of far too much stress, pressure, aggression, and fear on everyone's parts (each of those issues are highly corellated) - so completely and clearly undermined me and the development of my organizational and teaching and other abilities, as they have my entire life. I've said so to coaches. They've ignored me. I've said so to professors. They've ignored me. I've said so to bosses. They've ignored me. As a teacher and an authority figure I see better, now, why people in authority ignore those they have authority over. Because they grow calloused and arrogant about all of the responsibility they carry and all of the terrible ways that they get treated in the course of carrying out that authority.

And I don't care, anymore. As a rule, at this point, I don't trust people with authority and only turn to them when I have no other choice. My commitment, at this point in my life, is to keep them out of my life and my work, as much as possible, unless I trust that they are there to genuinely help. Too often, as a rule, that is not the case. So I will stay clear of them as much as possible as a rule, from here on out, until that changes.

And that's where humanity is stuck, right now. We keep treating each other shitty. So we pass it around. And pass it around. And pass it around. And pass it around. Or we don't, and we hold it inside until we let it loose on someone within our path. Sometimes it means losing our tempers. Cho Seung-Hui and Eric Harris and Dylan Kleibold gave up hope and let loose on several of their classmates. And we pass it around. And we pass it around. And we pass it around. And we pass it around. And we don't learn our lesson. And we don't learn our lesson. And we don't learn our lesson. And we don't learn our lesson.

And the biggest lesson of all that we don't learn from is that all that aggression undermines our ability to learn the lesson.

Why in the hell do liberal democratic peoples think that all that growth and development in humanity's history happens as we lessen our aggressive ways towards one another and create more freedom for people? Why in the hell do liberal peoples think that every most signficant advance in the path of liberal societies has involved treating someone better? Why in the hell do we think that all of our most important advances have involved putting behind us a more forceful, more aggressive, more repressive, more inequitable periods in our histories?

And then we spend the rest of our sad, miserable, cynical little existences hoping that we're not too decent, not too nice, not too generous or forgiving. Not too good.

The truth is that all of our fears make us assholes. And we're bigger assholes, as Jesus used to say, because we spend all our time pointing fingers at one another talking about what an asshole the next guy is and how our shit smells like roses, all so we never have to admit our failures and fuck-ups.

The truth, in my little corner of it, is that I've been a miserable teacher this year. I've been exhausted and overwhelmed by all of the paperwork and all of the aggressive attitudes from teachers and kids and parents and everyone that have all gotten glorified this year. I've been constantly emotionally drained by all of the bullying and the unrealistic expectations and the pushing and the otherwise shitty behavior that I've encountered from all kinds of people during this time. My organizational and time management abilities have always needed serious work - work that I have done and that I'm really proud of, at this point; I am really getting on top of priorities that have long been a much more serious struggle - but my ability to improve them has been persistently undermined by all of the bullying and more aggressive encounters I've had with people. It's really very seriously undermined both my teaching and my capacity to improve my capacities all year. I've got much work to do in that capacity. But my and I'm sure everyone's abilities have likely taken a hit because of it all. That's fine with me because it both reinforces for me how shitty that way of doing things is and it has definitely weakened my commitment to folks who behave in this way, no matter who they are.

And that is why people give up on one another and turn to any number of escapes or pursuits or destruction towards themselves or others to fill the space in their hearts that all of that aggression they experience creates.

And noone wants to admit the mistake. And noone wants to admit the mistake. And noone wants to admit the mistake. And noonne wants to admit the mistake. And we pass it around and pass it around and pass it around and pass it around. And noone wants to admit the mistake and noone wants to admit the mistake and noone wants to admit the mistake. And we pass it around and we pass it around and we pass it around.

There are only two pathes out of this.

Either we begin to cut it out.

Or we stay stuck.

Each choice will have consequence.

And we will all be stuck with those consequences until we face up.

It's either pass it around, pass it around, pass it around, pass it around.

Or it's beginning to cut it out.

That's it. That is the fundamental choice for humanity's road forward. That is where the only genuine progress lies.

Everything else is manipulative and self-centered and dishonest.

Either we will have the courage to admit that.

Or we will stay stuck and stagnate.

What we are doing, right now, I think, is growing. Very, very slowly. Very, very slowly we are facing this much more fundamental question for humanity.

All because we can't and won't be honest with one another. All because we are scared of the consequences. So we scare each other with consequences. So we are less honest. So we grow less quickly. And on and on and on until we face up to this ugly legacy.

You know why I'm so confident that we'll overcome this foolishness? Because there is no other way out. Everything else is a bluff and bullshit. Even the proponents of its alternatives know this. They've just just gotten too used to the bluff and the bullshit. But they know it's bluff and bullshit. When they're honest with themselves. Though that may be all too rarely.

And that is the question that humanity has to answer before it more genuinely begins to move forward: when are we going to get more honest with ourselves and one another?

It's ironic isn't it? How rarely people take responsibility in the era of accountability?

It makes total sense to me. Because the aggressive and forceful ways that we've approached accountability, these days, completely encourages us to withhold taking responsibility, and the forgiveness that goes with it. And we pass it on and we pass it on and we pass it on and we pass it on. And noone admits the mistake and noone admits the mistake and noone admits the mistake and noone admits the mistake. And we pass it on and we pass it on and we pass it on and we pass it on.

And the saddest thing of all is that we pass it on to the very children and young people who we say that we do it all for. And then when they grow up and they feel good about life and look forward to life and treat people better than we do, we look on them with suspicion and say, "You know why you're so fuckin' happy? Because you don't know the real world yet." The real world that we created and pretend is all going so much better than it really is. And we look at those same young people and we say, "You're so sweet because you're so naive."

All because we can't bring ourselves to face ourselves and do the one thing that we lecture them to do their whole lives:

To take responsibility.

And we pass it on and we pass it on and pass it on. And we don't admit the mistake and we don't admit the mistake and we don't admit the mistake and we don't admit the mistake.

Hitler carried on like that. Until he lost the war, that is. The Soviets did too. Until they fell apart.

And now we face the same choice. Do we listen to our consciences and admit the mistake? Or do we fail to admit the mistake and keep passing it on?

It is the choice that all of humanity faces. Every generation. Every lifetime. It is the choice that each person faces in their lifetime. Do I listen to my conscience, to my better angels? Or do I stubbornly refuse to face the mistake?

Jesus was right. It is easier to see this mistake in others before we see it in ourselves. And choosing to acknowledge that mistake is the fundamental choice that we face in our lifetimes.

May we choose wisely.

Love,
Ben

What engaging the culture war has wrought

For those liberals who were convinced that taking down conservatives was going to resolve important political and cultural issues and schisms, we sow what we reap.

Here is the consequences of the bitterness among conservatives that the most recent round of liberal political takedowns is sowing:

"In an exclusive interview with NewsMax Magazine, Bill O'Reilly declares that the U.S. is engaged in a "culture war" pitting those with traditional American values against "secular progressives" who want to overhaul the nation.

And O'Reilly is using his power as a top radio and TV "talker" to fight for those traditional values. Warrior O'Reilly says Christianity is under attack, identifies the country's most dangerous man, and scoffs at the influence of Hillary Clinton. Here's a sample of what O'Reilly has to say: "The far-left smear machine is already cranked up over ‘Culture Warrior.' You basically have to begin with the definition of the culture war. And it's between traditionalists who believe the country is noble — America is a noble nation, we can make mistakes, but basically at the heart of our system is a nobility that makes the world a better place – and secular progressives, who believe America is a deeply flawed nation that needs a fundamental overhaul."

NewsMax Magazine's October edition features a wide-ranging interview with O'Reilly — author of the new book "Culture Warrior."

Warrior O'Reilly says Christianity is under attack, identifies the country's most dangerous man, and scoffs at the influence of Hillary Clinton.

Here's a sample of what O'Reilly has to say:

"The far-left smear machine is already cranked up over ‘Culture Warrior.' You basically have to begin with the definition of the culture war. And it's between traditionalists who believe the country is noble — America is a noble nation, we can make mistakes, but basically at the heart of our system is a nobility that makes the world a better place – and secular progressives, who believe America is a deeply flawed nation that needs a fundamental overhaul."

He also states in the interview: "There isn't anybody more vilified in American culture than me. Why? Because I know what [secular progressives are] up to, and I know how they work."

And he says: "The Republicans fear me, not as much as the Democrats, but believe me, Dick Cheney isn't kicking my door in to get on ‘The Factor' because I've got their number."

O'Reilly is also unafraid of taking on his colleagues in the media. As for MSNBC's repeated attacks on his Fox show, O'Reilly said, "It's desperation. There has never been an operation that has failed as much as this operation. You've had a 10-year failure. Not one success." Perhaps O'Reilly's most surprising comments were about Hillary Clinton, a polarizing figure that's become the bogeyman for the right. Not so fast, says O'Reilly, who argues that Hillary is "not a hard core secular progressive" but simply a "knee-jerk liberal."

In his interview with NewsMax, O'Reilly also tackles the ACLU, George Soros, John McCain, Rudy Giuliani, Newt Gingrich and other figures on the national scene.

The accompanying NewsMax Magazine feature article "Talk About Power" takes an in-depth look at the world of talk radio and its impact on the nation, spotlighting NewsMax's Top 25 Most Influential Talkers in 2006 — including Rush Limbaugh, Don Imus, Michael Savage, Sean Hannity and Laura Ingraham.

The "O'Reilly's War" edition of NewsMax Magazine has been hitting newsstands across the country, including many Barnes & Noble, Hastings, Follett, Borders, B. Dalton, Books-a Million and other major bookstores, as well as Publix supermarkets in the Southeast."

I've tried my best to convince liberals to avoid this path. They refused. This is the consequence.

Here's my favorite question: who's going to take responsibility?

I'm sure it will be all those Democratic leaders in Congress. Probably all those radical and liberal activists. Perhaps it will be all those professors who have helped rationalized a leftist assault on conservatives.

Or, perhaps, worst of all, it will be noone.

How sad that would be. A world that is truly hopeless because noone will ever take responsibility for any of the most serious mistakes.

Except...

That world can't sustain itself. So something else will have to take its place.

Perhaps a world of that is less harsh and which allows for more genuine responsibility.

It really is the only honest way forward.

There is no culture war that will finally resolve our problems. Or an election. Or a final caged match where only one ideology comes out alive.

There is only a path that creates the space for more genuine responsibility.

And that is the path where we treat one another better and where we borrow from the best ideas, no matter where they come from.

That is the only path forward and has always been the only path forward, for as long as humanity will survive and thrive. And it is the only honest path forward for a humanity that is too scared and scary to make a thriving world less difficult to sustain.

Here's to a more genuinely thriving and sustainable world. It will only come when we pay closer attention and treat better our one most important resource on the planet: each other.

Love,
Ben

The problem that humanity has faced since its conception

It suddenly occurred to me, this morning, that I decided to take on the problem that humanity has been facing for 2000 years. How to get humanity more honest with itself given its propensity for aggression and force and repression to undermine that honesty.

I was just looking to make things better.

Honesty does tend to win out, in the end. But repression sure does get in its licks doesn't it?

Love,
Ben

Why I value honest discussion

Because shit like this is the alternative.

How the left led us into 9/11

Benjamin Barber introduced me to this little piece of joy on his blog at Huffingtonpost.com. I read his review of Dinesh D'Souza's new book and thought, "Liberal academic, brilliant, but definitely liberal bias, doesn't like Dinesh D'Souza. Big surprise. I guess I'll go over and see what Dinesh has to say."

And then I got over to Dinesh's website, and it turns out that Barber is largely right. Dinesh is kind of off his rocker with most of the stuff that I read and heard on his website.

And this piece epitomizes why intellectually honest discussion matters so much.

Dinesh, like a million liberal writers, does in this piece what intellectually honest political discussion is meant to avoid: stepping too deep into the bullshit.

Dinesh does what I find most distasteful among less intellectually honest and partisan thinking and writing: he blames his opponents for big problems in the world so he can avoid his ideological allies ever having to take responsibility for any of their mistakes.

It is one of the most detestable parts of politics that I can think of. Everyone wants the power, noone wants the responsibility.

And then everyone preaches responsibility at the world.

It's not just Dinesh, though. It's most adults, I'm slowly discovering. It's most people. Intellectual or not.

We're the biggest bunch of bullshitting hypocrits this side of liberal democracy, I'm discovering. All of us. Me included. Our kids have to look at us all and think, "What a bunch of fuckin' liars and hypocrits."

But what I value about honest discussion - about the most intellectually honest scholarly discussions and about the more honest parts of the free marketplace of ideas - is that its meant to cut through a lot of this kind of crap so life isn't such a fuckin' mess all the time.

Life is still a huge fuckin' mess. Largely because of all of the lying and bullshitting, to ourselves as much as to everyone else. And largely because of what bullies and dicks we are, always imposing ourselves on one another and making everyone afraid to just be themselves and say what's really on their hearts and minds.

But it's less a mess because of more honest discussions. Of which this piece by Dinesh should not be counted:).

The reason why the world is such a fuckin' mess is because we are all so fuckin' dishonest. And it is so dishonest because we are such fuckin' dicks, constantly hurting and otherwise trying to get one another. And then our more cynical, dickish natures say, "The reason why I have to be such a dick is because the world is so fucked up." And the reason why the world is so fucked up is because we are all so dishonest because people are such fuckin' dicks. And the reason why people are such fuckin' dicks is because the world is so dishonest. And on and on and on.

You know the reason why nice guys finish last: because the rest of us are such fuckin' dicks.

And there's no end to any of this shit until we start getting more honest about it. With ourselves, at the very least. And with one another, ultimately.

So many of the world's most serious problems are found in this little conumdrum. What dicks we become because the world is so dishonest and we are so dishonest with ourselves. And how dishonest and fucked up the world gets because we are such dicks. And round and round and round.

At some point you'd think we'd face up.

If for no other reason than to just be able to be honest with ourselves and one another and just be ourselves, for real, more with ourselves and with one another.

The dicks of the world are doing their damdnest to prevent that, right now. This is how dicks have done it for the entire history of humanity. To repress their own acknowledgement of their more dickish behavior, and to repress those around them in the process. And to make sure that we lie to ourselves and one another enough that we can all pretend that we are better than we really are. And the most dishonest fact of that tendency is that we all begin to believe it, too often. We all begin to believe the bullshit. Our own and others'.

That's how Nazis and Communists committed all that ugliness. Because good people were too afraid to be honest about what destruction and ugliness all that force and repression reaped.

It wasn't until good people decided to confront that dishonesty - with guns when necessary, in the case of the Nazis, but largely with honesty, in the case of the Communists and with our much more illiberal past and present- and the force and repression which created it, that it finally fell apart.

You know why nice guys finish last? Because we're all such fuckin' dicks. And my experience is that an awful lot of the nice people in the world are generally those with more genuine courage in the world. And the more people are dicks, in my experience, the more cowardly they really are down deep.

And I know that I would, in a million years, rather be a nice guy with more genuine courage than a dick who is really a coward any day of the fuckin' week.

Because that's what courage looks like, for all the pricks in the world who don't know the difference.

That's why I value honest discussion.

Because it takes more courage. Courage that most people don't have, frankly. And times like these separate those with more real courage and those who are more genuinely honest from the fakers.

Here's to the honest people and honest ideas and honest discussions of the world.

We need more of them.

Love,
Ben

Being right and liberal thought and liberal values

I was having a very humbling reflection, today. It was about being right. And how invested we all get in being it.

I was listening to a really interesting story on NPR about global warming, today. I agreed with the general premise of the show's producers: that the important debate about global warming is probably not whether it is happening or whether it is serious, but what we can and should do about it.

Now, I don't know that is true, obviously, in the same way that a climatologist might know or think it is true or not true. And I know enough about polemics in scholarly debates and discussions and about how self-righteous a bunch of academics who have a scholarly consensus can be, as if a lot of scientists believing something - say, like, a flat earth or a geocentric universe or longitude best deduced by astronomy or a physical world of Newtonian exactitude or the wisdom of eugenics in Nazi Germany - makes it true. Empirical reality makes things true. Scientists and scholars are forever just making their most educated judgments about what that empirical reality constitutes.

George Will is one of the most reknowned conservative thinkers in America for good reason. He's one of the smartest. And his principled classical liberal commitments are a large part about what I find most trustworthy about his thinking and his writing. George is a global warming skeptic, a position I respect him for because it is not an easy position to maintain, these days, when being skeptical about anything that is not part of the dominant, more forced consensus is looked upon as undermining the progress that every consensus is sure that it is bringing to the world.

I think, in all likelihood, that the climatologists and scientists who study global warming probably have a consensus for good reason. I don't know that to be true. And one could argue for a consensus for the use of pressure and force among political scientists, today, that could arguably be true and that I would still think was wrong until the arguments were made for me that would make clear why I was wrong. So I could very well be wrong to trust the claims of scientific consensus on this question. It could very well turn out to be yet one more political attempt to shortcircuit a legitimate scientific question and debate in the name of yet one more self-righteous claim on final truth around an important question. That really is the problem with force. It so fucks up the conversation because noone knows whether its proponents have arrived at an honestly best assessment of facts or ideas or whether they have just bullied their way to shortcircuit that discussion and those judgments because they have grown impatient that people just do not see things the way they see them.

It's also very likely to George is wrong and that the global warming skepticism that I have entertained in my own life is wrong and that the scientific consensus will help us avoid the problems that global warming may threaten.

It's also possible that George and the global warming skeptics will turn out to be right and that a lot of people convinnced of global warming and its calamities are playing chicken little as a means of proving how right they were all along.

What I know, from that discussion, is that some really smart people are going to turn out to be wrong. And it is the last and most serious weakness of smart people that they do not like to be wrong, especially about important stuff.

And yet it is so. Regularly. And yet they and all of us are regularly convinced that we are right, so much so that we can and should force others to reckon with just how right we are. And, yet, no matter how right everyone is, which of course implies that many of us are wrong, all of us believe that we are right enough to know that we cannot possibly bring progress to the world unless it is forced to reckon with the blunt certainty of our imposed finality in judgment.

Karl Popper must wonder why he did scholarly work at all, some days.

What I know is that on this question and on so many questions, some of us, necessarily, are wrong. And around our most serious questions, we are all wrong, often enough that it should give us pause about imposing ourselves on one another all the time.

I eat organic, but I often wonder if its really all that much healthier. And the Economist has written some really great organic-skeptial articles that very much have me questioning whether organic is the best way to eat. I think it's probably a good idea, given our already strong propensity to be exposed to carcinogens and other unhealthy chemicals. I don't know if its worth all the money, and I won't pay $11.00 anymore for a bottle of organic laundry detergent.

But what I do know is that there is no way that I want this or a million other healthy or liberal or whatever values imposed on everyone else, and I certainly don't want to pretend that doing so would be "progressive" or "liberal" in the highest sense. Doing so clearly would not be either, since it would continue to erode the very few freedoms that liberal minded people are constantly rationed out by those who do not value it or the values that support it nearly enough.

That skepticism, that ability to question and doubt and challenge and to refuse to profess belief in anything just because someone or many someones pressure to make it so is the most fundamental freedom and most fundamental liberal value that a liberal society holds dear.

And it doesn't matter if you are right or if you are wrong. What matters is the freedom to question and doubt and challenge and to make up one's own mind.

Without that freedom, freedom of conscience is a joke.

And it is that tragic joke which is being played off as "progress" or as the direction for the future or as the strongest values that liberal democracy has to offer that is so dominant in contemporary America and the world, right now.

It is liberal democracies looking to the theocracies and autocracies and despots and totalitarians of the world and the cultures that support them and saying, "See. We can be tough too. We are moral too. We can impose with certainty too."

And on and on and on will be our sad, little, insecure liberal democratic culture until we can have the courage to just embrace the freedom that makes liberal countries and cultures and values and people and ideas so great.

The logic of our contemporary liberal democratic culture says, "We are always and always will be afraid that we are too liberal. We will never be confident in our values because we are afraid that they make us vulnerable to the charge that we are not nearly as good or moral or tough or smart as our illiberal and less liberal brethren."

The truth is that we are afraid.

And one of our biggest fears in a liberal democratic world is that we are wrong, for fear that it means that we are stupid or fallible in a way that will justify every ugly or meanspirited thing that people may have said about us.

And the on-going and perpetual irony, of course, is that history is an on-going reflection on how we were never liberal enough. Very rarely do we look back in history and think, "If only we had just been tougher on those dissenters, those debtors, those Natives, those slaves, those women, those African Americans, those immigrants. If only we had been tougher on all of those Americans, then the world would be whole." Almost never.

And yet liberal peoples are constantly saying to themselves, in the moment, "We are afraid that we are too liberal." Always. No matter how far we move forward in that regard. We are always afraid, "I think I or they or all of us are too liberal. Too decent. Too kind. Too nice. Too lenient. Too merciful. Too generous. Too loving. Too compassionate. Too forgiving. Too good."

When, really, what are, far more often and far too often, is too self-righteous, too mean, and too sure and full of hubris that we have finally figured out what will finally fix all of our problems.

The truth is that I will think that George Will was one of the finest thinkers of the 20th century and one of the finest conservative minds of the twentieth century whether he got this question or any other question right or wrong for all time or just for now. And I will think that scientists engaged in empirical inquiry and research and scholarly debate are, generally, some of the most trustworthy people that inhabit our culture and I will listen to what they say above all other folks in the culture, generally, because I think, generally, they are the most careful thinkers and most honest members of our society.

And the plain fact that is that any and all of these people can and often are still wrong. No matter how much we might like to believe otherwise. And, generally, they will each be the first to tell you that.

I don't want to live in a culture where being right is taken more seriously than the thinking and the skepticism and the debate and the discussion and the forever open-ended engagement of serious matters of conscience where everything is now and forever open to questioning, skepticism, doubt, challenge, debate, and discussion.

And I certainly don't want a world where politics is held aside as an area of life where engaging serious questions with that level of integrity is not ever taken seriously because too many people are perpetually convinced of their self-righteous notions of the world.

What this period has totally clarified for me is that this is the most important value that liberal values and cultures have to offer. This value we put on conscience, and thought, and questioning everything we encounter.

I'm sure my kids must look at me and say, "If you believe in that kind of skepticism and questioning, all the time, why are you constantly expecting that we do exactly as you say without questioning you all the time?"

And maybe they have a point.

I'll have to think about that.

Love,
Ben

Learning my critics are right

I had a really huge moment of recognition, today.

My critics are right. My professors. My administrators. Brandi.

It is not just that I'm an organizational oaf, which I am.

It is that I have finally figured out the key to the problem that I have been spending nearly 15 years of my life, at least, struggling with. My problem with organizational detail and time and life management is that I have lacked the attention it has needed and the energy involved with constantly resolving issues involved with its priorities.

I had an interview today. Everything went great until I started talking about this problem, more openly. There were so many good reasons to be honest about it, but above them all was that so I could be honest with myself about this problem for me.

And so Devang and I walked and talked about this problem for me all night And all of a sudden it occurred to me that the larger problem, as he pointed out, was that I had not given the organizational detail in my life sufficient attention.

And what I realized shortly thereafter was that what Brandi Fisher and Jason Simon, a friend of mine, always had going for them in this department was that they had amazingly high levels of energy to give to their organizing and planning and creatively approaching the small details of life. And that took work. And I was just not giving enough attention to the organization and planning and details and I just wasn't giving life enough energy. And that is how so many higher achievers than me have given so much. And that is why my lazy, white trash roots matter. Because I'm lazy, white trash and I just don't give enough energy to life so I don't reap its rewards.

They have all been right. I have been a lazy, excuse-making loser. And that is why Brandi left me and that is why KU wouldn't keep me around and that is why Eisenhower fired me and that is why Olathe is not going to hire me.

Because I am a lazy, excuse-making loser.

And that shit has got to end.

Maybe all this thinking and political work and all of this has just been one big pretension and excuse for why I am such a a lazy, excuse-making loser.

I had two people in my life who I was very close to - Brandi, who was my best friend and later my girlfriend and who I spent almost every waking moment with for at least 4 years, and Jason Simon, our very close friend and the most organizing, detail-0riented, planning motherfucker that I've ever met in my entire life - both giving me the example I needed. But I couldn't heed it, even though it sat in front of my face almost every day of my life for more than 5 years because I was too much of a defensive dumbfuck to face up to my weakness on this one.

But as I sat in that interview, today, and the mood turned from eager and welcoming to wondering if they should have invited me, it started to occur to me that I have just been a defensive dumbfuck around this issue and that I lost everything because I could not face up.

I lost everything. Everything I cared about. And I still couldn't face up.

Because I didn't know what to do, is the truth.

I've got to get a shower and get to bed.

But, in the meantime, I'm beginning to wonder if maybe everything I've done has just been one big lie to myself and everyone else to explain away why I am such a fuckin' loser.

What else am I wrong about? What else can't I see?

How many more times do I have to lose a job or an opportunity or the love of my life before I face up to my weaknesses and make it my fuckin' business to get problems solved?

I feel like the biggest asshole in the world, right now. I lost Brandi because of this shit? I lost my opportunities with KU and with Eisenhower because of this shit? I have been thought the biggest fuckin' whiner and loser or the last fuckin' 15 years because of this shit?

But it's true. I have been a big fuckin' whiner and loser. How much of my bullshit is to cover for that fact, I wonder.

I don't know, right now. I need a shower.

Love,
Ben

Honest critique from honest observers

I just have to say that I don't think that there is anything more satisfying to read than honest critique from honest observers. I've been reading my friend Carson's letters today as we email back and forth about the election and the Democratic debate and just sit and kind of appreciate a little serious honesty amidst this period of lying and bullshit and never knowing who to trust in politics.

Robert Kagan has a really powerful critique of the guy I've been favoring for President, up to this point, Barak Obama, in today's Washington Post, which is really impressive.

Obama the Interventionist

I'm still chewing on it and I don't know what I think of it, yet, except that I know that Robert Kagan is one of the more honest conservative writers that I regularly read and this piece makes me take a second look at Senator Obama.

Robert does happen to be consulting the Republican that I am favoring, at this point, John McCain. So there's all kinds of reason to be skeptical of his take, except that I can often rely on Robert Kagan, must more than, say, E.J. Dionne, these days, who has been moonlighting as a polemicist over at the Washington Post and who is not nearly the serious thinker that folks like Robert Kagan or Fareed Zakaria or other more serious writers over there at the Post. When I think about it, it's kind of interesting that the Post definitely carries a liberal bias, especially these days, but how many serious conservative writers it carries and how few serious liberal writers it carries. Though, that may also be because people like David Broder and E.J. Dionne are seriously soiling their names, these days, with all of the propaganda streaming from pens that are supposed to be writing something more honest.

I don't know what I think of Robert's piece, yet, and I'm honestly kind of tired and ready for bed, is the truth, with it being 1:33 in the morning, here and all.

What I do know is that if what Robert says is an accurate characterization of Obama's recent words, he is right that we have a lot to be concerned from coming from Barak, even if it is not wholly honest.

Perhaps the best thing that can come from this whole godforesaken period is that maybe some people will take the cue from all of the overwrought propaganda in the news, these days, to maybe make some more seriously honest observations that don't constantly make me bend over backwards, all the time, trying to figure out if they're being genuine with me or not.

I think Robert Kagan is one of those people. I know Carson is, because he's a close friend and I know him well enough that he comes with generally intellectually honest intent. Maybe some more of that kind of democratic engagement could create a democratic culture and discussion that we could trust, more, rather than letting the cyncism keep our politics a crazy fuckin' mess all of the time.

I'll read on Robert's piece more tomorrow. For right now, I need sleep.

Love,
Ben