Thinking Simultaneous Thoughts
Glenn, MI
June 7, 2020
As a headline had it during the SpaceX launch last week, it’s a good time to get away from Earth.
That’s impractical for us, so we did the next best thing…and ran away from the world.
We needed a change of scenery, and some open space, so have returned to a place where no one needs to be told to “social distance”. Along this quiet coast of Lake Michigan, isolation is almost unavoidable, which is essentially the point. As is not being pestered by meddlesome busybodies who like to boss everyone around.
Not that they aren’t nearby. The current governor is off the rails, her rocker, and the charts. But we decided to take our chances in her beautiful state. Besides, she’s over in Lansing, and can be dutifully ignored. We understand that her siege is slowly lifting, with South Haven and other nearby towns slowly come to life.
Here in Allegan County, all is calm. Glenn doesn’t have police to lock people in their homes or pin them to the ground. Nor does it attract opportunistic vandals who attack the innocent to “protest” the guilty. This is a welcome sanctuary, a haven of peace and serenity.
But, for better or bitter, it does have WiFi.
That allows us to work, but also provides a window (assuming a brick hasn’t gone thru it) to the deteriorating public spectacle. We now make the mistake of moving closer, to get a better view…
We step thru the looking glass and into the social media rabbit hole. There we see reflections that are warped, twisted, inverted, and perverse. Despite the odd angles, curious contortions, and deranged distortions, they emanate mostly from one-dimensional minds.
According to the sanctimonious Platos, Ciceros, Lockes, and Humes who clutter online salons like trash in a Bombay alley, we should no longer expect to be left alone or to keep our opinions to ourselves.
These moral arbiters repeatedly pronounce that silence is complicity, and that we must all speak up. Then, in the next breath, they tell us that it is our obligation to “listen”.
Well, which is it? To be emphatic or empathetic?
It’s hard to pay attention if you’re constantly yapping. As we noted last week in a less pertinent context, the words “silent” and “listen” share the same letters. Coincidence? Of course. Yet an apt one…if only in a self-help, motivational speaker sort of way.
But this isn’t about an open dialogue or honest exchange of ideas. It’s more about exposing than understanding…about compulsion, not compassion. To “speak up” means to agree with them. To “listen” means to shut up if you don’t. All must toe the ideological line. It’s more Mao than Immanuel Kant.
As Nietzsche put it, insanity in individuals is something rare, but in groups, parties, nations, and epochs it is the rule. Riots and rampages aren’t new, tho’ their impetus may vary. A precipitating spark offers righteous justification for an outburst, which is then forgotten during the subsequent pillage.
The plebeians raged against the death of Caesar. Wat Tyler led English peasants against the deprivations of the Black Plague and an ongoing Hundred Years’ War. Hippodrome spectators ravaged Constantinople during sixth century Nika riots, inspiring our own ceremonial mayhem whenever a local team wins a championship.
But in those enlightened Dark Ages, average people saw thru vapid slogans and compulsory platitudes. They weren’t expected to voice obvious opposition to the Black Death, to robotically condemn wanton destruction of Hagia Sophia or censure mindless defacement of the Ara Pacis. These sentiments went without saying.
Those who felt obligated to say them were either signaling virtue or protesting too much. But most ancient commoners and Medieval peasants had more dignity and sense than to assuage their “guilt” by renouncing their innocence.
Nowadays. everyone is expected to spout off, to fire predictably approved perspectives from every platform in their online arsenal. The fusillade is eerie and unnerving. And not because the messages are “wrong” or “right”. But because they are so conspicuously alike. They are formulaic, trite, and inevitable. The same ones wash ashore after all social storms, like dead fish on a red tide. Meanwhile, the real toxin lies beneath the surface, pulling us down in an unseen undertow.
The style may vary. But from personal posts to company pronouncements, there’s a creepy uniformity to these declarations, reflecting the implicit way we’re all supposed to think.
Corporate messages are fairly boilerplate. They denounce injustice, defend tolerance, and stand with aggrieved groups. The only distinctions tend to be the branded logo framing the legal letterhead. It’s the vanilla ice cream of fashionable social consciousness.
The consciously chic corners of Facebook, Twitter, and Instagram are more flavorful, with colorful sprinkles adorning sundry scoops of empty calories. These contributions to the “national conversation” usually feature the measured commentary we’ve come to expect in this eloquent age…laced with elevated philosophic wisdom, deep historical perspective, and charitable assumptions about opposing motives.
Much of it includes the letter “F”.
On TV, we are blessed with a corporate press and political class that are adept at defusing volatile situations while de-escalating rising tension. It’s like having Tacitus in every newsroom and Solon in every statehouse. Pots are seldom stirred. Hyperbole is rare, invective unheard of. Subtlety is rampant, nuance ubiquitous.
Sarcasm is unknown.
The self-righteous pundits who are most vociferous about “social justice” tend also to be most fluid with fads. They show remarkable courage denouncing racism in 2020. They’re probably against leukemia too. With their finger in the wind and the crowd safely in front of them, they push hardest against every open door. But would these intellectual vanguards have opposed slavery in 1720, when the cultural currents flowed the other way? We don’t know, but leave it as a thought exercise.
That isn’t to say that anger isn’t justified. It is. And it’s overdue. But it must come from the right place, and focus on the right foe. Neither quality characterizes our most recent upheaval.
Pitchforks are probably warranted around certain police precincts that have become legitimate repositories for popular resentment. A cop caused a reprehensible death, while several of his partners acted as accomplices by tacitly looking on or tangentially taking part. Then, across America, many of their comrades winked at a continental wave of reactive violence.
Modern police are no longer Barney Fife and Bernie the cop. They have devolved from nightstick and badge to armored vehicles and military gear. They are perceived less as peacekeepers than occupying force. And for good reason. Among those they supposedly “serve and protect”, they rarely instill comfort, but they often provoke fear.
The police force appears to many to be what Lysander Spooner said of the Constitution. It either permits what has happened, or is unable to prevent it. Either way, it is unfit to exist.
Rot infects many police agencies, and among them are bad cops. There are also plenty of good ones. But there are few commendable rioters.
Torching towns, desecrating churches, and pummeling old ladies in response to a murder is like invading Iraq in reaction to 9/11. It spares the real perpetrator, clouds the purported issue, and disguises underlying interests. But it does cause a lot of “collateral” damage, and unleashes plenty of useful idiots.
Recent urban rampages have caused more devastation than the incident that inspired them, and risk turning George Floyd into a footnote. These legions of looters should should sit squarely in the dock…and be read the riot act.
The preceding pair of opinions are not mutually exclusive, yet in the current cauldron they seem impossible to hold simultaneously.
It appears that every commentator or town-crier is now George W Bush. You are either “with” them or “against” them. We are implored to pick sides, show our true colors, and fight each other…even as the real enemy advances behind the curtain. A large number of people are happy to oblige. They seem incapable of critical thought, or of holding more than one at a time.
Why is that? Is it that difficult to simultaneously contemplate walking and consider chewing gum?
Perhaps it is. So let’s give it a shot, and see for ourselves.
Hillary is loathsome, and Trump is despicable. The virus is serious, but house arrest is harmful. Terrorism is terrible, yet the war on it is oppressive. Mugging is wrong, but wandering a bad neighborhood is foolish. We need not condone random violence to condemn police brutality. Holding reprobates accountable doesn’t countenance turning major cities into smoldering ruins.
There. Why is that so hard?
Maybe because condemnation of police brutality is not finally the point. Power is. And the people seeking it want the rest of us in our place, following their script, and playing our part. To these paragons of Diversity, conformity is key.
After years enduring such poor thinking, we are ready to heave it over the side, like a fish too small to meet the legal limit. But it is too slimy for us to get our hands around, so it keeps flopping around in the boat. And the odor is becoming unbearable.
Ultimately, the best and most obvious way to keep this ship from sinking is for incompatible passengers to hop in different dinghies, and row their separate ways. Rather than stay at each other’s throats, the civil remedy would be for people and states with such different values and divergent views to simply part in peace.
We don’t expect such a sensible separation anytime soon, but we do seek peace right now. Few places offer more of it than here. This house has been the highlight of many summers. It, and its owners, have seldom been more appreciated than they are now.
The place is up for sale, and potential buyers are starting to take a look. I’m not surprised, and I don’t blame them.
But for now, however tenuously, it’s ours.
We arrived last night, under cover of a descending darkness. I awoke this morning, poured some coffee, and wrote this screed. I then walked to the edge of the bluff. Below me, the waves are rolling in.
Behind me, out of view, the sun is rising.
JD
