Today I was reflecting on the strange cycle of distortion that a polarized populace and media have created, and how much it defines our view of the world around us. Having spent plenty of time living with the distortions and bias of the conservative media, it’s actually made it easier to see the same distortions and bias at work in the liberal media. Once you start to see through one magician’s trick, it becomes easier to recognize it when you see the same trick being played on another.
Perhaps you know what I’m speaking of. All those articles that cleverly sidestep Trump’s role in the various controversies that rage around him. How negative the media was (in reporting on all the times he undermined or contradicted the statements of his own administration). How crazed and irate the Democrats were (about his unprecedented dealings with Russia or Ukraine). How eager people were to trash him (who had left his administration or been fired from their positions within it). How critical people were of everything he said (such as his tendency to demean and belittle and employ name calling and petty insults and invective language against anyone who he felt negatively toward, even his own current and former allies and coworkers). All the attempts to skew the coverage of situations he either caused or worsened in a more positive light that frame him as a confused, innocent victim suffering the unjust slings and arrows of a malevolent campaign of terror. Trump is merely an innocent victim, even a persecuted hero, and in no way are deserving of any suggestion of criticism.
Having said all that and enraged the Trump apologists, but possibly excited the liberals, I have to report that I’ve noticed the same sort of thing happening in the liberal media. To pick a current and specific example that will similarly enrage the liberals but possibly delight the conservatives, I’ve seen it quite transparently in the reporting about the race protests currently going on in numerous cities across the country.
For example, I recently listened to a call for a charitable effort to rebuild the headquarters of a Native American foundation. The appeal mentioned that the facility had been damaged during the violence “that took place around the same time as the George Floyd protests”. A very careful parsing of words. It wasn’t damaged during the violence of the George Floyd protests, but by some other totally unconnected violence that just happened to occur at the same time in the same place. A very strange coincidence. It would, of course, be absolutely immoral and intolerable to suggest that there was any direct or causal connection between the protests and the building’s destruction.
And today in my local news there was an article about how protesters had gathered in such numbers as to block interstate 225 in Aurora, and one driver attempted to drive through the blockade. The jeep in question apparently did not hit anyone, but did manage to drive through the blockade. However, one of the protesters pulled a gun and shot at the jeep, and in the process caused a panic and shot two of the other protestors. A Denver school board member quoted in the article said he didn’t blame the shooter and reflected that it was actually a courageous and praiseworthy act. The important thing, he said, was their message and the justice they were seeking.
Such a monumental effort at political spin actually rendered me dizzy for a moment, it was so effective. So much care in the article was being put into not in any way criticizing the people who were illegally blocking a major public highway, legitimizing their act as a perfectly valid means of expression that any citizen might engage in, and the idea of a car actually attempting to drive down a highway as a shocking, transgressive, and antisocial act. The article also worked very hard to legitimize the catastrophic act of firing a gun in public, at a private vehicle, in the middle of a crowd, as if it were a reasonable or perhaps even praiseworthy act.
I don’t want to be overly critical. The article tried to present the facts, but it was careful to do so in a very diplomatic way which carefully considered the optics, lest the newspaper be accused of racism for criticizing the protest and invalidating their message. The police (who were themselves the object of the protest) were on hand to assist and give aid and seek to prevent further violence, but their role was minimized, except to mention that they had interviewed the driver and were seeking the shooter.
In this telling of events, by a mainstream news outlet attempting, it must be said, to be fair and unbiased, the protestors were definitely the victims (assaulted by a car that attempted to drive down the road they were illegally occupying and blocking), the courageous heroes (bravely resisting the passage of the car by carelessly shooting at in a crowded area), and in no way are deserving of any suggestion of criticism.
I’m both cases, both political parties are quite willing to deemphasize, ignore, or even redefine acts that are clearly antisocial at best and criminal at worst. In fact they’re even willing to cast it as a kind of heroism or victimhood, deserving of sympathy, inviting allowances to be made. And the examples I gave above for both are merely the tip of the iceberg.
Why? Why are such mental and verbal gynmastics acceptable? In fact that’s not even a good enough question. Why are such careful contortions not only acceptable, why are the necessary? Because, to be sure, they seem necessary to the people who make them. Why? Because the cause is righteous, and the important thing is the message, and any distractions or concerns must be ignored to preserve the message and the righteous cause. Our cause is justice, and to be against us is to be against justice. And so, also, to be for them is to be for justice. Thus even definitively illegal acts like blockading public highways and firing weapons at cars in crowded spaces can be considered heroic actions in support of justice.
This, of course, is exactly the sort of reasoning the Trump defenders use to protect their sacred cow, who frequently stumbles into the manure and forces them to bend over backward to shift focus so the cause can be upheld. Trump, of course, doesn’t make it easy. And his frequent bad behavior is enough to convince his critics of the utter corruption of his causes. And since, although his handling of and understanding of many issues is often completely shallow and divisive and sophomoric, not all those causes he supports are themselves without merit, so he completely undermines the legitimate value of those causes in the public discourse. He harms them rather than helping them, by reducing them to a grotesque caricature of themselves that no one who doesn’t already agree with you will consider listening to. And by forcing the supporters of those causes and concerns, many of whom are earnest and intelligent and dutiful, to spend their time supporting and defending and providing cover for his actions for the sake of supporting their cause, they inject it with a real corruption of dishonesty, spin, manipulation, willful ignorance, and combativeness.
In an effort to protect our causes, our sacred cow, from any external criticism, we end up granting it a license that surrenders control over it and abdicates any responsibility for its internal pathology and bad actions. Because we are no longer focused on maintaining balance and care over our actual concerns, but instead must bend all our efforts to protect it from the bad results it’s bringing on itself through its pathological expression, so it may keep advancing, we lose our legitimate perspective and control over it (which is always a bad idea and always harmful to a cause, any cause, as any endeavor can go bad and likely will if we don’t keep a careful eye on it).
As a former conservative and now currently independent voter, I’ve seen exactly this happen to the Republican party. Whatever its ideas were to begin with, it is now very much the party of Trump, and spends most of its time in apologetics on his behalf. Unfortunately, the same thing is clearly happening with the intersectionalists, critical race theorists, and postmodern social justice cancel culture in the Democratic party, as exemplified in the current protests.
In fact it’s so much the same thing that, in a strange way, it actually helps soothe my concerns about our fractured society and reaffirms my belief in our common humanity. People are so concerned for the advancement of the cause that they’re bending over backward to excuse the pathology of its expression, lest it get in the way of advancing the cause, unaware that their constant efforts to provide cover only serve to undermine the legitimate advancement of their cause in the eyes of so many. As with Trump, the corruption that is located in the efforts at cover and spin are seen as corruption of the whole cause.
Everyone is so concerned with proving that their cause is perfect and pure and righteous and their narrative is perfect, and they are the unsullied heroes and the other side are villains through and through. And they are all willing to do anything to protect that narrative, lest it weaken their moral claims. And, frankly, they likely believe it. Maybe some few are keenly aware of their selective compromises, but most probably make them because they truly seem necessary and justified. The ends justifies, or at least excuses and ignores or downplays, the means.
What, then, is the cure for such spin, even spin we use on ourselves? I would argue, simply being courageous enough to be honest with ourselves. So let us be honest. Trump doesn’t just get negative coverage in a vacuum. Even if you only followed what he said and ignored what everyone else says about him, you would have plenty of grounds for concern. He enjoys causing controversy to command attention, he’s a master at keeping the focus on himself, at being disruptive. He loves to fight, he loves to hurl insults, he’s often impulsive and thoughtless and provocative with his speech and actions. He’s been that way his whole life, and he’s often tested the patience of his own closest allies because of it. The revolving door of white house officials, many of whom leave insulting and being insulted by Trump, and his long series of fallouts with his own allies and officials and employees, is not entirely an invention of the liberal media.
And the effort to make it seem so, the willingness to compromise principles for optics and political expediency, is a large part of what completely deligitimizes all the efforts of his party in the eyes of those who do not share their sympathies and positions. Because although it might be hard (if not impossible) to see and understand the legitimate arguments and concerns of someone else’s platform, it is extremely easy to see the corrupt efforts they go to to protect that platform.
And let’s be honest again, the negative aspects of the George Floyd protests are also not entirely the invention of conservative pundits. There has been an immense amount of violence, crime, and property destruction. We’re a long way from a MLK era sit in. The liberal media has spent a huge amount of effort excusing and ignoring the illegal and pathological elements of the protests and tarring anyone who even brings these facts up as a racist. As for people who legitimately disagree with some of the premises, arguments, and solutions proposed, forget those people, they can barely even be granted space as a human worthy of living in polite society.
The unwillingness to accept criticism or adequately police our own side in the interest of tribal solidarity is exactly the behavior that gives the lie to our position in the eyes of the other side. Where a commitment to similar basic principles of behavior on both sides might form a common ground for confronting the excesses and elevating the excellences of both sides, a belief in the a priori and politically necessary perfection of our sides will only provide cover for their abuse and corruption and devalue our contributions in the eyes of those who don’t share our affiliations.
It is a pleasant fiction to imagine that if only we could protect our side from all criticism and resistance and make our point unopposed, if only we could have things our way, all would be well with the world ans our great project would be completed. Unfortunately, there are two great facts that stand as obstacles to the goals of both parties, that will ultimately ruin all the best efforts of both and are a constant frustration to all they do, so long as they ignore them.
First, there is the simple fact that we are all equally human, meaning that we are all equally prone to dishonesty, greed, resentment, anger, vanity, and self-deception, and we are all equally capable of letting our best projects become infected by our endemic human weaknesses. All our best laid plans and ideals are prone to corruption, distortion, subversion, misdirection, deception, and exploitation. There is nothing so good that we can’t ruin it simply by being ourselves. So we must always be on guard, not merely against external opposition, but against the internal forces that are just as likely or more likely to ruin all our best efforts.
Second, the simple fact that we are all finite. None of us can be everything and know everything and see all sides of everything and be prepared for every situation and avoid every mistake. Life, the world, and humanity itself are terribly complex. In fact they’re so complex that almost any question really worth consideration, anything that’s a real problem, does not have a simple solution.
Most real problems are problems because they can’t be reduced to a single factor or value that must be addressed. Addressing this type of problem involves tradeoffs, compromises, finding and negotiating a balace between conflicting values (such as safety and expediency, innovation and consistency). And because the world is constantly changing, the terrain that confronts us is constantly shifting, it requires a constant reevaluation and adjustment to maintain balance.
We need a certain amount of caution to maintain life, and we need a certain amount of courage, and we often need more of one at one time and more of the other at another time, and usually a mix of both. You’re not likely to survive long without either. The moment the landscape of history shifts to the other side, you fall off, if you’re leaning too hard to one side, convinced that a unitary value is all you need to proceed.
There is something terribly archetypal about the way the American electorate constantly and with bizzare consistency, despite the best efforts of everyone concerned, splits itself nearly evenly between the parties in each election. There is an almost perverse schizophrenia to the way we swing from one party control to another in subsequent elections. It’s as if we simply cannot make up our minds, no matter how times and people change. Somehow we never reach that dreamed-of uniformity.
And the best explanation I can think of is that there is something fundamentally psychologically totemic about our current political parties. They represent some fundamental, instinctive division within the human race, some fundamental distribution of the psychological burden of living between us.
If this is indeed the case, then there can be no victory of uniformity, only of unity. There can be no final resolution of resistance or tension, only balance. In fact, if I am correct about my two fundamental traits of the human race, that we are all equally flawed and all equally limited, even if a final victory of one side over another was possible through some endless campaign of extermination, it would only hasten our own inevitable fall.
The actions of our current political environment are a bit like a pair of tethered bike riders. They are both leaning as hard as they can away from one another, convinced that the pull to their side is the only thing keeping the pair moving forward. The rope between them is stretched taught, straining to hold them together; its cords are fraying from the strain. So much of their effort is directed laterally that they can hardly make any headway across a rocky and dusty path. They have leaned so far over that their faces are pressed near to the ground, and passing rocks scrape and tear at their skin. Their faces and limbs are bruised and scratched, there is dust on their bodies. And all the while they are shouting at one another, loudly declaring how only they are steering the path forward, how the efforts of their partner are dragging them into the dust, and how clean and straight and unsullied their own path is.
Both riders can clearly see the dust and blood upon the bodies of the other. But both are so determined not to let the other rider pull them down that they utterly refuse to acknowledge their own position, lest admitting their excess and attempting to rise from them should finally let the other rider pull the whole thing over.
The cord, meanwhile, between them, represents the institutions designed to harness them together for their common good. The unifying restraints crafted carefully to set the strengths and weaknesses of one against the strengths and weaknesses of the other, allowing the excesses of one to be restrained by the balance of the other, hopefully drawing them closer together, but at least by acknowledging the inevitable lacks and excesses of all human effort and the variability of the road that lies ahead, harnessing their mutual leanings to keep the whole on a relatively straight path.
The question we have to face today is, can we lean back? Will we pull so hard on the cords that bind us that they finally snap? The system is working as hard as it can to keep us together. The problem is that both sides are so convinced of the catastrophic lean of the other side toward disaster (and both sides are quite justified in their concerns, frankly) and the necessity of their own lean that neither has any time or energy left to correct their own dysfunction.
Seeing the terrible pull into the dirt and blood of their partner, it takes an act of immense courage to stop and correct our own pull on our vehicle. If we stopped for just a moment, would not both of us be pulled over? What room is there to say, “Stop, I see where they’re pulling us, but I won’t let us drag ourselves down into the dust to resist them, I won’t lower myself to the same tactics, I won’t let us make that move! I must remove the plank from my own eye before I can remove the speck from yours.” We’re all so willing to say “The important thing is the cause, the message; don’t let us be distracted by criticisms, we are in a war, we are fighting to save us all. There will be time when the enemy is defeated to police our own methods and actions and count our compromises and split the hairs.”
Unfortunately, it’s own own willingness to throw ourselves down into the dirt that convinces the other side of the foolishness of our vehicle and causes them to oppose us so strenuously. Were we to present a more reasoned and balanced and internally policed version of our platform, they might find less to object to and more to understand. I believe that was the whole idea of Martin Luther King’s approach. But the idea of coming upright when the opposing side leans in so hard, denies it and covers it up so strenuously, declaring themselves to be perfectly centered and clean, in no danger of the dust, able to take on every challenge in the road, and in no need of their partner’s efforts or insights, is hardly a recipe for integrating the two halves of America (and perhaps humanity). With such a powerful external enemy, internal criticism and challenge is a betrayal in time of war. And traitors are even worse than the enemy, because they seek to weaken our position from within, when all our effort is directed at keeping the other side from pulling us over.
It truly is a terrible situation we have found ourselves in. And who will rescue us from it, and how? It’s not in the political interest of our leaders. Tribalism is too valuable a method for gaining support to cast it aside. The motivation to play the game to gain and hold your platform is almost too tempting to be resisted. And treachery on either side is likely to find you swiftly exiled to the outer wastes.
Trump, for his part, finds anything less than absolute personal loyalty (personal loyalty, mind you, not ideological loyalty) intolerable in his government (and we should be very clear that that is actly how someone who likes to put his name in gold on everything he touches views it, as his government). Similarly, the cancel culture of the social justice crowd has no room for anyone or anything less than perfect loyalty and adherence to every aspect of their code. And they’re quite happy to divest you of your liberal identity if you fail in some other area of ideological purity. In fact they’re quite happy to even declare you to be “no longer black” or “no longer gay” in your personal identity if you fail an important ideological test. All those aspects of you are merely subordinate elements to the political cause. And if you fail to submit them to the political action, if you fail to advance the whole cause, you lose them as well as your place in the movement. You become part of the problem.
And so many of the best minds, those most willing to stand up to their own side and push for the best in it resist the worst in it, in both the conservative and liberal spheres, have been cast out as traitors. Their voices go on crying in the wilderness, but it is only the howling of the wolves in the wastes.
Who, then, will have the courage, not only to stand against their enemies, but to stand up for what is true and right, even if it sets them against their friends? Even if it places them in common ground, if but for a moment, with their enemies? Such meetings would at one time have been seen as the coming together upon common ground, an arrival at a larger moral or intellectual truth that transcends party and agenda. But today such meetings are more likely to be seen as betrayals of the party narrative, the limit of all truth, and a clear sign you’ve slipped out of the promised land into perdition. I’m in great doubt that hardly any of our current leaders have such courage. The punishments of the inquisitorial element within both parties are so frightful that its hard to imagine standing up to them and surviving. But maybe there is still cause for hope.
In my opinion, it is only within the power of the ordinary citizen to overcome and right this wrong. We often underestimate the power of human choice, human determination, the ability to choose who we will be when a moment comes. We put all our hope in political power and representation, and we forget that we have a deeper, more fundamental power that all humans have always had, whatever terrible forces they faced. A power that has given them the ability to resist and change the course of history, to survive the worst opressions and injustices unbowed. The simple ability to choose to be the better person, not between us and the next man or woman (though that is admirable) but between ourselves and who we could be.
Socrates, contemplating his coming execution, reflected that there was no true harm the state could do to a good man, because they could not compel him to be unvirtuous himself, if he was determined not to do so. As much as others might violate the truth, they cannot force us to become liars. Only we can make that choice. Others may choose to be careless, or self-righteous, or vindictive, or greedy, or haughty, or selfish, but it is within our own power to choose whether we will be those things ourselves.
And so it is within the power of ordinary men and women, I say, to resist the foolishness of our time. Because it is our choice whether or not we will participate in it. We can choose to look ourselves in the face and refuse to take up the weapons that others choose to wield. We can choose not to join the mob, not to betray our principles, not to let ourselves give in to our worse instincts. We can choose not to use the tools of violence ot threats. We can choose to submit ourselves to a higher law of order, politeness, patience, respect, kindness, gentleness, and self-control. We can choose to respect our processes and institutions and the role they play in restraining us and arbitration between us. We can seek reasoned discussion and understanding. We can be willing to admit when we have crossed a line, and build credibility with the other side so they will have space to resist it within their own ranks when they have crossed a line. We can be forgiving of the mistakes of others and seek reconciliation between us.
The essential mistake of our time is thinking that the primary moral struggle for humanity is external rather than internal. Both sides, the religious right and irreligious left, the racists and anti-racists, whites and blacks, conservative and liberal have made an idol of political power and the idea of representation and hegemony. In doing so, both have often mistaken the true battlefield where the war for the human heart and the war for the future takes place, the foundation of all our peace and prosperity and the fountain of all our ruin and disgrace. The primary moral struggle, and the great power of all humanity, is within each of our own hearts, over who we are going to be in the next moment after this.
It doesn’t have to be a huge choice to add up to a big difference. Make a tiny effort. Decide not to make that particular excuse. Decide to give that person the benefit of the doubt. Decide to hold back your words just a little, in case they go too far. Remind yourself to apologize when needed, and forgive whenever you can. Show just a tiny bit of mercy and understanding. Spend just a few moments searching your own heart before you judge the hearts of others. Decide not to read that article that will only feed your anger. Spend time resolving the errors of your own heart before you think you can search out the errors in everyone else’s. Consider what someone else might see amiss in your own positions, and what you might discover to love in theirs. Seek out the common ground of decency. Never let yourself find a harder, more honest critic of your own ideas than yourself.
The burden of such an effort can’t be any greater than the burden we already place on ourselves through our merciless ideological inquisitions, with all their pagentry to prove our alliegance and our rituals of moral reassurance and absolution that secure us our status within the movement. The harsh judgment of the virtues of civility and nobility cannot be any worse than the judgment we already face from one another in our endless crusades and and grand revolutions. The pain of our personal transformation cannot be worse than the terrific pain we will cause by tearing down the whole world and trying to rebuild it in heavenly perfection from such fallible, limited materials.
Worst of all to my mind is the nagging worry that most people, on hearing such a call, will simply shrug and reply “Yes, well, I was already doing all that. I was already in the right and nobly resisting chaos and evil in the world. I already found it. I’ve already got security where I stand. And I can see where the ground is really crumbling.” It is, perhaps, impossible to hope that everyone should be able to see their own perspective from the outside, as it were. But maybe there will be enough good faith iin us (and concern for the truths of human finitude and fallibility) to agree that limits must be set, that there is a need for caution, for care, for respect for our processes and institutions and rules and the role they play in forcing us to negotiate and cooperate.
We need to ask ourselves what we truly believe. Whether we believe life really is some zero sum game, a struggle for power in which one must prevail and the other must fall. Or is there some common ground of cooperation, some place that unites us both in common purpose and benefit? Both of the prevailing political powers of our day are telling us in no uncertain terms that the game is what life is (and if you’re not fully aware of that yet, you need to wise up). But ask yourself, reflect on your life, your family, your friends, your work, your community, and your own dearest hopes and wishes. Is that truly what you want? Is that truly what you believe? If it is, then God help you. God help us all.
But as long as some of us still have some hope that there is a reason why our constitution is framed the way it is, that there is some genuine common good that unites and even requires our different approaches, that judges us and judges them and rids both of our weaknesses and refines both our strengths, then we must continue. We must make some effort. Even if that effort is simply a small movement here or there. A little politeness. A little decency. A little hesitancy to cast stones. A small apology. A little patience. A little forgiveness. A little hope. A little voice in the wilderness.
Making Nobody Happy 