Commonplace Notions

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In 1970, W. H. Auden published his commonplace book, “A Certain World.” Until then I’d never heard the phrase. It turns out it’s a notebook where you jot down things you read or hear that are worth remembering, and is more common in Britain. Locke, Milton, Coleridge and Alec Guinness kept one, but so did Emerson and Thoreau. It seemed like a charming idea to the 1970 me, but like keeping a diary is not something easy to sustain for long in a busy quotidian life.

But for the last few years I have fitfully begun to record occasional entries that would otherwise vanish into the forgetfulness of aging. Glancing through them, I noticed that many speak to issues of life’s mutability, fragility, and to good governance. Perhaps I am always drawn to these subjects. Or perhaps, they are top of mind in the Age of Trump. In any case, here are a few selections.

Adam Rutherford’s “A Brief History of Everyone who has Ever Lived,” is a primer on genetic science. Speaking of the fiction of race, he says, “Key physical attributes we identify as being ‘race specific’ are superficial and recent,” and he dismisses the argument from design. “Your face, your physiology, your metabolism, your experience, your family, your DNA, and your history are the contrivances of cosmic happenstance in a fully indifferent universe.”

From Michael Pye’s “The Edge of the World,” which examines the late Medieval cultures around the North and Baltic Seas, comes this quote from Philippe de Navarre, a reminder that the “MeToo” movement is up against a problem with deep roots.

“A woman must not be taught letters or writing, unless she is to be a nun; for many evils come from women writing and reading…you don’t give venom to a snake who already has quite enough already.” It would be pleasant to believe such notions are quaintly old-fashioned, but a Missouri senatorial candidate expressed a nearly identical sentiment in the last few weeks.

Also from Pye comes a discussion of the Hansa, a league of Northern merchants that controlled the local seas, and therefore trade. They were closer to an organized crime or pirate monopoly than to conventional trade among states. Pye sees in the Hansa a precursor of modern capitalism since it was characterized by “the abstract idea of trade, business, money as a profession and a force without roots in the world or responsibility, ready to go anywhere in pursuit of profits and deals.” And to use any means necessary, including force of arms.

Mark Levinson’s economic history of the postwar world, “An Extraordinary Time,” demonstrates that the period from 1945-1975, that the French call “les trente glorieuses,” was an aberration of high growth, prosperity snd productivity. Ever since, economies have reverted to the mean, but the public got accustomed to the exception and seek someone to blame for the return to a less glorious normal. So do those they elect. “Politicians unable to deliver prosperity were left to rail haplessly against currency speculators, oil sheiks and other forces they could not control.”

“Persian Fire” by Tom Holland s a fine retelling of the Greek victory over Persia that allowed western civilization to develop independent of Eastern hegemony. It provides several useful observations on statecraft. On Darius, Holland remarks, “the traditions that define a people, that they cling to, that they love, if cunningly exploited by a conquerer, serve to enslave them.”

He also quotes Solon, the Athenian ruler, whose name is synonymous with wisdom. He engineered a compromise between Athenian factions that allowed democracy to gain a foothold. Solon said, “I used my strong shield to protect both sides of the class divide, allowing neither to gain advantage over the other, that would be unjust.” Where have all the Solons gone?

And he quotes Aristotle on why Nemesis, the goddess of retribution, inevitably destroys those guilty of hubris, the arrogance to aspire to the power of a god. “For this is the crime committed by any man who gains his thrills by trampling on other people, and feeling as he does so, that he is proving himself preeminent.” Perhaps we can think of contemporary persons ripe for Nemesis.

And on this theme of humility versus vainglory, Darwin said, “Ignorance more frequently begets confidence than does knowledge.” And Brecht said, “He who laughs has not yet received the terrible news.”

Roger Crowley, in his “City of Fortune,” on Venice in its heyday, notes that “the lintels of more than one collapsed Venetian house on Crete bears the Latin motto, ‘the world is nothing but smoke and shadows.’ As if they knew deep down that all the imperial razzmatazz of trumpets, ships and guns was only a mirage.”

Apropos of which, the psychologist Daniel Kahneman reminds us that “people can maintain an unshakeable faith in any proposition, however absurd, when they are sustained by a community of like-minded believers.”

All of which suggests why it is useful to read history and literature. Because they provide a larger perspective on life when we are caught up in what Chesterton called “the torrent of change.” Because of it, our time can seem incomprehensible. Robert Louis Stevenson said, “The obscurest epoch is today.” Learning about “Then,” may help us understand and endure “Now,” and with the poet sing of what “is past, or passing or to come.”

Dysfunction Junction

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I’ve argued that aging teaches the personal lesson that everything hurts and there’s no cure, but it also reveals a disquieting societal truth: nothing works and nobody is willing or able to fix it.

Our healthcare system is among the worst among the developed countries, for instance. It has managed to pull off the hat trick of being the most expensive while achieving among the worst outcomes while serving only some, not all of the people. If rich doctors, insurers, providers, and pharmaceutical companies are the measure, we win. If the health and well-being of the community, not so much. Is a cure in sight? Fat chance.

Since Reagan embraced supply-side voodoo, alarms have been sounding over the accumulating public debt and a painful reckoning prophesied. A few fitful attempts have been made to address the mess, notably under Clinton, but the alternative to a carnival of spending is an unpleasant lenten austerity. So nothing is done and we remain on the road to bankruptcy, a process Hemingway described as happening in two ways: “gradually and then suddenly.”

In every case the problem is a refusal to face hard facts and take painful steps. Let someone else suffer, compromise, adjust, not me. Thus, on mass murder, some people oppose bans on weapons, others intrusive data bases, others costly counter-measures, others stigmatizing the mentally ill. And so the streets and school hallways will continue to run red with the blood of the innocents.

Immigration? Forget about it. Without compromising, stasis is likely, and the worst of all possible worlds. Those we don’t want to admit willingly will continue to entry the country illegally. Those we should welcome will be barred. Those who ought to be allowed to stay will be deported. And everyone will get to say, “See, I told you so.”

Climate change? Why give up today’s pleasures and profits to avoid tomorrow’s catastrophes? Let somebody else worry about rising seas, shrinking harvests, dying sea life, desertification, proliferating diseases, waves of extinctions. Why worry? Call if fake news and party on.

And if politics is a Sargasso Sea where rotting issues are trapped forever without being able to move forward, the business world is hardly a model of efficiency and adaptation. Once customers bought a product and owned it, but that didn’t guaranteed a perpetual income stream. Now, you subscribe to music, movies, software, television, and pay monthly.

Users of Microsoft are well aware that their business plan has long been a form of ransomware, software that requires constant, costly updates, so you have to buy the same product repeatedly. That might be tolerable if what you bought was both useful and reliable. Instead, their products are so prone to hacking you have to subscribe to a bug-catching service.

And they are far from alone. Bugs, glitches, viruses, worms, and, for all I know, cancers infect all our devices and everywhere we shop. Life online is now spent waiting for a cyber-mugging. Whether we wake and sleep, infection lurks, ceaselessly intent on stealing our data, holding it hostage, pilfering our identities, spying on our every move, hijacking our credit cards, invading our bank accounts, ripping us off. And we are expected to bear the cost in time and money we lose because of the incompetence, greed and carelessness of the tech geniuses whose products and services made us vulnerable.

The list of the largest data breaches of last year alone reads like a “who’s who” of business — Equifax, Uber, Adobe, Anthem, JP Morgan, eBay, Home Depot, Yahoo, Target. Retailers, healthcare companies, banks and credit services, and, of course, the tech companies who ought to be most on guard against such dangers.

The most flagrant case of business dysfunction and dereliction is the self-congratulatory institution that ought to be known as Fakebook. Instead of providing the social network linking all humanity that it advertises, it has given our body politic a social disease.

Rather than police the anarchic mean streets of its cyber realm, Fakebook chose to profit from providing a platform on which the monsters from its users’ ids would be give free rein, and criminal conspirators from a foreign power could contrive to steal an American election. Has Fakebook and its billionaire tech brethren fixed the flaws that allowed this atrocity, or are they resisting reforms that would kill the cash cow.

Now, we are told a rising tide of disgust with our illegitimate president and his enablers in Congress will sweep Republicans out in November, but will that really happen? If it did, would it help? The electoral map is rigged by gerrymandering. The money that decides elections flows from the one percent who just got huge tax breaks, not the 80 percent who pay for them. The incumbents write the laws to deny the vote to those they can’t convince on the campaign trail.

If democracy has been hijacked, who will save us from more of the same? Maybe the Russians will decide they miscalculated and rig the game in favor of a more reliable tool next time. Or maybe Zuckerberg will repent of his sins and use Fakebook to make restitution. He does seem to owe us a president.

Cold, Dead Hand

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Just shoot me. (Not really, gun loonies. It’s an expression indicating exasperation). Donald Trump suggests the solution to mass murder by assault rifle in our schools is to ignore the easy availability of assault rifles and to arm teachers with hand guns to shoot back.

What does one make of such a notion, other than to note its purpose, which is to distract from the need for banning civilian access to weapons of war — tanks, fighter jets, nuclear submarines, rockets, flamethrowers, and assault rifles.

First, cast your mind back to your High School and Elementary teachers. Which of them can you imagine playing a Rambo role in protecting you? None? On the other hand, to which would you have liked to bid a fond farewell? In my case, Coach Bell, Mrs. Somerville, and Mr. Schwartz. So it is maliciously amusing to imagine them whipping out a handgun and facing the superior firepower of a homicidal maniac wielding an AR-15.

Second, if teachers are going to be the first line of defense when lethal weapons are involved, will members of SWAT teams, the police department, the sheriff’s office take up the teaching of algebra, debate, and gym? That looks like a twofer. Schools will be less safe, and the students more poorly educated.

Third, the bone-spur president who dodged Vietnam assures us a guy with a gun in a school will scare away potential shooters since all mass murderers are cowards. But it turns out there were three guys with guns at Parkland, and they were the scared ones who never unholstered their weapons as the killing went on.

Whereas, mass murderers are many things — crazed, suicidal, white hot with rage, jealous, delusional, or committed extremists — but they’re rarely cowards. They court suicide by cop, or shoot themselves as a grand finale to their deadly drama. So, an absent-minded math teacher or Shakespeare-spouting schoolmarm is unlikely to strike terror into their dark souls.

And speaking of cuckoo, those who don’t attend closely to what Trump hath wrought, the normalization of the off-the-deep-end forces of the right, might want to take a look at Wayne LaPierre’s speech to CPAC. He’s the head of the NRA with a Hitler haircut, and CPAC a kind of masonic order of right-wing zealotry.

At their annual conclave, which coincided with the aftershocks of the Parkland murders, LaPierre was so far out that he managed to alarm even this crowd of extremists with the extremity of his remarks. Apparently, the notion of kids refusing to be gunned down drove him completely around the bend.

He refused to imagine a world in which military weapons could not be sold to every lunatic Tom, gang member Dick and irate teen-age Harry itching to slaughter people at their school or workplace or in the streets.

With reactionary Republicans in control of the White House, both houses of Congress, a majority of states, and the courts, you’d think LaPierre would be feeling safe and secure, but he must be reading Breitbart and watching Fox since he issued a jeremiad of sheer terror to his fellow posse members. Of course, to be fair, it is his job, for which he is paid $950,000 a year, to wax apocalyptic whenever a restriction on any weapon is proposed.

According to LaPierre, the Republican stranglehold on all the levers of power is an illusion. There’s a rising tide wave of “European-style socialism.” Soon we will be a captive society where resistance will be futile, speech will be controlled, big brother will watch us, and our most basic freedoms — guns, guns, and more guns — will be eliminated.

Who are these lurking enemies? Oddly, they are apparently Trump’s government, the corrupt FBI, Justice Department, EPA, intelligence agencies, and of course Hollywood liberals, the media, universities, billionaire capitalists, and the Black Lives Matter movement. Now, he warns, even kids who survive school massacres and want to live are tools of the Deep State. Grab your guns, Republicans, you’re surrounded! You have met the enemy and its everyone you ever met, except Wayne LaPierre.

Let’s face it, what really worries LaPierre is not creeping socialism, it’s creeping democracy. A majority of Americans favor every gun control measure the NRA opposes. And now a Children’s Crusade has begun. They are as mad as hell at being targets and they’re not going to take it anymore. I wish them well, but unfortunately I have lived long enough to have seen this movie before.

When the Vietnam antiwar movement took to the streets, it may have had the moral high ground, and it certainly had the best songs (“Blowing in the Wind,” “Masters of War,”
“For What It’s Worth,” “Ohio,” “Fortunate Son”), but the government it opposed had the guns, the tanks, the planes, the cops, and, more importantly, the votes.

Nixon defanged the opposition when he turned the draft into a lottery, since a majority of potential draftees then knew they were off the hook. So, even as the public turned against it, the unwinnable war ground on and on, killing another 25,000 Americans while we waited for the secret plan to end the war to kick in.

Civil Rights protests won some legislative victories, but racism is still alive. Earth Day led to the EPA, but the polluters still befoul the earth and buy legislators dedicated to keeping it that way. And the NRA’s cold, dead hand controls Washington by means of $30 million in campaign bribes to Trump, and millions more to congressional candidates. And it turns out the vote.

The Parkland kids have demanded action, rather than the usual prayers and promises. And they have at least identified the real issues: the availability of assault rifles and a political class on the NRA payroll. But until voters replace those tools of the gun lobby, I fear the killings will continue. The paranoid style in American politics never goes out of fashion, as LaPierre demonstrates, so the armchair frontiersmen get to cling to their weapons, but so do the crazies, the terrorists and the murderous.

With 300 million guns abroad in the land, it’s surprising the death toll isn’t worse. But 13,000 dead and another 26,000 wounded every year is bad enough.

If the Parkland, Columbine, Sandy Hook, Virginia Tech kids went to school in Australia, England, Germany, France, Spain, Sweden, Japan, or almost any developed country on Earth, they’d still be alive. And their siblings, parents, teachers, classmates, neighbors wouldn’t have to mourn their loss. Have we no shame? We do not. So, the beat goes on.