Tag: History

America In The Squeeze

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Guns versus smartphones

I’m just turning 75. My life has been formed, and is almost completed, throughout a breathtakingly brief and cataclysmic era in global history. In future accounts it may be referred to as ‘The Neoliberal Era’, ‘The Era Of American Hegemony’, ‘The Age Of Economic Globalization’, or perhaps, as the cataclysm intensifies toward its resolution, ‘Capitalism’s Final Crisis’. There will be a few references to something called ‘The American Empire’. It will appear as a flicker between the centuries, and one of the shortest lived empires that ever endured.

We are at the beginning of a 2nd American Revolution, one that is long due. Whatever the outcome, it will radically reshape the outcomes for global civilization. The age of the nation state is gradually going out of phase with the needs of the physical world. There will be times of breakdown and struggle. We must reintegrate with the workd. This will take some time and will never be at an end. I believe that in the next phase there will still be nations, and languages and cultural boundaries. The dimensions of power will be altered in structure and better managed, through education and the cultivation of respect. The flows of the twin rivers will be, at least until the next glacial scale disruption, in better harmony, as each distinctive part realizes its necessity to the whole.

Technology presents new perceptual models of the world much faster than anything we can control or even keep up with. We are continually confused. The time has arrived for us all to take a deep dive into questioning who we are and who we want to be, and what are the ultimate stakes. Complacency is deadly. We’d been so long buried in our own work, forgetting our reasons for working, or what makes up the whole mechanism of our survival.

We generally see and enterpret the word ’revolution’ to refer to specific cataclysmic changes in the procession of historical events. To understand what moves these events it’s necessary to go beyond specific dates and times and logistical patterns, and embrace the flowing evolutionary trends, ever constant, ever shifting, beneath the surface of what we see.

There are two constant revolutions/evolutions going on at any given historical moment. One is economic, and the other is cultural. They are woven together in close procession, at times in harmony, and at other times they appear to flow in opposing directions. The economic evolution is by nature conservative, its primary focus to preserve stability. Economics is a measure of the river of things, the movement of necessities and the produce of our desires.

Cultural evolution is something broader and more ephemeral, and yet central to our sense of well being. Something within us is driven by an impulse to break the rules, to advance, and to enter new territories. We are curious and inspired. Culture is the river of our perceptions. They are sometimes clear and accurate, and at other times only marginally connected to the world beneath the fog.

These twin streams never stop moving, never stop changing. They are inseparably linked, either energizing or obstructing each other, acting over and through us like the ancient gods in Greek tales about siblings and rivals.

It’s becoming abundantly and existentially clear to much of humanity that survival depends on a true understanding of the role we play as part of a bigger organism. Globalization is the political term for an economic transition. We go from centralized industrial production to widely distributed supply chains stretching across oceans and continents. At its essence, this is like the early evolution of the cell. A number of independent organisms come together as a cooperative community and eventually merge into a single complex organism. A process called symbioses.

Along with economic revolutions, cultural revolutions advance at an unprecedented rate, driven by the tides of information that flow through the system, reshaping at every instance our perception of the world.

We are currently engaged in a third world war, which is a new kind of war, fought with numbers and ideas and conceptual systems playing across screens. The handheld weapon in this war is the smartphone in our pockets.

Things are moving very fast, worldwide…one event or action leads to others. People find out who their allies are. They’re encouraged to become more boldly resistant. A major university resists a government takeover. Prominent financial managers begin speaking out. Republican Town Meetings get rowdy. People, in general, are educating themselves. All of this builds toward an ultimate breakdown of life as usual.

Kilmer Abrego Garcia, like George Floyd before him, like Alfred Dreyfus long before all of this (see ‘Dreyfus Affair), is an unfortunate victim of history. On April 19th, demonstrations, even more enormous than on the 5th, will expand the focus beyond Musk and Trump to embrace and defend Garcia, and his young family, and ourselves, against the fascist brutality that landed him in a living hell.

Trump and company are waiting for an opportunity to gin up excuses to go after dissenters, with fierce repression, just as they did during the George Floyd era. Just like then, only more so, there’s an international reaction to their policies and cruelties, and they now feel cornered.

The American economy is now riding in the back of a cybertruck, under the control of the madman we gave the wheel, heading toward a Thelma and Louise denouement. I fully expect that we will go over that cliff, taking a good chunk of the world with us.

There is, at present, a very thin line standing between democracy and fascism in America, and the next few weeks will determine whether that line is holding. I’m talking about the Law, the Courts and the the Universities.

The 5th Estate, the Press and the Media are barely functional, not even willing, for the most part (except comedians), to call out fascism by its real name (they use the academic term, ‘authoritarianism’ – it’s elite and vague and sounds less threatening).

Social Media has taken up the slack of what remains of democracy and free speech, performing the role that pamphleteering did between the first American Revolution and the Civil War. I find myself no longer getting my news and analysis directly from newspapers or television, and the marketplace of ideas is boundless and international. This is a completely different realm of media, with a whole new set of rules, evolving constantly, that govern behavior and trust.

The vessel of our freedom is still encapsulated in words and institutions inspired and put into action more than two centuries past. If these barriers are breached, we will be in a new state of civil war. At that point another line of defense comes into play. There’s the police, the national guard, the military, led by educated commanders who’ve taken pledges to defend the Constitution and the law. These are forces composed of people from communities most affected by the actions of this administration. We will be in unknown territory.

We are in a Squeeze.

America will survive. The world will survive. The relationships between us all will be radically altered. We will have been through a deep process of self examination. Perhaps for the first time since the last World War, since FDR and long after, we will be forced into revisioning our entire political and economic culture.

My generation won’t be around to witness the conclusion of that process. But we will have been privileged to see its beginning, and to have learned much on the ride along the way.

Where Are We?

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Where Are We?

By, Ralph E. Melcher

”It cannot be repeated too often: nothing is more fertile in marvels than the art of being free, but nothing is harder than freedom’s apprenticeship. The same is not true of despotism. Despotism often presents itself as the repairer of all the ills suffered, the support of just rights, defenders of the oppressed, and founder of order. People are lulled to sleep by the temporary prosperity it engenders, and when they do wake up, they are wretched. But Liberty is generally born in stormy weather, growing with difficulty amid civil discords, and only when it is already old does one see the blessings it has brought.”

  • Alexis de Tocqueville, ‘Democracy In America’

I spoke to my son the other day, about the current state of his world. I say his world because I’m old, and this world is barely mine anymore, while he’s not yet middle-aged. He’ll be dealing with the consequences of a world I’ll sooner than later leave behind. I said to him that I thought these times were the worst I’ve ever seen. But then I think, ‘Is this true?’ Has my memory of the pain and the rage my generation lived through merely faded? Perhaps it’s just a shock that so much we fought for is being once again challenged. Perhaps, I’m like my father, who rarely told us stories of his days fighting the last Great War. The stories he told were often laced with humor and self-effacing jest. Perhaps those times I lived through have been so thoroughly buried in satire and revision that they’re barely real in my memory anymore. But I know they were real, and the challenges we faced were no less perilous, although we had less perception at the time of the stakes and dangers we faced.

These times are a shadow of what it must have felt like to be in London during the Blitz in World War Two. Every evening of every day the bombs rained down, some of them intercepted, but a good many getting through. At any time, you might be the next to get hit, and the quality of life you’ve taken for granted could be ended. If you don’t get hit, the next day you have to face going forth to survey the damage. Everywhere is pain and fear, deliberately and with malice, inflicted by one set of human beings against another.

I’ve been reading an analysis of the American character, Democracy In America, written early in the 19th century by a Frenchman, Alexis de Tocqueville. Also, I’ve read accounts and biographies of the lives and struggles of the founders and leaders over these two and a half centuries of America’s existence. I’ve begun to realize that American democracy has always been a rather precarious proposition. It’s been challenged by this and that faction, and defended by those who are courageous and have been willing to stand up in its defense. My life, as was my father’s, was shaped by this battle. He fought against authoritarian dreamers who ruthlessly laid waste to a large part of the world. My cohorts and me, living under the constant threat of nuclear holocaust, stood up against morally corrupt administrations and our nation’s misguided imperialistic obsessions.

My son’s first encounter with political realities was the attack on the World Trade Center on September 11, 2001. He was 10 years old at the time. Since then, he’s been witness to a succession of futile conflicts, begun with great hubris and ending in humiliation and defeat. While these wars were fought, our nation had to face its limitations and question its priorities. At the same time as new freedoms emerged out of our ongoing self-examination, restraints against the power of unlimited wealth were being set aside. Along with the emergence of new forms of media that connected people across every boundary of culture distance, a reaction born out of economic stagnation and the failures of religion began to grow. A succession of demagogues, mostly concerned with the accumulation of power and wealth and the promotion of ideologies, began to thrive upon the inchoate frustrations of the populace. Democracy, as defined in our Constitution, was relegated as an afterthought.

Now we find ourselves in danger once again. Just as in all the wars and civil conflicts of the past, the power of factions has risen to challenge the rights of those who won’t consent to the rule of the minority. We are once again asked to question our basic commitments to diversity, equity, and inclusion which, after all, is at the foundation of our democracy, the core principle which actually defines it.

In my short lifetime I’ve watched dozens of our greatest leaders assassinated, along with many who raised their voices, murdered or suppressed, sometimes by criminals, sometimes by police. I’ve watched the cities burn, and I’ve seen blood in the streets. Many have fallen, standing up to those who would be king. During these dark days of ignorance and cowardice in the world of Trump, there are increasing signs of courage and commitment to the principles that have led and defined us. Every day, the actions of this administration and its sycophants feel like a deliberately inflicted gut-punch. Nevertheless, I see everywhere signs of new life in a population resisting the temptation to surrender to collective despair.

As a nation, having been overnight overcome by its worst tendencies, we’re now seen by many in the rest of the world as an adversary. We aren’t used to being seen as the bad guy, the neighborhood bully, the untrustworthy tyrant, no different from any in a long parade of fallen empires. We’re forced as a nation to awaken from our complacent sleep and become aware of a stark dissonance between our elevated self-image and our present actions as seen by others. At the same time, there are many in this world who carry for us the hope and faith that we will rise once again to our better nature and promise.

(If you are not convinced that we are in a war for democracy, then you may be asleep at the wheel. If there is any doubt, I recommend you look up ‘Foreign Affairs’ on your favorite podcast app, or listen here to an interview with Fiona Hill. It gives the most comprehensive view into the present state of the world that I’ve heard anywhere. You may remember Fiona Hill from when she gave the clearest and most devastating testimony as a witness during the Trump impeachment inquiry. She’s one of our most accomplished diplomats.)

Women Talking

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In (2023) I managed to see most of the movies nominated for the Best Picture at the Academy Awards. (except ‘Elvis’ – I was never much into Elvis and am not particularly fond of biopics in general.)

That was the year ‘Everything Everywhere All At Once’ won the award.

Sarah Polley’s film ‘Women Talking’ was awarded ‘Best Adapted Screenplay’

I thought it deserved ‘Best Picture’ – at least.

When I saw it at the theater I wept tears from the beginning to the end. I just watched it again on Prime Video, and it had much the same effect, although I was able to draw back just a little bit and appreciate the pure technical perfection of the film. (It won the Movie Of The Year from the American Film Institute.)

No film in my memory has affected me so deeply. I’ve elevated it to my top three favorite films of all time. (It falls between ‘Wings Of Desire’ for its depth, ‘Drive’ for its technical perfection – ‘Women Talking’ has both, and the best acting ensemble I’ve ever witnessed). I haven’t seen a better movie before or since.

Coming into this election and all of the struggles it has brought to the surface, ‘Women Talking’ perfectly exposes the deepest and most universal issues at play in this nation and in the world.

DNC Night Three

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Last night felt to me like a religious ritual and a call to final battle. Watching an aged Bill Clinton was to me like listening to the incantation of a high priest who, more than anyone, represented for me the political aspirations of my generation. Through all of the struggles with Newt Gingrich and all the scandals and persecutions I remember Clinton saying that his only real enemy was the Christian Right. In this we are the same.

I’ve watched the darkness in the soul of America growing ever since I was a teenager, and it’s always been the same darkness, based in the foul stench of religious intolerance. For me, having been a dedicated Christian in my youth, this has always felt like the deepest form of betrayal. With The Party Of Trump it’s reached its ultimate embodiment. To contemplate its victory is to consider the collapse of everything in this world I believe worthwhile.

I was ready to give up. Whatever this is, it is reviving my spirit. Like Bill Clinton, I’ve grown old and I’m dying and this feels to me like my final battle. The stakes couldn’t be higher.

I just finished a science fiction novel called ‘The Player Of Games’ by Iain M. Banks. It depicts an encounter between an enlightened culture and a decadent empire that’s based on war and domination. After last night I woke up at 2:00 in the morning and was compelled to finish the book, in which an existential clash between civilizations is resolved through the playing of an intricate game from which only one culture emerges intact.

I don’t believe in coincidences. The stakes of the game we are in are way beyond the usual politics. As Buttigieg put it, we are facing the ‘politics of darkness’. This is a religious war, and this convention is nothing less than an act of exorcism.

Whatever the outcome, I don’t expect to live through another administration. I’ve pretty much lost my voice and my health is fading, so I’ve become almost useless in this fight. All that remains is my attention and whatever rituals I can maintain to keep me sane. My whole life has been wrapped up in this war, and I know that no wars are final, but I’m resolved to keep in the game until the end.

From ’God, Human, Animal, Machine’ by Meghan O’Gieblyn

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Donald Trump himself, a man whose rise to power may or may not have been aided by machines, is often included in this digital phantasm, one more emergent property of the network’s dazzling complexity. He is a politician, it is often said, who understands, or at least intuits, more thoroughly than anyone how to manipulate a system that runs on empty signifiers – a system that has become so unhinged from semantic meaning, so thoroughly reduced to syntax, that one can simply throw a bunch of meaningless phrases – what the journalist Masha Gessen calls “word piles” – into the ether and divert the narrative away from its original source. Robert A. Burton, a prominent neurologist, argued that Trump is so good at understanding algorithms because he himself is an algorithm. In a 2017 op-ed for The New York Times Burton claimed that the president made sense once you stopped viewing him as a human being and began to see him as “a rudimentary artificial intelligence-based learning machine. Like deep learning systems, was working blindly through trial and error, keeping a record of what moves worked in the past and using them to optimize his strategy, much like AlphaGo, the AI system that swept the Go championship in Seoul. The reason that we found him so baffling was that we continually tried to anthropomorphize him, attributing intention and ideology to his decisions, as though they stemmed from a coherent agenda. AI systems are so wildly successful because they aren’t burdened with any of these rational or moral concerns – they don’t have to think about what is socially acceptable or take into account downstream consequences. They have one goal – winning – and this rigorous single-minded interest is consistently updated through positive feedback. Burton’s advice to historians and policy wonks was to regard Trump as a black box. “As there are no lines of reasoning driving the network’s actions,” he wrote, “it is not possible to reverse engineer the network to reveal the ‘why’ of any decision.

https://www.penguinrandomhouse.com/books/567075/god-human-animal-machine-by-meghan-ogieblyn/

Peter Zeihan As Clickbait

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I was recently sent the recent Peter Zeihan book, The End Of The World Is Just The Beginning: Mapping The Collapse Of Globalization. Upon reading it I feel compelled to offer my critique. Aside from the rather dismissive and generally smart-ass style with which the author delivers his doom prophecies, the book is very informative in terms of outlining the complex systems and their interrelationships that currently run the world, and it offers valuable pointers toward highlighting the system’s strengths and weaknesses. At the same time it’s a vivid illustration of the trap of over reliance on statistical data when addressing complex systems. I’ve rarely encountered an argument that rests on so many facts that work against the very case that the book is making. Not only is it full of contradictory and sometimes questionable assumptions, the data that backs the world view the author delivers could equally support the likelihood of continued globalization as it can for its dissolution.

The fulcrum of Ziehan’s argument hangs on two assumptions:

1.) Aging populations and declining birth rates will result in a worldwide demographic collapse that will upset the patterns of production, distribution and consumption that fueled the economic boom times since World War Two.

A 1968 best seller by Paul and Anne Ehrlich,The Population Bomb delivered, in a similarly apocalyptic tone, a revival of the 18th century theory by Thomas Malthus, that the growth of population with the rise of prosperity, particularly among the poor, would inevitably exceed humanity’s ability to grow enough food. While Zeihan’s argument runs exactly in the opposite direction, both prognostications rely on a set of ever-shifting statistics to make their case.1 Food production since the time of Malthus has continually outpaced the growth of population. Problems with global starvation and famine are due less to population increase than to the unplanned consequences of war and the inequitable distribution.

Over the course of my many decades of living on the planet under the constant threat of extinction, I’ve been presented with so many predictions of impending catastrophe that I’ve lost count. From the Rapture to nuclear war to DDT and Y2K and global anarchy, the predictable constant is that in times of anxiety and change these prognostications sell books and provide rich fodder for talk radio. Attempts to reduce enormously complex systems to fit into the terms of one or two basic assumptions invariably fail to meet anyone’s predictive timescales. Demographics are one single factor among countless others that can affect outcomes, leaving aside our ever shifting politics and human resourcefullness, our ever advancing technologies affecting the ways we live and work and talk to one another, and our dawning collective awareness of the effects of climate change, to name a few.

2.) Zeihan’s second assumption is that the American Empire will simply give up on the world ‘Order’ that it has helped establish and maintain since the World Wars. Apparently America will simply conclude that it’s simply too much trouble and expense to continue enforcing the peace and we’ll withdraw into our geopolitical fortress. After all, we’re geographically in a position to grow our own food and make our own shit and let the rest of the world go to hell. Aside from espousing an incredibly arrogant, if not popular view of American exceptionalism, the very fact that our economic prosperity has been fostered by our multicultural ties and the intricate trade and military relationships we’ve constructed over these many decades makes it extremely unlikely that we will or can turn away. Even if we attempted such a thing, undoubtedly other entities or alliances would take our place, and we’d be shuffled a little lower in the deck of international authority.

Which brings us to China2. Having read and listened to a number of accounts from inside China. (I highly recommend the ‘Drum Tower’ podcast from ‘The Economist’ magazine for a more down to earth view of Chinese politics and culture.3) Zeihan spares no opportunity to dump on China, leaving an impression that its the very model of his overall thesis that most of the rest of the world is doomed in economic terms, while the USA and North America will pull through rather nicely. In reality, for anyone that takes a closer look through the paranoid cloud of American propaganda, it appears that China’s problems, both economic and demographic, are practically a mirror image of similar problems being felt in both America and Europe. In many cases the realities in China (the biggest crisis right now is too few opportunities for young people – not too many) are largely distinguished by the fact that, unlike the USA they are actually able to quickly respond in dealing with them. China ain’t going anywhere, and neither is America, or Europe, except perhaps in the fevered ‘click bait’ imagination of people like Zeihan. These major blocks of world power are so inextricably interdependent that the likelihood of any of them being left behind in the foreseeable future is vanishingly small.

For several years I was on the mailing list of ‘STRATFOR’, the organization that Peter Zeihan once worked for. Like Zeihan they have a world view that sticks closely to the ‘geography is fate’ interpretation of world history promoted by conservative scholars like the very prolific Robert Johnson (‘Modern Times’, ‘The Birth Of The Modern’, and histories of America, the Jews, Christianity, Ireland, plus biographies of Churchill, Jesus, Darwin, George Washington and others – a few of which I’ve read and been impressed by.). I agree that, so far, global history has been largely determined by access to the oceans. From the conquest of the great ‘pirate’ empires of the 15th – 16th centuries right up to the rise of ‘globalization’, this view has been accurate. However, we are all now swimming in a different ocean, one that’s linked by the instantaneous communication and management of economics and resources through the ubiquitous ocean of digital media. This is now where business is driven, wars are made, alliances are formed and broken.

I remember Stratfor’s frequent skepticism that Europe could ever manage to hold together. Virtually none of their predictions have held true over the years. The recent Soviet invasion has catalyzed an opposite movement toward increased solidarity rather than further fragmentation. America, meanwhile, is showing increasing signs of weakness as it breaks into regional conflicts and rising paranoia. It has made it almost impossible for the nation to deal substantially with basic problems like poverty, endemic racism and rising political violence. Meanwhile China not only holds together, it exerts increasing global influence as it steps into the weakening breach of American influence in Africa, South America and the Middle East.

Every nation is an ongoing experiment in how to manage growth and change in an increasingly complex web of global relations. Not one gots it completely right or completely wrong, and every error is an opportunity to learn. Peter Zeihan grossly underestimates, in my opinion, the capabilities, creativity and ingenuity of people in general, especially anyone who isn’t living in North America. Unfortunately, in much of his writing I hear echoes of the Trump crowd, mindlessly shouting USA!!!USA!!!USA!!!

The proposition that America will withdraw from the world in some form of neo-isolationism is one that nearly every fact and trend sighted in Zeihan’s book actually makes less, rather than more likely. His theory of collapse, requires a kind of bunker mentality in which every nation stands essentially on its own and only the strongest will thrive or even survive.

History doesn’t tend to move backwards, and the sort of decivilization that Zeihan predicts, in a world as interdependent as the world he describes, no nation, especially one as central to the function of the whole intricate mechanism as the United States, can afford to go its separate way. America’s economy, as much as China’s or England’s or Argentina’s or the Philippines’ or Russia’s, is a ‘global’ economy. Oceans and hemispheres that once divided the world into separate kingdoms and empires are no longer effective barriers against the changes that affect us all.

No one can deny that there will be profound disruptions that will reshape the political, military and economic landscapes in the coming decades. To anyone paying attention, it’s evident that our modes of consumption and governance will be forced to adapt and evolve in ways that we only dimly imagine. We will face wars, famine, pandemics, climate events, natural disasters and shortages of things we’ve taken for granted. Every political entity will be confronted with its own contradictions. In the long run the question is whether these changes and challenges drive us, as global citizens, further apart or force us to recognize our absolute interdependence. Zeihan’s book assumes the former. I don’t necessarily disagree with his statement, “Shortage forces people – forces countries – to look after their own needs.” I would add that history also shows that in the face of shortages and disasters people, and perhaps nations, also awaken to their common needs.

(I have to add that Zeihan’s understanding of global agriculture is particularly weak. Statements like “You can have organic farming or environmentally friendly foods. You cannot have both”, are simply absurd. It’s been demonstrated again and again, in China and America and all over the globe, that the per hectare production of food grown using intensive sustainable methods on smaller scale farms generally exceeds that of the industrialized monoculture farming promoted worldwide and dominated by corporate culture, while leading to much less long term environmental devastation.)

The kind of hair-on-fire apocalyptic messaging delivered by Zeihan and others certainly sells books. Apocalyptic visions have aleways had an appeal in the popular imagination, and are guaranteed to gather attention from Joe Rogan audiences, talk radio hosts, and down various YouTube rabbit holes. The ‘paranoid style of American politics’ 4 has always had particular appeal in uncertain times, when folks are stirred up by the direction things are going.

As for American exceptionalism, that’s so much a refrain in Peter Zeihan’s view of the world, I’m reminded of the Sergio Leone quote:

“I began to understand that ‘America’ in reality belonged to the whole world and not just to Americans. The idea of America had already been invented by the philosophers, the vagabonds, the dispersed of this earth, long before the Spanish ships got there. Those whom we call Americans have only rented it for a time. If they behave badly, we can discover another ‘America’. The contract can be canceled at any time.”

  1. https://worldaffairs.blog/2022/07/09/debunking-peter-zeihans-shocking-and-popular-china-predictions/ ↩
  2. https://www.nextbigfuture.com/2023/01/here-is-what-peter-zeihan-got-wrong-on-the-joe-rogan-show.html ↩
  3. Linkhttps://pca.st/podcast/21f082b0-377d-013b-efb0-0acc26574db2 ↩
  4. https://harpers.org/archive/1964/11/the-paranoid-style-in-american-politics/ ↩

There are moments

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There are moments

Hough – 1966

I stand on the corner of Euclid and Liberty, the University at my back, the edges of the ghetto across the street and about a block away, the rotating flashes of cop cars at a blockaded intersection. It’s a little past the curfew, but I’d been pulled by some compulsion to come this way and have a look.

I participate in a summer college prep program that’s part of the president’s ‘War On Poverty’. Two nights ago, returning from a concert in the suburbs with a small group of students and counselors, we found the lights around the dormitories and in the courtyards mysteriously dark. The dorm entrances were locked, and everything was weirdly quiet. When we banged on the doors to be let in, a counselor furtively appeared and breathlessly asked us where we’d been. Someone earlier had heard gunfire at the edges of the campus and everyone had gotten quiet and had hunkered down in their rooms. Coming inside, we found the lights inside the hallways and in the stairwells also extinguished. So we hustled into the elevator and took it up to the second floor. When I started down the hallway toward the open door of my corner room, I saw that a couple of people were sitting on the desk and gazing out through the wide window. As I approached, I realized that the whole horizon of the city appeared to be on fire. The people in my room, friends of mine, had families living in those neighborhoods that were on fire.

The next few days were strange, as if we were living in a war zone. One evening we sat on a balcony, watching National Guard convoys streaming out from the college into the neighborhoods. Earlier in the day they’d descended from the armory up the heights and set up camp in the sports field next to the dorms. As darkness fell they proceeded, guns at the ready, from the wealthy halls of learning out into communities seen as epicenters of unrest. I’d begun to look at the architecture and arrangement of University buildings as a literal fortress against the poor. Troops and supplies were channelled down a wide highway into the campus. The university was like an island of higher learning, with the upper middle class heights at it’s back, surrounded on three sides by the ghetto.

Earlier today I watched a Guardsman playing Gershwin on a grand piano, in the student Union.

Tonight I have to be a witness, so I walk right up to the borders of a frontier, where the stores are closed and everything is tense, but quiet, in the aftermath of a receding wave of explosive anger. I can sense that there’ll be more waves, perhaps many more, to come. Given our history, maybe in 50 years the geography will have shifted, but we may still be under siege. At this moment, I stand in the shadows, on a quiet corner, watching a scene of roadblocks and paranoia, wondering whether its safe to cross the street.

Cleveland

Robert, campus shaman, student of medicine and law, late night DJ, always scruffy and aromatic, with lank and greasy looking hair and patchy beard, wears like a primitive vest the fuzzy unzipped liner of his trench coat. He stands behind me, holding a pair of wooden shoe trees, one in each hand, occasionally rattling them imperiously. We are thirteen stories up, on the roof of Robert’s dormitory, surveying a landscape of lit up buildings and the strange activity below. A group of our friends are wandering in a group that gathers to sit in a circle on a concrete plaza between the fountain and the lights. They’ve taken to howling like a pack of wolves.

A week ago we sat down during rush hour in the middle of the busy street that bisected the University, protesting the war. More than a hundred students joined us. Traffic stopped, the police arrived, and we spent hours being chased across the campus lawns, dodging cops on horses and clouds of tear gas. That evening Robert and I ran ahead of a mass gathering of demonstrators at the Student Union, to post ourselves on either side of a stairway leading into the ROTC building. As we sat awaiting the impending march, the president of the University and a coterie of deans and professors, having been roused from their evening cocktails, approached the stairs and asked us who we were. We dutifully replied that we were “Gargoyles”. The bewildered clique of administrators and elite instructors retreated, just ahead of the mob of students that soon arrived to occupy the building. As the excitement subsided and the party began, Robert and I walked over to his gig in the basement of the student radio station. All night we played ‘Carry On’, the first song on a new release by Crosby, Stills and Nash…”Carry On, Love Is Coming To Us All…”

This week ‘Students for a Democratic Society’ are in town for a national conference, organizing against the Vietnam war. A slew of delegates have arrived to share space in the dorms and make use of various classrooms and student facilities for councils and teach-ins. In advance of and perhaps in preparation for their arrival, the campus is awash with a plentiful supply and variety of cannabis and psychedelic product. When evening arrives, for the first time ever a general state of paranoia has vanished, towels as smoke barriers are removed from under doors, all doors are thrown open, music and parties flourish everywhere. Thus a great anti-war gala and political convention is launched.

Withdrawing from the celebrations, I retreat to my dormitory room, having ingested a quantity of LSD. I feel the need to be apart from the company of others while being launching into this chemically triggered revery. When I enter the dark room, all is quiet and empty and reassuring. Before I can take another step, the calm and familiar voice of Timothy Leary breaks the silence. It issues from the speakers on my stereo that I’d earlier left tuned to the campus ‘underground’ FM station. The voice sad, “Sit down Ralph”.

Frozen in motion and completely astounded, I obediently sit on the edge of the bed near the door, and listen.

The good ‘Doctor Tim’ takes me on an amazing guided tour of my own nervous system, the surrounding universe and the whole history of evolution that leads to the miracle of my human DNA. As he speaks my mind is gently and relentlessly forced to open, in stages. I hitch a ride, from the perspective of our amoebic ancestors, through the unwinding narrative of the evolution of my brain, on to a transcendent vision of a common destiny that’s beyond all space and time. The whole time, out of time, I hardly move a muscle, sitting on the edge of the bed as the story unfolds. Finally I’m talked gently into a safe landing, back in the room I’ve never left, and in the present dimension.

I carried the puzzled surprise and synchronicity of that evening in my imagination for many years. At times I questioned whether the experience was just an elaborately constructed hallucination. Otherwise I viewed it as some kind of unexplainable and secret initiation. Decades later I came across the account of an early psychedelic session, guided and taped by Timothy Leary with one of his grad students at Harvard. The student’s name happened to be Ralph Metzner. Mystery solved?

Colorado

Hitchhiking across the deserts and plains of the southwest, between California and Utah, I’m stranded in a small town with a growing band of fellow travelers. We’ve stood around for hours, having left Salt Lake City going east, descending on the other side of the Wasatch Mountains into a community at a crossroad for tourist and trailer park families. As our numbers keep growing it becomes increasingly unlikely that anyone in middle America will stop for a scary looking gaggle of long-haired young people.

Fortunately there’s a U-Haul agency in town. Someone has the inspiration to pass a hat, in which is collected enough cash to rent a truck, big enough to hold us all, pay for gas, and pick up a few stragglers along the way. We load up and cruise through the night, across the sage covered flats of western Colorado. We finally arrive in the early morning at Granby Reservoir, near the base of the high Rocky Mountains, where a growing campsite of wanderers gather for their walk up mountain trails to the site of the first Rainbow Gathering.

Negotiations have commenced with nervous ranchers and farmers that have set up a roadblock on the road between this camp and our destination. With the help of a sympathetic rancher the barrier is dismantled and we’re able to complete this last short stretch in our pilgrimage. We’re ferried by school bus up a dirt road, from the outskirts of the small town of Granby to the borders of national parkland. A steep winding trail leads us up to a wide meadow that borders a small alpine lake, surrounded by pine forests and overlooked by snow covered peaks. Strawberry Lake. A banner stretched across the final leg of the trail welcomes us “Home”, to this temporary collective refuge in the wilderness. Pilgrims arrive from all directions, most of them escaping the cities in this crazy nation with its crazy politics and prejudices, after years of frustrating struggle in the political trenches. We were looking for some better way forward, or maybe some kind of magic to manifest in the natural world.

I take off along a narrow trail that skirts the edge of the valley, hauling my rucksack and heavy sleeping bag, looking for the perfect spot to set down. In my pack are copies of the first Whole Earth Catalog and the Oxford Annotated Edition of the Bible. I walk beneath pine forests swaying in summer breezes, listening to the soft whisper that carries the sound of not so distant drumming, and the scent of community cooking fires. Finally I come upon an inviting patch of level earth beneath a sheltering tree. The ground is flat and covered with a carpet of pine needles, a little elevated from the path. I decide this is my place, and lay out my sleeping bag and pack. Carefully collecting small pine cones, I place them in a border around the space and outline a welcoming path to enter for anyone who might pass by. I’ve claimed the spot as my own magical circle in the wilderness. All are invited to share.

For hours I sit, listening to the constant sound of drums that come from clearings around the meadow, were people gather for food, conversation and rest. Through the treetops I can see distant snowfields just below the mountain peaks that loom above. Where I come from there aren’t any mountains, except in movies and fairytales. After absorbing the awesome landscape for a bit, I walk down a path that continues to the center of the meadow and the shore of the lake. A council, made up of whoever chooses to attend, gathers continually to tell stories of their journeys, to relate prophecies and mystical visions, and to discuss plans for the days and the ceremonies ahead.

We are dreamers who grew up in the shadow of violence, wishing for a better future. Many like me, had been to the Woodstock Festival or something like it. We’d witnessed the sheer power of our collective will, for better and worse. We hoped that here in the wild, away from the electricity and the crowds and the dependent delusions of civilization, we might encounter some revelation to guide us forward on a path toward some sort of universal peace.

On the last day we gathered in wide prayer circles on top of a high plateau that had been sacred to the displaced people who once lived here. I stood in a wide circle, surrounded by all of these mountains, and hundreds of people praying or chanting or being silent. We were all are waiting for a sign. In the middle of a moment of collective silence, the voice of a single person interrupts. The voice comes from a tall dark man with a shaved head and an incredibly open smile. He’s wearing saffron colored robes, his accent is rather thick, and his presence suggests simultaneously calm wisdom and innocence. For many, the voice is a rude interruption. For others it’s a guide.

For me, I came to realize in the years that followed, it was the sign.

Orlando

We arrive on a special flight from Denver to Orlando to attend the event, on a plot surrounded by Florida forest, a couple of miles from Disneyworld. We work in a community grocery store run by Divine Light Mission, an organization built to spread the words of our teacher and master. To keep the store running during the week long celebration, a skeleton crew is left behind during the first half of the event. We tend the shelves and counters and listen in the evening to the talks and music broadcast across a short wave connection in a downstairs office. For the final days we’re brought across the country to fully take part in the festivities.

The first morning after arrival I’m assigned the duty of porta-potty supervision and sanitation. By late afternoon I’m switched to service in the darshan tunnel, where I attach gardenia blossoms to the silky blue fabric of the walls. Through this fragrant space each one of the thousands of devotees will walk, to receive a moment of attention at the feet of the teacher. From toilets to tunnel is a journey of a few yards that feels like a journey between dimensions.

The Florida weather is clear and immaculate, an occasional bird or butterfly drifting overhead in light warm currents that carry the scent of ocean air. I sit in a grassy field next to a row of my traveling companions, at the front of an audience of several thousand people. On stage before us is a colorful throne surrounded by flowers and framed by cascades of cloth drapery. Just below the front of the platform a small band of amplified musicians sings and plays a mixture of devotional tunes, interweaving elements of American folk and rock with Indian themes. Everything harmonizes in this soundtrack for a large summer celebration.

The music weaves a rapturous spell over the crowd. A vacant field is transformed into a village, in a corner of heaven. From nothing we built a small community in a matter of days, with campsites, showers, latrines and international kitchens. A multicultured army of people that spoke every language on earth, shared a common will, to celebrate life and love together and have an opportunity to be with the one who brought us together.

In the afternoon we sit, entranced in a state of near ecstasy and expectation, until the teacher, dressed in a ceremonial costume evoking a Hindu deity, steps from behind the drapes and takes his seat upon the throne. As the band launches into an electric version of an ancient hymn, he beams down at his audience, like a rock star overseeing adoring fans. Suddenly, a young woman, dressed in a colorful sari, stands up from our row at front and center, and begins to dance. As she gracefully sways to the music, her arms in the air above her head, the colors she wears swirling around her, the teacher stands in resplendent grace, and begins himself to dance.

In that moment for me the time stops, the birds and butterflies for an instant are frozen in flight, and the sunlight and breezes pause in expectant silence. All of my attention is carried by the dance, and all of time and space stops as witness, and there is no separation between anything that exists in the world.

Idaho

The child held her hand as they cross the road in the middle of the valley. Where I stand, at the edge of a forest where the highway begins to climb on its way toward more distant heights, the wide alpine valley is in full view. In its center is a row of buildings along the strip, tiny in the distance. There are the resort cabins where we sleep, beside them a restaurant and convenience store, all perched above a meadow bordering a meandering creek. Across the asphalt what passes for a village includes a widely scattered collection of residences, a real estate office and a clinic. Behind the town and clinic is a small lake bordered by wide pastures, that eventually ascend to the edges of forests which sweep in graceful steps upward toward the distant Sawtooth Mountains, arrayed in sharp display against an endless sky.

The woman and child below are my wife and four year old son. They cross the road to climb a short path toward the clinic. Having come down with a mild but persistent cough that afternoon, and having a history of asthma, my wife decided to take him to the doctor for a cautionary checkup. Meanwhile, I take this short walk in the hour before dinner.

Before I come to the edge of the tall trees on the top of the ridge, while I watch my young family below, so exposed amid this enormous vista of primitive majesty, when my sense of time and space is suspended. Beneath these vast mountain skies, in the shadow of these mountains, I feel something within me expanding far beyond the usual boundaries of affection. For a moment my feelings embrace it all; people, mountains, valley, stream and village. More than at any previous moment in my life, everything I witness is enveloped within a boundless atmosphere of love.

Then I turn again toward the trail, and that feeling is lost to the winds.

Black

Living in the middle of a White Sea
I apologize to John Mike Thom Daryl Sonia Jamal Ken
Nicolle Tameka Jolene Diane Erika Barclay
Malcolm Shirley Joshua Sergia Nathaniel
so many more

To all those who succeeded
Who got to their goal
Because they were brilliant and creative
and got lucky
And those who didn’t
And those who died going under
While I didn’t do anything special
floating in a world of white dreams
white luck white privilege
without trying
Because I could
Because I am
Because I’m lucky
I am sorry so sorry
You were my friends
I allowed myself to be pulled away
and lost you
I forgot your names
but remember your faces
Now I live on a mostly white Island
Far away from you
Your streets your beautiful homes
Your inviting arms and spaces
I don’t know how to return

The night I drank too much ‘Orange Flip’
and threw up in your basement
on your mothers dress
You drove me back
To my house on the West Side
The white side
Where it was dangerous
for black boys to be seen
we were boys
so brave
You left me on the front lawn
Because it was after dark
Now I know that you were afraid

The women used to run their hands
through my hair
amazed at how light and fine it was
I would offer it now
toward reparations

AN INVITATION

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My Publishing Career

When I was in elementary school I was given for Christmas a small printing press  that could make stuff the size of business cards or raffle tickets. I started a number of membership organizations among my classmates that could be activated simply by asking for a card: ‘The Hoppity Hooper” Fan Club,’ ‘The Rocky and Bullwinkle Fan Club,’ and our final, three color masterpiece, a membership in ‘Camp Palumbo’ along with a small certificate of the official currency, the ‘Pazzuza.’ 

Later on my neighborhood friends and I, all bing in the same Boy Scout Troop, would take each issue of the Official Boy Scout Magazine paste in alternative headlines and captions cut out of other publications and turn Boys Life into what we thought was a hysterically funny parody inspired by Mad Magazine, a publication we really took seriously.   

In high school, myself and my high-minded friends published and repeatedly got in trouble for a series of independent journals printed via mimeograph machine and silk screen press at our local Peace Movement Offices. I continued this though college and after, until moving to Santa Fe, when I got a bit more seriously embedded in the writer’s world. 

In 1984, after attempting to convert reams of handwritten notes, poetry, short stories and essays into a publishable form into typewritten documents (a frustrating process) I took a class in the new Word Processing technology at the local community college. About midway through the course the teach came into class entranced by the release of the first Apple Macintosh computer. I don’t remember what he said but his trance was somehow infectious, and before the end of the year I’d acquired my own machine and the accompanying laser printer.

For a number of years I published articles and reviews in ‘The Journal for Humanistic Psychology,’ ‘Annals of The Earth’ and ‘Shaman’s Drum’ magazine. 911 happened. I was not particularly surprised that it happened but that didn’t make me less angry. So, I started a blog, called ‘The Arclist,’ which continued view email and website for the next 20 years. After the 2016 election the list pretty much was reduced with short headline introductions to various news and resistance links and very little else. Meanwhile the host site and software became contaminated and obsolete and harder to manage, until a couple of weeks ago I decided to abandon the list in email form and rethink the whole thing. 

I was diagnosed with cancer. This marked an opportunity to rethink everything. I went though my existing contact list and entered them into another email client service that I’d learned to navigate through as a business application. More up to date and flexible and easier to manage in creative ways, I’d like to take advantage of this by setting up a new version of the Arclist, more in the tradition of a Journal that accommodates creative ideas, creative projects and creative discussions between interested folks. I think we are all somewhat anxious to move beyond obsessive focus on the disasters of this past year and turn our attention to future possibilities. Perhaps this could provide an opportunity.

I have a list of names that I’ve gleaned from my contact list. Many of you were part of the previous mailing list or were listed as a ‘friend’ on my Facebook page. Some of you might have gone away for any number of reasons. Some of you may not wish to hear from me ever again. Before engaging the new list I want to send a formal invitation for you to respond, either positively of negatively, and I will then formally activate or delete your membership. If your answer is ‘YES,’ and I hope it is, I will begin sending out my creations, or forwarding others, on some semi-regular basis.

Meanwhile, I’ve attached to this invitation a sampling of the sort of stuff you might expect to receive on the New ARCLIST. Should you wish to subscribe and get the material on this site in our email just send a reply to remelcher@arclist.com, or leave a Reply at the bottom of this page.    

My Favorite Podcasts (Current) 12/13/20

Not included are podcasts I’ve favored In the past but I’m no longer following regularly (this American Life, Masters of Scale) or podcasts that were short form or serialized or no longer being produced (‘Studio 360,’ ‘The Ballad of Billy Balls’). By ‘current’ I only mean current, and this list will continue to shift from day to day as I get turned on to new podcasts.

History

Throughline

One of NPR’s Most Popular Daytime Shows, this hour long documentary style delves into all of the corners of history we are never/rarely taught in school. To fully understand the present events in the context of historical realities the show is unmatched. The two hosts are from first and second generation Iranian and Palestinian families, which may give a clue  to the unique depth of their approach to telling stories.

The United States of Anxiety

A little scary but enlightening as it focuses on the areas in American history that indicate the conflicts that have split the body politic from the beginnings of the USA.

This Day in Esoteric Political History

Somewhat oddly named, focusing each day on a single event (many of which I’d never heard of) at a particular moment in American History, a lively and educated discussion of the event’s historical environment and its influence and indications in the present.

Politics

Hacks On Tap

Political strategists from both sides of the ‘aisle’ toss around their critiques and projections about both parties. Anchored by David Axelrod (Democrat) and Mike Murphy (very ‘anti-Trump’ Republican), with a variety of chummy guests, the analysis is delivered with a good deal of humor and real ‘insider’ knowledge of how political campaigns actually work.

FiveThirtyEight

I’ve been listening to these guys since 2015. A relief from the general alarmist nature of political news and analysis. Sometimes a bit over-the-top ‘wonky,’ I favor 538 for a strictly data-based view of political realities balanced by a crew of mostly contrarians in one form or another. I simply like these guys. As I was about to write this review, unfortunately the departure of Clare Malone is a great loss. Relative newcomer Harry Bacon Junior has brought a similar contrarian sensibility and a much needed black perspective to the panel, Malone brought an equally important feminist and Midwestern (Ohio) perspective. 

The Ticket

One of the better interview shows from The Atlantic. Host Isaac Dovere chooses subjects that are generally slightly out of the mainstream news but closer to actual events. Always new information and insights.

The Axe Files

Long form, one hour interviews of a range of public figures, illuminating their biographies and focusing on their positions in regards to contemporary politics. David Axelrod, currently head of The U. Of Chicago School of Politics and once Obama’s chief campaign adviser, is relentless in his ability to get beyond easy rhetoric to the true nature and personality of his guests.

Amicus

A bit alarmist in the ‘Slate’ style this is the best way to keep up with the arguments, decisions and implications for the future of the Judicial branch of government.

Intelligence Squared

Both sides of every question, thoroughly and respectfully debated. Particularly helpful to those in the habit of considering the ‘other side’ to be totally without brains or merit. (Note: This applies only to arguments that actually apply when a et of common facts are agreed upon.) 

Reporting

The Daily

The New York Times, in its breadth and depth of coverage is still at the top of the media heap. This podcast offers a sampling every morning, with a single news story or interview and a short headline summary. On Sunday an archived ‘feature story’ is read in entirety. I highly recommend checking out the Dec. 6th edition: “The Social Life of Trees.” 

Global News Podcast – BBC

I start the day with this one, as the focus isn’t obsessively on America and it’s ridiculous politics, it’s coverage is delivered with an almost universally cheerful, or at least less apocalyptic stance. Given all of the ‘Brexit’ angst in Briton these days, I suppose several hundred years more of living history kind of levels out ones perspective on the present.

The New Yorker Radio Hour

I wasn’t sure just where to place this since the coverage is as much news as it is cultural commentary. I decided that since the coverage is essentially ‘journalistic’ in approach, this fits.

Business/Journalism

Pivot

Two of the most knowledgeable people on the fringes of Big Tech, Kara Swisher and Scott Galloway make a ‘perfect couple’ with their insights into current and future trends in business, investing and the politics around technical innovation and culture. Punctuated by personal banter and good natured kidding these two have been going at it for a couple of years of successful and popular podcasting. Swisher, the journalist, keeps things on track while almost cagily draws out brilliant insights from Scott, the NYU business professor and investor. Guests are featured with back and forth interviews by both Kara and Scott.

The Professor G Show

Scott Galloway’s own podcast (see above), where he calms down while proving himself a capable interviewer, while giving himself some time to deliver, John Oliver style, some incredibly insightful, critical, and sometimes inspiring ranting about ethics in politics and business.

Sway

Kara Swisher’s new interview show from The New York Times where she is featured as a regular Opinion columnist. The NYT is managing a very successful and profitable switch into the digital medium. Swisher is a digital candidate for the Maureen Dowd chair of journalism. Her interviews so far have included a diversity of subjects (from Dowd herself to Hillary Clinton to Jane Goodall).

Science

New Scientist Weekly

Friendly, British, delivered with a touch of humor, the most up-to-date international coverage of the scientific progress on Covid-19, and the latest questions and discoveries in scientific research.

Philosophy

Hi-Phi Nation

Philosophy revealed through contemporary storytelling and interviews that reveal in our present dilemmas their deep roots in philosophical discourse. A uniquely illuminating approach and my ‘great discovery’ of the month.

Into the Zone

An original approach to ideas and storytelling from novelist Haru Kunzru, who focuses on how ‘opposites’ shape our world. While founded in stories from the ‘real’ world Kunzru’s approach is delightfully filled with literary twists and turns and metaphor. I was turned on to him in an interview with ‘The Book Review’ podcast (see below).

Storytelling/Literature

The New Yorker Fiction

I’ve been listening to this podcast for more than 10 years. It’s one of my main links to the world of short fiction. A writer each month gets to choose one of their favorite stories from another writer in the archive and to read it out loud. Afterwards the author/reader discusses the story with Fiction Editor Deborah Treisman, focusing on how the story inspired and influenced them.

Imaginary Worlds

Being a heavily invested fantasy, sci-fi and comic book geek, how could I miss this one. ‘How we create Imaginary World and why we suspend our disbelief.  ‘Nuff said!

The Book Review

From the New York Times Book Review, but less intimidating. It features author interviews plus short discussions and reviews of some of the latest books out on the shelf.

Poetry Off The Shelf

A refreshing break into the dimensions of pure sound and word. Poems are read, interviews and analysis are delivered. A little Poetry Magazine online.

Humor

Beef and Dairy Podcast Network

I cannot really desgribe this to you. It’s British and hllarious. Every episode begins nearthe absurd nand then carries one beyond…

Mission To Zyxx

By now an old stand-by for fans of imprvisational humor, sci-fi and those with a need to fill the void between space-based intergalactic blockbusters.

Weird Tales

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I became dismayed and extremely frustrated the other day when somebody for which I carry a lot of respect and affection parroted to me the same right wing propaganda that constantly proliferates on You Tube and Facebook. Both sources are essentially ‘Rabbit Holes,’ programmed to drive gossip, controversy and sensationalism while selling ads.

Between the paranoia and the propaganda, much of it not even generated in this country, our adversaries have gotten America’s number. We are a society that appears to be coming apart at the seams. Only the slightest encouragement is required to cause us to turn on one another like frightened dogs. Since Americans tend to trust our screens more than our actual experience we are VERY ripe for programming and manipulation. Tell a good yarn and it’s certain you’ll create a following. Provide a cliffhanger or sense of constant crisis and you can, like Trump, create a cult.

A cult functions like a cancer on the collective consciousness. Ideology is substituted for facts, programming takes the place of thinking, Individuals begin to function like robots. People once regarded as intelligent humans begin repeating the currently circulating memes and claims in a kind of science fiction nightmare that features suffocating hordes of mindless clones.

When a sufficient number are pulled into the myriad belief systems and ideologies that offer alternatives to the actual processing and evaluation of information, collective decision making becomes almost impossible. There can be no accord, because every position becomes an absolute. The quest for solutions becomes a battle between religions.

So, here we are America, trapped in our own tar pits of misinformation and increasingly obsessive fanaticism. As a nation we appear to be suffering various forms of mass psychosis, shouting at one another from totally different perceptions of reality.

The anxiety of the final days and weeks leading us toward our fate is that we don’t really know how bad is the disease. We know it’s pretty bad, and it’s spreading in waves, mostly driven by social media and those who profit from chaos. Everyday the stories and rumors get more imaginative and ridiculous, while people huddle in groups formed mainly to reinforce their own fears and premeditations.

Perhaps there are still enough Americans out there who are capable of rational decision making, who aren’t afraid of facts and data, who can make the mental leap to figure out that voting out of fear and insecurity will only lead to more of the same.

It’s hard to tell. Rational people find themselves trying to be heard above the noise, and the noise is everywhere. In the year 2020, with pandemic, racial tensions, climate change and election fever all appearing to peak at once, we will be forced to see more clearly, once the dust settles, just who and what peers back at us in the mirror.

Continue reading “Weird Tales”

Seventy

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This week I approach my seventieth birthday. It’s the same as Thomas Jefferson’s, with whose passions and contradictions I can totally relate, particularly the fact that his vision so far exceeded his grasp. As a privileged and prosperous inheritor of great wealth in an economy based on slavery, as an obssesive tabulator of facts and figures and an elevated member of a race and culture that considered itself inherently superior to all others, Jefferson’s restless mind would not allow him to reside in any fixed station. Instead he imagined an ideal world, nonexistent at the time, where every human being had, by virtue of being, inherent and inalienable rights to pursue satisfaction in whatever way they could. The nation he helped to get off the ground has yet to achieve those ideals, having been saddled, as was Jefferson, with the contradictions between commerce and equality.

Today I took a walk into the center of my city to find a public mailbox and to appreciate the beauty of an early spring day in Santa Fe. The streets were mostly quiet, except for occasional cruisers in huge pickup trucks and a flotilla of motorcycles that wove themselves around the Plaza. A few couples and isolated characters wandered like me past the close galleries and restaurants, museums and churches, appreciating the blossoming trees and the opportunity to pull down our face masks to appreciate their scents in the open air. As I walked I listened to Zen talks given from Mount Tremper in New York via podcasts on my iphone. I contemplated my own conflicts and contradictions and my own position in regards to the present and the future.

In contemplating the inner struggles of the past three years it occurred to me that I could turn things, so to speak, on their head. Instead of seeing only chaos and obstacles culminating in the crashing and devastating halt of the pandemic, I could see all of this as an opportunity. Perhaps, as we each approach a sense of possible and impending mortality, we can sort out the the wheat from the chaff both in our individual natures and in the world at large.

The basic contradiction in American culture, it seems to me, is where the cult of individual freedom clashes with the common welfare, and by extension where the demands of a capitalist system clash with the aspirations of democratic institutions. Perhaps, with the ascendency of the present administration, these contradictions have been put before us in as plain a vision as could be possible. As a nation addicted to celebrity culture and to the pursuit of personal wealth we’ve managed to elevate to the highest level the perfect embodiment of pure ego and self interest, devoid of empathy or of compassion or of any consideration that transcends the possession of pure power and an illusion of control. Some of us have done this out of avarice and some out of fear and pure desperation.

For those of us who have conceived of a different world, governed by the notion that the welfare of one is inseparable from the welfare of the whole, these three years plus have been both a travesty and a challenge. Most importantly, it has daily shown, in our responses and reactions who we really are, at our best and at our worst.

For me, it has fully exposed a current of rage and resentment that I’ve lived with for most of my life, and which I’ve strived to suppress or which has been the engine of my own self judgement. Where does it come from? Perhaps some is inherited through family dynamics or early childhood disappointments and frustrations. Not a little has emerged out of the pure disillusionment of having been raised with the highest ideals only to see them continually subverted within the world I’m forced to navigate. Some of it is a product of an empathic reaction to gross injustice done to others. Whatever it’s origin, this steady undercurrent of rage has in many ways made my life and the experience of those around me more difficult, rather than less.

For this I am deeply aggrieved.

Yet, on the other side of rage is compassion. I’ve long considered his to be my greatest failing. On the one hand, I’ve always experienced an acute sense of empathy with those who suffer in this world. On the other hand I’ve allowed those feelings to feed my sense of outrage against those whom I perceive to be the propagators of that suffering. In my mind and in my emotions I’ve separated those who I perceive as the victims from those I’ve perceived as the victimizers. As our culture has become more and more polarized, between the rich and the poor, the white and the non-white, the powerful and the weak, this has metastasized into what amounts to an internal ‘civil war’ that I find myself fighting on a daily and hourly basis. There are the ‘good’ guys and the ‘bad’ guys, and my vision doesn’t allow for anything between total victory or total defeat.

What has become increasingly clear to me, in this cultural moment when the rug has been pulled out from under both the perpetrators and their victims, is that we are all relatively helpless in the face of forces that are so much larger than our petty struggles over greed and ego. So, now the question becomes whether I can overcome my feelings of rage and resentment, and join once again the collective experience of the human race in a manner that goes beyond ego and ideology, and is nothing more than a reflection of the forces that I perceive as the enemy.

* * *

In the last couple of months the vicissitudes of age have finally caught up with me. The work I do for a living has taken a deep toll on my body. My shoulders are a tight mess, the tips of my fingers have grown numb with the carpel tunnel effects of the former, yesterday when I took out my bike for the first time since the Fall, I had trouble lifting my leg high enough to mount up. My plans for the future and for retirement are, as a consequence, all in serious question. On top of this is the virus and a question about how my previously strong immune system has stood the vicissitudes of age. In short, the question of mortality stands before me as never before.

The lesson that I believe needs to be learned is that the outcomes are out of my hands, and that my responsibility to myself is to live this life as much as I can in a state of acceptance rather than one of eternal conflict. This is admittedly very difficult for someone who feels both like a warrior and a disillusioned idealist. I will always be a warrior. What I need to let go of is the disillusionment. Then I can begin to address the problems and situations in front of me without having to view them through the destructive discoloring of rage.

Who knows, perhaps the possibility of compassion is not even out of reach. Perhaps even that possibility can extend to an America still caught between dream and reality and having to face its own collective demons.