Theodore Roosevelt

    Perhaps the biggest disappointment of Theodore Roosevelt's life was that he was not president during a war. He unabashedly loved war. A passionate student of history, TR knew that the path to the immortality that he craved inevitably wound its way through many battlefields, and he did all that he could to make it so. His advocacy for America's involvement in the First World War had perhaps no contemporary equal, even as it pulverized an entire generation of young people and took the life of his favorite son. "It's rather up to us to practice what father preaches," is what Quentin Roosevelt said when asked about his father's attitude towards war. The wreckage of Quentin's downed plane in 1918, as well as German soldiers posing with his mangled body, eventually made their way back to Theodore, but apparently had little noticeable affect on him. His was a generation that experienced the transition from war as a limited, heroic affair into a machine-age death trap, and recognized the transition far too late. In other arenas, Theodore Roosevelt was similarly of a different age, but, as he said, he was always "in the arena" and never sniping from the sidelines, and that is worthy of great praise. In this era of reexamining our traditional historical icons, what can modern America say for Theodore Roosevelt? What do our modern ethical scales Do we stand a chance of understanding any historical figure with the nuance and context that every person deserves? 

    "Teedy" Roosevelt was born in 1858 on Manhattan Island to Theodore ("Thee") and Mittie (nee Bulloch) Roosevelt and grew up a sickly, timid child with few prospects for any physical accomplishments. His extended family was irreparably split by the Civil War - Mittie was a Georgia Native, and Thee reluctantly paid a substitute rather than fight his wife's family - and one of Theodore's clearest childhood memories was watching Lincoln's funeral procession from his parents' apartment on 5th avenue. His family's summer home in Oyster Bay, Long Island, called Tranquility, gave birth to TR's love for nature, and he spent most of his young life believing that he would one day become a biologist. 

     While his appetite for learning grew into a life-long love affair with literature of any kind (his is purported to have read nearly three hundred books a year), he was threatened with near invalidity by his severe asthma, for which the accepted treatment of the time was near invalidity: little physical exertion of any kind. Perhaps the most consequential conversation of Theodore's early life came when his father bucked contemporary medical consensus and gave him a blunt assessment of his physical prospects: "You have the mind, but you haven't the body. You must make your body." Teedy's relentless exercise regimen and overall constancy of physical and mental activity, which he called "The Strenuous Life," did in fact defeat his asthma "make his body," as his college boxing career can attest to. 

    Roosevelt's outsized personality characterized his Harvard days: he was known to sprint across campus and frustrate his professors with lectures of his own during classes, but eventually won the grudging respect of his classmates. During his time at Harvard, Theodore met Alice Hathaway Lee and relentlessly courted her in a way that was customary in their day, but would likely make modern readers squirm (Teddy was not one to take "no" for an answer). His advances were eventually rewarded and they were married. Theodore tragically lost both Alice and his mother within hours of one another in 1884, a loss from which Theodore never fully recovered. He named the baby girl Alice, but could only rarely bring himself to say her name from the pain his wife's memory brought him. 

     Roosevelt eventually sought comfort in the bleak landscape of North Dakota in an area that is now a national park named after him. Though his ranching business venture failed, Theodore gradually won the respect of more experienced ranchers much the same way he had in college: through a "strenuous life" that few could match. Edith Carow, Theodore's childhood friend, would become his second wife shortly afterward, and though Edith probably was intellectually Theodore's equal, she would content herself in her children and domestic life throughout their marriage. 

     On domestic issues, Roosevelt took his cue from Thee and lived out the "Nobless Oblige" ideals of public service on the part of those who had much. His early public career saw him rise to become a member of the New York state assembly, New York Police Commissioner and then United States Civil Service Commissioner. He was an idealistic man living in decidedly unidealistic times - graft, nepotism and an overall resignation on the part of civil servants to the pressures of unjust dealings with the public was threatening to destroy common Americans' relationship with their government. 

    It was, However, a ripe opportunity for the ambitious Roosevelt, and his famous late-night haunts of New York alleyways in search of corrupt policemen rather than criminals reflects high standards and commitment to honest government that were both tone-deaf and admirable. He was able to cut through the moral cynicism of his day using the same willpower transformed his feeble body and won the love of his first wife. Bram Stoker expected Teddy would be president because he was a man "you can't cajole, can't frighten, can't buy." 

    Nobless Oblige, of course, implies a power-dominance relationship that both modern and past Americans find distasteful. He appealed to Americans from all walks of life, but Roosevelt held a deep conviction that he and his family belonged at the top of the socioeconomic food chain, and that his duty did not extend to actions that threatened that position. In tours of New York tenements led by his friend and famous photojournalist Jacob Riis, Roosevelt felt that while much could be done to help close the economic gap between slum-dwellers and his own class, the issue stemmed primarily from inferior breeding and racial inferiority. 

    Roosevelt's foreign policy began when he led an eclectic group of hand-picked soldiers during the Spanish-American War, earning himself and his "Rough Riders" fame in a foolish but successful charge up San Juan Hill. His account of the Rough Rider's exploits was so centered around himself that humorist Finley Peter Dunne famously quipped that instead of "The Rough Riders", a more appropriate title for the book would have been "Alone in Cuba." 

    While president, his approach to relations with our southern neighbors followed a similarly self-centered, paternalistic pattern. In Central America, Teddy was determined to "speak softly and carry a big stick," which often entailed treading on the sovereignty of other nations in order to promote America's interests in the region. In Panama, TR instigated a revolution in which pro-American freedom fighters toppled the established regime, allowing America sovereign control over the canal zone both during its construction and a future 63 years until it was returned to Panama in 1977. In his 1904 Corollary to the Monroe doctrine, Roosevelt sought to esablish America as the only nation capable of weilding the "big stick" that was needed to fend off European imperialist interest in South America and the Caribbean. 

    In many ways, Roosevelt's foreign policy fits into the turn-of-the-century Anglo-American global perspective. TR, in short, considered the "White Man's Burden" an indispensable part of the "Strenuous Life." I find in his sentiments a genuine concern for the well-being for humans, but comparatively little regard for human rights. A more cynical commentator might assert that the high-mindedness of TR's goals in Latin America were a thin veil for economic imperialism, but I would say that is unlikely. Based on his temperament, upbringing and political actions, I believe that Roosevelt genuinely felt that the imposition of Anglo-American values would benefit Central Americans. 

    To be sure, his vision was broad, but his methods were narrow, and his ability to be influenced by non-like minded people ensured that they remained narrow. Much in the same way that he felt warfare was essential to national vitality, so did he feel about American expansionism. Without new lands in his beloved Western US to conquer, hearts and minds abroad would have to become the new Frontier of Americanism, and Theodore Roosevelt, ever the student of history, saw himself as our Julius Caesar, with the people of Central America playing the part of the unfortunate Gauls. 

    The onward march of civilization and the subsequent destruction of traditional cultures has created a rift between the West and its former imperial holdings, as well as a rarely productive discussion within the Imperial powers themselves about how to deal with their complicated legacy. Perhaps the only president whose administration caused more damage to our relationship with Central America is James K. Polk, whose role in bringing about the Mexican-American War gained us the Southwest and the everlasting suspicion of Mexico. 

    TR embodies paternalistic Western Culture: confident, outward-looking, relentless, and often tone-deaf. Few can reasonably defend his forays into the affairs of other nations. While I believe TR himself would honestly say that he did not wish it to be so, his foreign legacy is one of imperial exploitation and economic subjugation. Our comparatively distant relations with our southern neighbors can reasonably be said to have their roots in TR's presidency. It must be said, however, that scorn for his clumsy foreign policy and off-putting domestic motivations must be tempered by his "Strenuous Life" ideals and outward-looking nature that I believe are at the heart of the American Character in the 20th Century. 

     Even his views on the beneficial aspects of war on the national spirit have their merit, not inasmuch as they are a fact, but in that they describe the way that crisis and struggle can act as a needed bonding agent for the modern nation-state. Much can be said by psychologists about the affect that his father's decision to forego military service had on Theodore. Had come of age twenty or forty years later, we might think of Theodore Roosevelt as one of America's great war heroes, living out the vocation in which he took the most pride. 

    He is a complicated person, as we all are, who strove to be the first true American Renaissance man, and few can deny that he at least comes close. Perhaps Teedy's legacy is represented best by his beloved National Parks, which he rightly felt were a tremendous gift that should be preserved for Americans regardless of background, but that should be under the care of enlightened (and preferably white) people, and by no means the property of the natives, whose culture and ancestral beliefs were largely swept away by the the combined weight of Theodore Roosevelt's personality and his country's cultural biases.

Lessons from the Confederacy to Aspiring Revolutionaries

"The principle for which we contend is bound to reassert itself, though it may be at another time and in another form." 

The words of a true, committed revolutionary giving voice to the feelings of his followers. The man who spoke these words was a person who struggled through setbacks and overwhelming odds knowing that he would ultimately be vindicated by history, but almost certainly not in his lifetime. His sentiments, often articulated in surprisingly quotable speeches, will continue to be debated for as long as the history of America survives, but few can deny his singular and unwavering commitment to his cause. It is a commitment that many have shared: the commitment of a political martyr who felt that though their cause was misunderstood, unpopular or even hated during their lifetime, the passage of time would ultimately reveal the truth in his words. These words could have easily come from Marx, Robespierre, Spartacus, or Thomas Jefferson. In fact, the man who said these words was Jefferson Davis, the first and only president of the Confederate States of America. 

The Impossibilists

All revolutions will suffer from some degree of sectionalism, but Jefferson Davis learned that the fierce independence of its components made Confederate experiment untenable almost from the start. This should surprise no one; the Confederacy was based in a radical form of self-determination, which made central leadership virtually impossible, and without central leadership, winning a war is impossible. "Impossiblilists," led oddly enough by Davis' own Vice President Alexander Stephens, represented the part of the Confederate conscience that was most pure: anything that could be construed as centralization was to be fought as viciously as the Union invaders. They reasoned that if they were to resort to the tactics of the hated federals to win their independence, they had replaced one autocracy with another. Confederate governors famously hoarded supplies and otherwise undermined Davis constantly, almost certainly contributing to their own demise. It is an extreme example of the lack of coordination and common purpose that has doomed many revolutions before and after the Confederacy, and hindsight seems to indicate that many Confederates cared little if they were doomed: they had their pride, and by 1865, that was about all that was left.

The Lesson: Sectionalism will kill your movement. Success will be impossible without clear, attainable goals, and yes, you will have to surrender much of your autonomy, and perhaps even your principles, in order to be successful. Choose a (1) leader, and find a comfortable balance between holding them accountable and supporting them. A casual observer should be able to ask just about every member of your movement what you are fighting for and get a satisfactory answer. If the average person cannot understand your goals, they are probably a too abstract to be practical. Genuine unity will give your movement sustainable momentum, but reactionary violence and infighting, no matter how justified they may seem, will make you look disorganized and immature.

Sherman

For many Southerners, William T. Sherman has come to personify the repressive and Imperial spirit of the federal government. American military historians seem to half-heartedly credit Sherman as the bridge between the old and new military conventions of what is acceptable in warfare, and it is a badge that "Old Billy" wore with pride. Sherman laid waste to entire regions of the South, most notably in his "March to the Sea," in which he and his army cut a swath of destruction through Georgia and the South Carolina that encountered little organized resistance and brought the war up to (and often across) the doorstep of the Confederate Heartland. Though it was far less ruthless than Davis and his compatriots would have us believe, Sherman was genuinely ruthless, and in fact was at the cutting edge of the terrible kind of total war that characterized the 20th century. When asked to justify the savagery, Sherman would answer that a terrible war is a short war, because unlike the confederate firebrands mentioned above, most people prefer "subjugation" to utter destruction. It's cold, and certainly not a high moral standard, but one that is reasonable.

The Lesson: Do not expect quarter from the "establishment." Even the most high-minded social orders in the world will not give up their position to a new one without a fight. You have chosen for yourself an uphill battle, so prepare for one. 

A Confederacy of the Mind

Another quote that is revealing about Mr. Davis' worldview is his insistence that he and his compatriots were "fighting for Independence, and that, or extermination, we WILL have." This was a common theme among confederates: an almost visceral aversion to compromise. Southern "Chivalric Culture" glorifies a romantic, almost medieval dedication to preserving one's honor, and our Civil War gave Southern men and boys the perfect opportunity to test their honor, though it was usually tested on empty stomachs, shoeless feet and little sleep. Shelby Foote described Davis' commitment to this belief in purity of the struggle as "putting a blind telescope to his eye": he and his people had chosen a very narrow path, and would see even the most trivial obstacle as one that was beneath his honor to even acknowledge. It is a feeling that, upon reflection, should feel very familiar: compromise with the enemy is tantamount to defeat. In circumstances where lines have been crossed and blood has been spilled, that feeling will be almost impossible to overcome. Davis of course cast the mental struggle of the South in racial terms, going so far as to classify descendants of Puritans in the North as a race predisposed to subjugate others. I suspect much of that was genuine, but it was also a shrew political move that dehumanized his opponent and made any compromise a virtual impossibility. 

The Lesson: Seek compromise, and don't be afraid to be flexible. Creating an adversarial situation will feel right and gain you support, but it will hurt your cause. Dehumanizing your opponent will make bringing them to understand your position impossible, and will almost certainly harden their own views. Never forget that your opponent is a person, and as such is capable of changing and improving, in whatever way you characterize as "improvement." If you take the Impossibilist approach of shirking compromise at any cost, do not expect success.

The Lost Cause

Following the fall of Mr. Davis' government in 1865, a combination of many factors led to the creation of the "Lost Cause" myth, this being that the principles for which the Confederacy fought were just (and perhaps divinely sanctioned), and that a series of schemes undermined the morally, spiritually, and racially superior Southern nation and caused its demise. The popularity of this narrative is proof that history is not written by the victors, history is written by the people who take the time to write the history. In the case of the Civil War, it was the descendants of Confederates who appear to have taken up this endeavor most earnestly following the war, and through their work this myth of the Lost Cause dominated the national discussion about Civil War History. Though it strikes many as delusional and perhaps a bit silly, it is a sentiment that is shared by all revolutions: a blind faith in the justness of one's cause, and the confidence that all setbacks in the fight for that cause are temporary.

The Lesson: Learn from your failures. Steadfastness has and always will be an admirable trait, but when it distorts your ability to question your own motives and tactics, you will sounds as silly as the Lost Causers. No matter how difficult you battles are, never allow failure and humiliation to turn your idealism into thirst for vengeance and deflection of blame. People who affect lasting change accept responsibility for their failures and don't continue to make mistakes under the pretense of being "determined" or "committed."

The Statues

During the early 20th century, it appeared that perhaps the seeds of the Southern cause had only been thrown on poor soil, and just needed a bit of tending to grow and bear fruit. During our current national "discussion" about public monuments to Confederate leaders occasionally references the fact that almost none were erected before the person they immortalized was long dead. (Personally, I very much doubt that R. E. Lee and most other confederates would be proud of a statue commemorating his participation in a war that he lost, but I'm prepared to be corrected). Recasting (literally) Confederate leaders as gallant, underappreciated heroes reflects what I think is a uniquely American tendency to love the underdog, and to interpret failure as a result of government oppression. Confederate apologists have, to their credit, played the underdog card perfectly, and have created a groundswell of support for giant pieces of metal that few cared about ten years ago.

The Lesson: History does not change, but circumstances do. It is the constant  reexamination of history that makes it useful, even when the stones we overturn show us ugly truths. Expecting perfection from historical figures according to modern social litmus tests is a bit silly, and all revolutionaries should be as ready to consider the merits as well as the defects of those who have earned historical recognition, but taking down statues is not "rewriting history". We should all bear in mind that those suddenly beloved Confederate statues were erected almost entirely in the 1920's and 30's Jim Crow-Era South, which I don't think is worthy of anyone's support. Eastern Europeans tore down statues of Lenin, Iraqis tore down statues of Saddam. Certain things are meant to be changed.  

"Truth crushed to dust is truth still, and like a seed will rise again." More of Davis' words that every revolutionary should read both in and out of historical context. Perhaps the best advice any student of history can give to those who want to affect change is this: always question your own motives, and always take responsibility for your words and actions. I offer these suggestions not to discourage or chastise the energetic and politically zealous among us, but only to give some appropriate and (hopefully) helpful remarks, and perhaps to revel in the sunshine of a society that at least feints interest in so dry a topic as its own history. There are plenty of things that are worth struggling, fighting and dying for, but they are all impossible to channel into lasting social change without rigorous self-reflection. As the embodiment of the Confederate conscience (past and present), Jefferson Davis was almost entirely incapable of a lack of this type of reflection, and that, probably as much as the laughable military and economic odds, led to his downfall. My sincere hope is that in the future, the "Lost Cause" of the Confederacy will not be crushed into historical dust, and I do not expect that it will. There are at least 650,000 reasons why the Confederacy and its principles, however removed they are from modern sentiments, will always be part of our history. 

Freedom and Public Health

"The world has never had a good definition of the word liberty, and the American people, just now, are much in want of one. We all declare for liberty; but in using the same word we do not all mean the same thing." Abraham Lincoln said that in 1864, a historic time that provides very useful insight into our current situation. While it is not quite fair to equate our current issues with our Civil War, we still cling to our freedom in similar ways that Americans did in 1864. We are a free country. To many we are the free country. And yet freedom doesn't seem so cut-and-dry anymore. Fear is strangling us in ways few of us ever imagined, and in ways we can't even agree upon. A concern for health, both our own and of others, can have that effect. Mr. Lincoln lost two sons at early ages to illnesses that at the time were not understood. I suspect that he, like any other father, would have taken every possible precaution to prevent that, including changing his definition of freedom. It seems that we now have what we need to prevent hundreds, perhaps even thousands of deaths. Why is there pause? Why is there debate?

I find that if pressed on the issue, most Americans mistrust scientists and other "educated" people for one reason or another. What makes those people unworthy of trust is a discussion for another time (smugness?). The products of their labor, however, seem to have gained our approval. Scientists invented light bulbs, guns and hay balers and just as they invented cell phones and the internet. These are things we build our lives around and depend on. But now scientists are almost universally telling us to shut down our statistically stellar economy. To some, their work is suddenly flimsy, or overblown, or part of an immense conspiracy to redo 2016. It's a contradiction that we Americans wrestle with every day, because we love our myths. And to be fair, it's very satisfying and comforting when we have conspiracies and myths and plain bad feelings to fall back on when the facts give us answers we don't want. It happens every day, on both sides of the political spectrum. But the real question we're facing now is this: will we still feel satisfied when we stuck to our guns and stuck it to the elites, but caused people to die? We can't ask him, but I suspect I know what Mr. Lincoln would say.

Our president and many others appear at the moment to be chastened by the sheer numbers of our problem. After downplaying it, Mr. Trump now speaks in superlatives about the seriousness of the situation. He stands shoulder-to-shoulder with a doctor, making joint statements about how to save the country from what could become its worst economic and social disruption since the Great Depression. And yet, references to the "deep state" and complaints about democrats still slip through. It is a clash of two very serious realities: hard, unavoidable, scientifically proven facts, and the American talent for constructing sometimes self-defeating myths.

Most of us can understand the economic argument. While (almost) no one will admit that they would put people in danger to preserve bottom lines, what will be the impact of the huge spike in unemployment that will likely worsen with each day of a nationwide lockdown? Are we ready to trust doctors with our freedom? What will be the cost if we pretend that this is just like the flu?Another tough nut to crack. Thankfully, every prediction model indicates that cases will eventually level off, and then fall. Despite "essential"  businesses staying open (is the stock market really "essential"?) and in fact begging for new employees, unemployment is almost sure to reach very uncomfortable levels. If the situation drags on for months, will businesses be shuttered because they can't pay property taxes or rent? Plenty already have. It is not hard to see that we will almost certainly need a federal solution to such problems. But that is both politically risky for a conservative president and almost unprecedented.

We have already seen congress throw caution to the wind and cut us all a check for over $1,000. Will congressional and presidential necks continue to be bared for the sake of holding us over? They don't appear to have much of a choice, though every measure will erode a bit of what we currently define as economic freedom. Will that be acceptable? It might have to be, but I doubt it will be enough. I would define our economy is the collective will of people to work hard, not a temperamental gas engine that needs a little priming before it can get itself chugging again. It will take more than that. Many people are about to experience a particularly un-free feeling when their stimulus check is gone and unemployment benefits don't quite cut it. There will have to be a great deal of bootstrap-pulling and belt-tightening before we can get back to the good old days of 2019. We are approaching lean, uncertain times economically. I hope that one product of this crisis will be that after a period where so few of us are being productive, we will gain a renewed understanding of what it means to work. Maybe we will find that we are not as productive, hard working, or free as we would like to believe. Maybe that is our most cherished myth? I'm not sure.

Much ink will be spilled trying to predict x, make sense of y, etc. I do not envy the policy-makers. I personally have a lot more questions than answers. My job was one of the first to be deemed "non-essential." Maybe the most alarming part of this is that we are now in a situation where maybe the most important decisions of this entire crisis need to be made with the least information we will have. In fact, the time to make the most meaningful changes may have already passed. So what will sustain us? A check for a thousand dollars? The destruction of the political establishment? I'm not sure. Reagan and Buckley would rightly swell with pride if they could see the solidarity and grace many individuals and businesses have exhibited without the government's say-so. Karl Marx would be thrilled to see our newfound appreciation for our "essential" workers. Can we be so silly as to hope for an acceptance of common ground between the two?

In short, our idea of freedom appears to be at a crossroads, but what we almost certainly cannot do is stand pat and hope for the best. What Mr. Lincoln called the "dogmas of the quiet past" appear to be inadequate for what we are currently facing as the numbers continue to tick up and the situation becomes more and more difficult to understand. Every person who chooses to disobey the guidelines for social distancing/hoarding/etc., regardless of their reasons (economics, stupidity, delusion, etc.), will force our government to make increasingly uncomfortable decisions about what will be enforced, as well as how it will be enforced. Tanks will roll, tear gas will fly, and weekend warrior militia folks in Idaho will finally get their "I-told-you-so" moment about federal overreach. Whose fault will it be? Will the mental gymnastics undermining the response effort be worth it when thousands of people are sick and dead and we're living under martial law? I certainly hope that's hyperbole. I pray that it is. But I'm not sure.

The Ethics of Climate Change

The Moral Dilemma of "Buying American"

While most talking points in today's mostly conservative talk radio circuit pinball between the fact that Hillary Clinton "would have been so much worse" or a depraved obsession with Alexandria Ocasio-Cortez, one that has actually felt substantial to me is China's international trade policies, which I think can be correctly characterized as "overtly devious." China rips off products from all over the world with the ruthless efficiency that almost certainly would have made Henry Ford giddy. They have pirated intellectual property in a way that brings international scorn to the people that gave the world movable type and gunpowder. It is a very complicated problem, and American politicians have predictably tried to come up with very simple solutions to it: have some talks, shake some hands, sign some papers, and consider the matter settled.

The Clinton Administration pulled a very "Peace in our Time" move and struck deals with China that most serious people knew they would not keep. Obama was only marginally more successful with what quickly became the world's second largest superpower during his presidency, keeping relative peace between China and Taiwan but failing to pressure them to be more honest in their dealings. Trump has promised to be tough with China, but his trade war does not seem to be working. With each new administration comes a new opportunity for China to take advantage of the lack of oversight needed to keep these things from happening. That statement underscores the political reality that gives the Chinese the advantage in this situation: their current leaders have no serious competition, nor any real checks on their power over the economy.

China's behavior has been that of a typically cynical, dishonest, and opportunistic actor, but as a capitalist, I can tell you that their behavior has been thoroughly capitalist. Lenin tells us that "capitalists will sell us the rope with which we will hang them," and I have seen little that tells me that he was wrong. The pursuit of profit makes no distinction between nationality, race, or whether it was acquired in a strictly moral or legal way. It's the eyebrow-raising, shoulder-shrugging, upturned-palms look that we're familiar with in the United States: when someone is presented with a moral argument, most will acknowledge that they are doing something wrong, but rarely act on it. Sociologist call it the "agentic" personality, and for all of its fantastic benefits, modern capitalism encourages it: it's not my job, it's not my responsibility, yes it's bad, but what can I do? Modern China has not mandated safety or regulatory oversight or labor rights, they have mandated progress, and the common person in China is in no position to change that. 2010's China is 1920's America, and what has gone up will almost certainly come down in one fashion or another. For now at least, they are beating us at our own game.

Internationally, Trump has found himself in a pickle on China because in order to actually do anything about the currency manipulation and intellectual property theft that China is perpetrating, he needs the help of the international community, which is not very keen to help him in any way. The European Union seems more than content to watch Trump squirm and save their own issues with China for another day. He has dug this hole as much through his inability to be civil with people who are ideologically opposed to him as his actual policy "positions." It's become what I believe is the hallmark of Mr. Trump's presidency so far: an inability to deal with a situation in which he and the side he is dealing with have equal leverage.

By rights, globalization should be the end goal of true capitalism. Constraining an economy to what it can produce internally when there is an entire world of dynamic and flourishing economies outside of our borders is, to my mind, completely counterproductive. If China can produce comparable products for a lower price, should our reaction not be to find better, cheaper, and more reliable ways to remain competitive with them? Tariffs and bluster are a political solution to an economic problem, and have been shown to be almost completely ineffective. For all of his and his supporters desire to do so, Donald Trump will never undermine China's sovereignty. They can do whatever they want within their borders. Exposing China's dishonesty is the right and reasonable thing to do, but trying to change the way it does business by making their products more expensive to Americans is a route that only ends with both countries suffering. 

Domestically, Trump and most Republicans pat Middle America on the back and pander to them, telling them that the only reason their towns their way of life is decaying is because China is greedy, or because illegals are taking jobs, or because Wall Street is selling them out. To a certain degree, they is correct. The thing that no politician, Trump particularly included, has ever told folks in the heartland is that their troubles are at least in part their own fault. Anyone with a basic understanding of economics should be able see the problem in a city or a state or a group of people relying on one or two industries. This, coupled with the fact that "buying American" almost certainly means "paying more for the same thing" does not make economic sense.

The reason towns in the rust belt are dying is not because of China, it's because the one significant industry in these towns (usually the steel mill or coal mine) probably fell victim to the ebb and flow of the world's needs and wants. China and Wall Street have embraced the very American ethic of constantly seeking economic supremacy, and Americans vote for China's economic supremacy every day by buying their products without demanding American made ones. More rules and tariffs will not help the American working class. It will keep the working class in a cycle of economic uncertainly and will make China and Wall Street find more creative ways of getting around the rules.

The solution is not to ask for the mills and the mines back, because they will still offer jobs that are either useless or can be done far cheaper elsewhere. The solution is to create a more diverse set of economic possibilities for yourself and your family, and perhaps more importantly in encouraging American businesses to find better ways of making products that most Americans buy from overseas manufacturers instead of shielding them from the reality of the global economy. Perhaps creating more political pressure to make education more affordable and effective instead of wasting time with tariffs and walls and trade wars would be a more sustainable solution. It will always be a tough sell because it is very natural to distrust modern education and any process involved in changing traditional ways of life, but it's what has to happen. Perhaps the biggest problem I see in 21st century America is the belief that we are just one law (or repealed law) away from a sort of cartoonish Renaissance of how life used to be. The 20th Century was ours, but it is over, and the world will leave us in the dust if we fail to accept that reality.

Moonlight

It is in the stillness of a deepest autumn night
In the presence of the blind moonlight and the raw
That the terror comes to me.
It always comes, like an emotion or an old friend
To whom I have not spoken for a long time.
Is this the fear that the first men felt
As they cowered from predators?
Did they feel the vastness
That comes over me now?
Did they feel, as I often do,
That the world and its faceless anger
Would swallow them?
Is this the wonder
That made them call out to their creator?

Radical American Nationalism

Lots of people ask me why I teach history. There are lots of reasons, but this little scenario sums it up as well as anything:

The first time a student comes to class late, he knocks on the door, sheepishly enters, quietly acknowledges the instructor, and slumps into his chair, embarrassed.

The second time, the student enters without knocking. He looks at the teacher, maybe cracks a polite smile, and quietly sits.

The third time the student arrives late, he opens the door, nods to one of his friends, and sits without acknowledging the teacher at all. After sitting, he quietly begins a conversation with a student close by.

The fourth time, the student throws open the door and calls to his friend across the room. The student greets every student nearby as he or she slowly progresses to his seat, where he cracks a joke to a student sitting in front of him.

We've all seen it before in many places and in many situations. What's the key here? No one corrects the student. Even though the teacher obviously has rules pertaining to punctuality, they are not enforced. Of course, the real question is this: had you only seen that student arrive late the last time (without context), what would you assume about the teacher and their attitude toward someone breaking a rule, or about the rules in general? Almost without exception, people like to push the envelope. We like things to be easy, and rules and morals, even when talking about something as simple as classroom punctuality, are not easy. We always like to take as much as we can, until we bite the hand that feeds us. We take "little steps" towards a path of less resistance. This is the ripple effect. The "slippery slope."

As the world changes faster than it ever has, these slopes can appear even more slippery. For instance: one of the clearest failures of modern social behavior, particularly in America, is the inability to adjust to instant availability of proof. We've become so accustomed to lying that this simple change creates devastating problems. For instance, had the student in the example been presented early on with proof that he was late, and that this would be used to ensure his following punctuality rules in the future, the problem likely would have been solved. But in general, when incontrovertible evidence proves someone wrong, there are two general directions they can choose: admit failure and move on, or create a scheme in which the information at hand is out of context, misinterpreted, or even wrong completely. This, I believe, is the birthplace of our "complicated relationship" with the truth. With that in mind, let's begin.

It’s saddening, it’s maddening, it’s what’s worst about us not only as Americans, but as human beings. Most importantly, it’s real. It’s white supremacy, as well as all of its components. The modern iteration of this silly and confusing set of “principles” has chosen to rely on the internet and other technology, which of course owes its heritage to enlightened, democratic, humanist reasoning, to spread its message. I don't think I need to elaborate on why that is counterintuitive, hypocritical and altogether silly. As silly as it is, it has once again become deadly. I and most other people had hoped that we would be discussing things like flying cars and space colonization in 2017, but here we are discussing the merits of structured racism. Disappointing doesn’t begin to cut it. But alas, here we are.

For those who have suddenly acquired such a passionate interest in history, particularly that of America, I can only say that I wish they had payed more attention when they were being taught it in school. But then again, recent efforts to undermine public education would lead most to believe that their teachers were somehow out to get them. If we’re to believe the conservative radio talk show hosts, school teachers are slanted, radical left wing pawns that push the slanted, radical left wing agenda in the hopes of, if I am understanding their meaning, ruining America. As a part of my profession, I have become reasonably familiar with American history and school textbooks used to teach it. I have tried to enrich my education about it with as many perspectives on it as I have time for. That's a big part of my job. There is no plot to misinform future generations and push established ethnic groups to the fringes of society. But If there is one certainty I can say that I find consistently in our history, it is that we have always thrived on touchy-feely things like diversity, and we have always pushed back against them. We’ve always bitten the hand that feeds us, whether it has been that of immigrants or Native Americans, or any other group to which we owe our prosperity.

Our history is quite literally filled with contradictions like those, which is fine. We, like every nation, are imperfect. It is just, right, and perfectly healthy to accept things like that. But one of our imperfections lies in the fact that we have trouble taking a hard look at that stuff. For instance: subscribers to our “alt-right” of course represent the views of much of the country, only in a more overt way. That is fact. They represent everyone who is inherently suspicious of muslims or latinos or black people or jews. They represent people who will always blame their misfortunes and anxieties on other people, and never on their inability to adapt to the world that they live in and accept that it is and always will be changing. They represent the people who thought that European immigrants were ethnically inferior, until they were determined to be white enough to fit in. I assure you that that's a much bigger group than what shows up in polls and bar graphs about white supremacy. As flawed as our “founding fathers” were, they did not intend for America to be some sort of haven for white culture, or any culture in particular for that matter, to flourish. If they had, they would have been explicit about it in our founding documents. What those documents are explicit about, however, is the dignity and equality of every single person in this country in the eyes of the law.

In addressing our recent spat over monuments, I will be as brief as possible. What many (including our president) see as an assault on southern culture, in some sense, is just that. Southern culture continues to venerate the leaders of a misguided and failed rebellion because every day, in little towns and big cities alike, they see people like Stonewall Jackson still commanding the armies of the confederacy against the northern aggressors. They aren’t "culture and heritage." They are physical representations of a warped mindset that cannot accept the reality of the confederacy's failure. And let's be clear: our Civil War was fought over the right to continue the institution of slavery. When the dust settles and the mental gymnastics are over, those are the facts. No one needs to tell me that there were other factors. But the continuation of slavery was one, and a big one at that, and for me and most other people, that is enough. Monuments to men who fought to create a nation that would be economically dependent on slave labor do not belong in a country that professes a love of freedom. Those monuments sprang up during a time when klan membership was at its apex and when Jim Crow policies were growing like a malignant tumor. They should have never gone up in the first place, so they’re coming down. Put more frankly, they glorify losers, which I think is something I don’t believe our Commander in Chief is very keen on.

Folks who think that relegating the poor, defenseless confederacy to history books and stuffy museums is “erasing history” in the name of political correctness, again, disappoint this social studies teacher. I only wish that the energy spent defending these monuments had been spent learning about the denial that so many fans of the confederacy live in regarding the facts of the case. The chivalrous and well-mannered antebellum south is still on a pedestal, while the reality of the plantation system is conveniently glazed over, if not ignored altogether. That kind of denial is explicitly dangerous. And even with that in mind, modern technology has shown us that nothing is ever truly “erased.” No one is ever going to forget the confederacy, but alas, losing a war generally relegates you to secondary status. Perhaps that sounds a bit like gloating, but I think that is fair. It's not erasing history, it's not self-hate, it's just fair. Most of my peers and I learned about our Civil War and slavery and how they were intertwined, and we manage to still approve of America, the South included. So yes, in the future, those who wish to revel in the glory of the losing side of our bloodiest war may have to travel further than their local town square, but I have no doubt that they will be satisfied in their local library. I would hope that they might consider themselves lucky, because such easy access to information like that is truly exceptional, particularly when the total history of human conquest is taken into account.

All of this has struck a chord with me because I believe that our Civil War, the defining moment of this country, saw the maturation of some of the greatest leaders in modern history. It's very American to say so, but the men who saw the country through that conflict will represent what it means to be a truly great leader for generations. These people eventually found the clarity to not only understand the immensity of the situation that they were now a part of, but to understand what lay ahead for this country if the conflict did not end agreeably. They had 600,000 reasons to get it right. Those reasons would be quickly forgotten as time passed, but in those raw moments following our deadliest war, men like Abraham Lincoln and Robert E. Lee set their sights on reconciliation and reflection rather than retribution. So for how poorly many southerners regard President Lincoln, one need only look at his terms of surrender for the rebellious states to see that they owe him a great debt of gratitude. Destruction of white culture, they say? Abraham Lincoln was within his rights to crush the south and it’s “culture and heritage” and make them a distant, wretched memory if he so wished. He knew that this was unwise, and gave southerners a brother’s welcome back into the union. His band played Dixie when the surrender was received. Let them keep their homes and their farms, he said. Let them keep their flags. So yes, folks, the scholars who proudly fly their confederate flag have liberal politics to thank for that right. Again, biting the hand that feeds us.

Where it has become complicated is where people cut from conservative cloth complain of our society giving people of traditionally disadvantaged groups a “leg up.” Maybe the most interesting thing I heard during my time attending college in central Pennsylvania was an interview with a man (who was about my age) who said that he was supportive of Donald Trump and his policies because he was “tired of the white guy always being wrong.” Interesting, no? There is, and likely always will be, a segment of America that sees words like “diversity” and “inclusiveness” as code words for the white guy being wrong. They will see efforts to promote people of different ethnic backgrounds, particularly in government and other public service, as unfair and an assault on their ethnicity. Step into their shoes, and you may see something worth discussing. Imagine growing up in a place where the majority of your formative interactions with people outside of your ethnic group were experienced through watching television or reading the newspaper. Then enhance those experiences with the anxieties and frustrations of older generations who have experienced the very same upbringing. The scattered dots begin to connect, and defeatist culture is born.

What I would tell that young man that I heard on the radio is that he is probably misinterpreting the situation he finds himself in. The white guy isn’t always wrong, but from now on he is probably not always going to be right. While the pieces of paper that came our of our independence spoke of enlightened equality, America's economy has always favored rich white protestant men, even before it was America. And while many of us strive for loftier aspirations than economic success, money matters. I don't think it is realistic to deny that. So for my part, that is where I see things like affirmative action and the like playing their role. People who are not white or rich or protestant or male are at an inherent economic and cultural disadvantage to those who are, and I think most people at least intrinsically understand that. So no, I don't think it is crazy to say that certain ethnic groups are inherently less powerful per capita, and are therefore "entitled" to opportunities like affirmative action. It's tricky, but it's the the right thing to do.

And yes, now that times are a little tighter and globalization is helping other countries and not just us, those "entitlements" feel very much like a modern invention to just help out minorities and other disadvantaged people. History tells a different story. The active style of government that gave birth to entitlements, as well as the entitlements themselves, saved the United States from a descent into total economic collapse during another fast-fading memory, the Great Depression. The men and the mentality that caused the Depression were not the people to look to for solutions in any crisis, let alone one as vast as this. So Franklin Roosevelt takes the reigns of a country in true crisis and changes things. He is perhaps the only president who can claim to have inherited a country which was brimming with genuine "carnage," and he resolved to use his power to moderate the impulses of large businesses and other wealthy interests. How did he sell his New Deal reforms to the country? Where did he go for his photo-ops? Not to the homes of sharecropping descendants of slaves in Mississippi, but to the Tennessee backwaters peopled by innocent looking German and Irish immigrant children. America was not prepared to support poor black people, even if it meant dragging the entire country to the bottom of the ocean. White children, even poor ones, would do the trick. Now that public perception leans towards black people and other minorities reaping most of the benefits from entitlements, those entitlements are on the political chopping block. That is not a coincidence.

I’ll again reference history when I say that a swing towards defensive conservative politics (and the corresponding liberal reaction) tend to signal when societies and dominant cultures are almost certainly in decline. For those who take the time to learn about every “civilization” that has come to an end, that is consistent. The Mayans and Aztecs, the great Muslim empires, imperial China, Rome, Soviet Russia, they all saw the same political trends as they descended into ruin. I believe that that is what America is experiencing. Why are we declining? Lots of reasons. The world has caught up with us economically, and we have been slow to adjust. Our infrastructure is, in fact, "crumbling," and it is becoming too expensive to replace.

Perhaps most importantly, our government is being led by a group of people who yearn for an idyllic past that is never going to come back, and they are quite literally changing the rules of government to keep themselves, their families and their culture in an advantageous position. It's not going to work, but can we really blame them? I think that is worth asking. Lawmakers may not seem so, but they are usually astute observers of social undercurrents. They understand that their culture will soon be just another minority, so pushback is only natural. They are adrift at sea, gasping for air while the rest of the world sails away, and they will eventually drown. My question is this: will they drag the rest of the country down with them? I will say to them what I will say to all of the alt-whatever groups that have allowed fear of other cultures and attitudes to occupy their entire being: God will forgive you, but history will not. One day many years from now, scholars will most likely look back at America and say, "All of the information was at their fingertips. How could they have not seen the parallels? How could they have ignored all of the 'little steps' towards ruin and waited for the one 'great shocking occasion?' How could they not have known?"

A bit depressing, I know. The takeaway? Like everything, I suppose it depends on who you ask. Our decision to abandon the opportunity to be moral leaders for the entire world puts us in quite a pickle. We let our extremes get the better of us. We got scared, we are still very scared, and ultimately we will regret it. We are discussing history and science as though they will change if we just fill ourselves with enough denial and hatred and contrived confidence. As I spoke of before, we are not inclined to make peace with difficult realities, but we must. Mr. Lincoln, Mr. Lee and every other person who has had the blood of hundreds of thousands of young people on their hands knows that no amount of well-wishing, torch-lit marching, or "little steps" can being a single person back from the dead. They were leaders who chose to take a moral high road. at least for a little while, they were able to put aside rivalries and political squabbles, because after what they had just experienced, they knew that those things were, in a word, bullshit. And for me, they chose to look to the better angels of their nature because they knew exactly what happens when any other path is chosen: entire generations from towns hundreds of miles from battle return home with broken bodies or broken minds, if they return at all.