Tag: Hyper-partisanship

Sharing More Than a Meal at the Thanksgiving Table

On By T. Carlos "Tim" AndersonIn Commentary1 Comment
Thanks to the Austin American-Statesman for running this piece as an op-ed on Thanksgiving, November 28, 2019.

Some years back my mother insisted that I watch the movie “Planes, Trains, and Automobiles.” Released in 1987, the movie revolves upon the difficulties of Thanksgiving holiday travel. On a deeper level, it’s also about the common grace that two very different individuals — Steve Martin’s uptight business executive and John Candy’s garrulous shower curtain ring salesman — find in each other. Appropriately, the paths of these two strangers, by suggestion of the movie’s final scene, will ultimately merge at a Thanksgiving table, where despite their differences, they will sit side by side.

Here’s the reason my mom recommended the movie: We had recently travelled on a family trip through Peru with all kinds of setbacks — flat tires, roadblocks and requests to prove our U.S. citizenship. The movie’s premise, however, seemed to me exceedingly cliché. But after a first viewing, I was hooked. Our family has watched the movie every Thanksgiving holiday since.

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The first American Thanksgiving, legend tells us, brought Pilgrims and indigenous people together in peace in 1621 to share a bountiful harvest in present-day Massachusetts. Closer examination of the historical record reveals that the Pilgrims — half their numbers didn’t survive the previous winter — and the indigenous had plenty of reason to be wary of one another. The Pilgrims anticipated another brutal winter, and the Chief Massasoit-led Wampanoag were squeezed by their immigrant table guests to the east and their long-time rivals, the Narraganset, to the west. The first Thanksgiving, like the gathering featured in “Planes, Trains, and Automobiles,” was all about strangers encountering one another face to face, forced to consider the possibility that their differences did not outsize their commonalities.

American society is at a precarious state with the arrival of Thanksgiving 2019. Nationally, our politics have become divisive and hyper-partisan; in Texas, there are immigrant children separated from their parents and needlessly traumatized at the border; locally in Austin, there is a homelessness problem and statewide wrangling about how to respond to it. Longtime friends and family members sometimes don’t see eye-to-eye on these and other issues. Due to a crisis of national leadership, there is permission to disparage one another simply because of a difference of opinion.

This polarization threatens not only family gatherings, but civic life as well. Thanksgiving Day is the only national holiday with a specified menu, and consequently, the requirement to be seated at a table. At a table with turkey and varied trimmings, we encounter one another — family, friends and sometimes strangers — with a face-to-face intimacy that is not required on July 4 or Labor Day.

My wife and I lived with our infant daughter in Perú in the late 1980s as I completed a two-year internship during my seminary education. When my parents, who spoke zero Spanish, visited us, food and tables were exclusively the method by which they met Peruvians (few who spoke English). My wife and I were the translators — bridgers — to explain the food and personally connect those who shared the table.

In this hyper-partisan age, those of us who are bridgers have an abundance of worthy and necessary work to do. Gratitude, generosity, and grace are the classic Thanksgiving virtues shared at the table. After we turn the calendar on Thanksgiving, may we have the civic pride to continue to practice these virtues with family, neighbors, political adversaries and even strangers. Our very survival as a civil society depends upon it.

balm.cover.2Tim/T. Carlos Anderson – I’m a Protestant minister and Director of Community Development for Austin City Lutherans (ACL), an organization of fourteen ELCA (Evangelical Lutheran Church in America) congregations in Austin. I’m also the author of There is a Balm in Huntsville: A True Story of Tragedy and Restoration from the Heart of the Texas Prison System (Walnut Street Books, April 2019).

See all my book reviews – linked here.

Check out my new author website: http://www.tcarlosanderson.com.

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American Nations – Book Review

On By T. Carlos "Tim" AndersonIn Commentary4 Comments

Colin Woodard’s American Nations: A History of the Eleven Rival Regional Cultures of North America (Penguin, 2011) was late to get on my radar. The 300-plus page historical synthesis has suffered no loss of vitality almost a decade after publication – like any good work of history, it helps readers better understand the current day. If you still scratch your head trying to figure out how the same electorate elevated both Barack Obama and Donald Trump, in consecutive terms, no less – I recommend that you add American Nations to your reading list.

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Having grown up in the Chicago area, with family ties in rural Minnesota, I was intrigued to discover to which “nation” my family heritage best aligned. With a quick glance at the book’s cover map, I eliminated “Deep South” and “Greater Appalachia.”  Standing out to me was “The Midlands,” a swath of land in the Upper-Midwest stretching from Pennsylvania to Nebraska. I was surprised to discover, as I began to read Woodard’s descriptions, that “Yankeedom” best fit my family heritage. “From the outset, [Yankeedom] was a culture that put great emphasis on education . . . and the pursuit of the ‘greater good’ of the community . . . Yankees have the greatest faith in the potential of the government to improve people’s lives, tending to see it as an extension of the citizenry, and a vital bulwark against the schemes of grasping aristocrats, corporations, or outside powers” (p. 5, paperback). A few other descriptors used by Woodard to describe “Yankees” touch on values I hold dear: “egalitarian,” vocation as “divine calling,” and opposition to “inherited privilege” and “conspicuous displays of wealth.” Yup, I’m Yankee to the core.

With support from The Midlands, Yankeedom was the main combatant against the Deep South and its cousin nation “Tidewater” (coastal Carolinas) in the Civil War. The fundamental disagreements that fueled that war have remnants that yet hold sway in American society, as Woodard makes clear on pages 55-56, by his careful contrast of liberty with freedom. Liberty, as understood by nineteenth-century Deep South culture, was a privilege – not a right – that few were granted. Virginian John Randolph (1773-1833) summed it up best: “I’m an aristocrat. I love liberty. I hate equality.”

Freedom, on the other hand, was understood by Yankeedom as a birthright of all peoples – no exceptions. Differences may have existed in status and wealth, but all were “born free” and equal before the law.

These differing understandings led to a bloody war in 1861. Today, the current strains of these understandings brace the battles about voting rights and restrictions, labor laws and worker rights, support of public school systems, taxation of the wealthy, and the expansion of health care. Consider the near fifty-year-old issue of ratification of the Equal Rights Amendment: not one state of the Deep South nation bloc (excluding Texas) has voted for its approval.

Texas is a thoroughly hybrid state, as Woodard writes, with its southeastern and cotton-growing region part of the Deep South nation, its northern half part of the Appalachian nation, and its southwestern expanse paralleling the Mexican border part of “El Norte.”

I’ve lived most of my adult life in El Norte, arriving (and staying) because of my facility in the Spanish language. Woodard describes El Norte, which includes parts of New Mexico, Colorado, Arizona, Southern California, as historically independent, adaptable, and work-centered. Woodard predicts that the bloc that wins the allegiance of El Norte will move forward in political gains in the first part of the twenty-first century. Perhaps a Yankee-El Norte ticket in 2020 – Elizabeth Warren and Julián Castro – has a chance to defeat the incumbent “New Amsterdam”-Greater Appalachia ticket, with Deep South allegiance – Donald Trump and Mike Pence.

I’ll close with a Woodard observation (page 318) that pits, like 150 years ago, Yankeedom versus Deep South. Unlike many other countries that have religion or ethnicity holding them together as a commonality, the United States is held together by its central government and its institutions: Congress, federal courts, military branches, national agencies. Woodard warns that this one nation won’t survive if the separation of church and state is weakened or abolished, if political ideologues overwhelm the Justice Department or the Supreme Court, or if open debate is squelched by hyperpartisan divides that erode congressional rules designed to uphold ideas to public scrutiny.

Our “oneness” as a nation is tenuous. Compromise, a disparaged word in this hyperpartisan age, is shown by American Nations to be a unifying force. Our differences will remain. Our nation’s future will be determined by our willingness to either fight about them or live with them.

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Tim/T. Carlos Anderson – I’m a Protestant minister and Director of Community Development for Austin City Lutherans (ACL), an organization of fourteen ELCA (Evangelical Lutheran Church in America) congregations in Austin. I’m also the author of There is a Balm in Huntsville: A True Story of Tragedy and Restoration from the Heart of the Texas Prison System (Walnut Street Books, April 2019).

See all my book reviews – linked here.

Check out my new author website: http://www.tcarlosanderson.com.

 

Sapolsky’s Behave, Part 2 – Or, Understanding Your Political Opposites (If You’re Interested in That . . . )

On By T. Carlos "Tim" AndersonIn Commentary1 Comment
This is the second of two posts reviewing Robert Sapolsky’s Behave – the first post is linked here.

Neuroscientist Robert Sapolsky’s Behave (Penguin, 2017) is a long but rewarding read. The first half of the book – 300 pages – delves into the particulars of brain regions and their development, cerebral enzymes, and genetics. Rewards come to the reader who continues to the last half of the book. Sapolsky is insightful, and his colloquial writing style humors, entertains, and instructs.

Sapolsky’s purpose is to explain human behavior – why, how, and what.

jalbm.behave.1As promised in my previous post, this post focuses on a juicy topic: the biology of political loyalties and tendencies. I love Sapolsky’s sub-heading (hardcover, p. 444) in Chapter 12 – “Hierarchy, Obedience, and Resistance” – that introduces the juicy section: “OH, WHY NOT TAKE THIS ONE ON? POLITICS AND POLITICAL ORIENTATIONS.”

Here We Go . . .

Sapolsky asks if there are “psychological, affective, cognitive, and visceral ways” in which left-leaners and right-leaners tend to differ. He answers by saying there are “fascinating findings” which he summarizes under the categories of intelligence, intellectual style, moral cognition, and psychological differences.

Even so, he posits an important disclaimer: rather than categories of stereotypes or essentialisms, what stands out in each group of partisans are internal consistencies which, he claims, are evident in both political and apolitical realms and have bits of biology undergirding them.

In the category of intelligence, he references a well-known study from the 1950s – one, however, not always verified by other similar studies – that suggested a link between lower intelligence and conservative ideology. (I told you this would be juicy.) Better supported, Sapolsky writes, is a link between lower intelligence and a specific sub-type of conservatism: right-wing authoritarianism. This link is a concern today just as much as it was in post-WW II Europe, when researchers and political scientists sifted through the wreckage caused by so many submitting to Hitler’s authoritarian ways. Right-wing authoritarianism, Sapolsky says, offers simple answers (to complex societal problems), ideal for people with poor abstract reasoning skills.

As for intellectual style, Sapolsky brings us to the dancefloor to help explain psychological studies that illustrate differences between conservatives and liberals. See the guy tripping over his feet while trying to dance? Partisans, asked to give a snap judgment of the lousy dancer, agree that the guy’s clumsy. But given more time to ponder the situation . . . liberals more readily entertain possible reasons for his lousy dancing (perhaps a physical ailment, or a father who disdained dancing) whereas conservatives tend to stick with their first instinct. Sapolsky says that “conservatives start gut and stay gut; liberals go from gut to head.”

Sapolsky hastens to say that right-leaners sticking with their gut doesn’t mean that they are incapable of going deep intellectually. Far from it: both liberals and conservatives are equally capable of presenting the other’s perspective, showing intellectual dexterity. Liberals, though, show greater comparative motivation toward entertaining situational explanations – the descriptor “bleeding heart” fits. Many conservatives, during the George W. Bush presidency, became comfortable with the term “compassionate conservatism” – in part, an attempt to address the criticism of cold-heartedness.

An interesting aside: Donald Trump, before becoming president, spoke often of going with his “gut feel.” He’s continued to speak in similar fashion as president. By this marker, Trump is a card-carrying conservative.

Differences between partisans in the category of moral cognition are revealed by their typical response to this question: Is it permissible to disobey a law? Conservatives, with their affinity for law and order, answer “No” because disobedience undermines cherished authority. Liberals, on the other hand, answer “Yes, if it’s a bad law” – authority subsumed to their affinity for fairness for all. Another question: Should NFL players be allowed to kneel during the national anthem? Conservatives, with their affinity for sacredness – “Never.” Liberals will allow for it, if they can be convinced that the reasons and circumstances undergirding the action merit it.

As for the category of psychological affect, Sapolsky says that liberals tend to be more comfortable with ambiguity than are conservatives, who tend to be more comfortable with structure and hierarchy. Are our best days ahead of or behind us? Generally more comfortable with novelty, liberals anticipate, with needed reforms, a brighter future ahead. Conservatives, generally more comfortable with that which is familiar, speak of the good old days that should be returned to – “Make America Great Again.”

What is the role of government? Liberals: to provide social services and education for its people. Conservatives: to protect its people, with a strong military leading the way. Apropos, Sapolsky sites a study that reports Republicans having three times more dreams involving loss of personal power than do Democrats. Conservatives, especially those with authoritarian sympathies, are more prone to “threat perception” – fears and anxieties about potential dangers – than are their political counterparts. Of the two, which group reports being happier? Despite their hopes for a better future, liberals, who are more discomfited by inequality, report increasing unhappiness as inequality rises. Conservatives, for their part, self-report no decline in happiness in the midst of increasing inequality.

This is All Quite Interesting . . . But, Is There Any Biology Behind These Differences?? 

In the first part of the book, Sapolsky details the workings of the insula cortex, a subpart of the amygdala. An important player in the brain’s “fight or flight” response mechanism, the insula detects threats and alerts the rest of the body. As an example, the insula (in most of us) activates when we see a cockroach. It also activates when someone from a rival tribe – a “Them,” not an “Us” – is detected in our field of vision or thought.

“Social conservatives,” Sapolsky writes, “tend toward lower thresholds for disgust than liberals.” Images depicting gay marriage and abortion, for example, activate the insulas of conservatives. But show images depicting petulant plutocrats and arrant aristocrats to liberals, and their insula-triggered disgust factor goes off the chart. “Political orientation about social issues,” Sapolsky comments, “reflects sensitivity to visceral disgust and strategies for coping with such disgust.” Biologically, liberals and conservatives (more so) rely upon disgust as a metric for determining moral behavior. Disgust, however, as Sapolsky warns, shifts generationally.

Sapolsky finishes up this section on political orientations and biology with a pithy summary: “If it makes you puke, you must rebuke.”

So, Where Does This Leave Us?

Sapolsky gives hyper-partisans reasons to step back, take a deep breath, and re-learn one of the main lessons that evolution teaches: diversity makes us stronger and helps us survive. Behavioral differences – including those displayed in political preferences – harken back at least to some biological wiring.

Nobody wants to have to sit at the Thanksgiving table while the prototypical crazy uncle goes on a political rant. Have Sapolsky’s Behave at the ready and ask that he give it a look-over before he comes back to the next family dinner.

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Tim/T. Carlos Anderson – I’m a Protestant minister and Director of Community Development for Austin City Lutherans (ACL), an organization of fourteen ELCA (Evangelical Lutheran Church in America) congregations in Austin. I’m also the author of There is a Balm in Huntsville: A True Story of Tragedy and Restoration from the Heart of the Texas Prison System (Walnut Street Books, April 2019).

 

Check out my new author website: http://www.tcarlosanderson.com.

Sapolsky’s Behave, Part 1

On By T. Carlos "Tim" AndersonIn Commentary1 Comment
This is the first of two posts reviewing Robert Sapolsky’s Behave – the second post is linked here.

Why Zebras Don’t Get Ulcers is one of my all-time favorite book titles – to boot, the book rocks. Robert Sapolsky, the esteemed American neuroscientist, writes that acute stress is a life-saver: a zebra sees a lion and runs like the wind. We humans are equipped with the same fight-or-flight response mechanism, and though we can’t run like zebras, we benefit similarly. Zebras and other animals have less brain capacity than we do, consequently they’re no good at worrying. We are capable of prolonged worrying which elevates our stress levels to chronic status, which in turn gives us ulcers, hypertension, and other life-threatening maladies. Whereas acute or momentary stress can be a life-saver, chronic stress is a slow killer.

The long-time Stanford professor originally published his book in 1994. It soon became a classic and I read its third edition in the summer of 2006, recommended from the book list of a leadership class I was taking. In the years that have since passed, I’ve referenced the book multiple times. I opine that there’s a connection between the increasing rates of pet ownership and social anxiety in the US. Most dog breeds are good with acute stress – it’s their job to bark when a stranger comes to the door – but, like zebras, they’re no good at achieving chronic stress levels. What a remedy for us to come home after a long day to a tail-wagger who’s happy to see us and whose beating heart warms and calms our own.
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In 2017,  Sapolsky published Behave: The Biology of Humans at our Best and Worst. This big book of 675 pages (not including notes) touches on some of the same territory as Zebras, but Sapolsky enlarges his scope to include discussions on inequality and egalitarianism, the effects of poverty on health, the dichotomies of “Us versus Them,” the development of empathy and compassion within the determining powers of genetic code and environment, and – it doesn’t get much better than this – the biology of political orientations and loyalties.

Let’s take a look at each of these themes. The “last best” theme will be covered in the second post in this review.

Stratified, or non-egalitarian, societies are better suited at conquering and survival when times get tough. This helps explain their ubiquity in the history of civilization. Because of their stratification, mortality is sequestered to the lower classes. Essentially, the unequal distribution of wealth and access to resources translates to the unequal distribution of death.

Modern democracies – and the advances associated with industrialization – have balanced things out (somewhat) concerning life expectancy rates between the higher and lower classes, but rampant inequalities still threaten various markers of 21st century life in many societies: weakening social capital, exacerbating poor health, increasing crime and violence. Sapolsky points out, most tellingly, that “inequality means more secession of the wealthy from contributing to the pubic good.” Inequality, without the mitigating effects of egalitarianism, is self-perpetuating.

Which brings us to the dichotomization of Us versus Them. Evolution has equipped us with the life-saving ability to differentiate between friend and foe, and we all derive much happiness and joy from being part of “Us” groups – whether golf buddies, sorority sisters, or mates in a military service platoon.

But when not held in proper check, this same ability can produce, as Sapolsky says, “oceans of pain” – with white supremacy groups at the top of the “For example” list.

Sapolsky advises his readers to distrust essentialism – the idea, like stereotyping, that people groups are always defined by a fixed set of characteristics and traits. He warns that what we think to be rationality is often just rationalization. Because of our “automatic tendency to favor in-groups over out-groups,” our seemingly rational explanations about the behaviors of others are sometimes better described as evidences of tribalism.

The recent rise of authoritarianism – Trump, Duterte in the Philippines, Bolsonaro in Brazil, Morales in Guatemala, along with the long arc of rule by Trump’s buddy Putin in Russia – is a troubling trend for many of us. Sapolsky shows that this rise benefits from the deep roots that conformity and obedience have in the human family. It fits hand in glove with another tendency or conditioned response in humans: our natural like of hierarchies. Sapolsky: “Hierarchies establish a status quo by ritualizing inequalities.” (Hierarchies, from ant colonies to corporate employee structures, are capable of unparalleled performance and production. My purpose here, as is Sapolsky’s in Behave, is to focus on inequality.)

Unlike the chimpanzees and baboons that Sapolsky has studied for much of his life, we humans in democratic societies actually choose our (political) leaders. He sites studies showing that we elect leaders with more masculine traits – high forehead, prominent jaw lines – during times of war and younger, more feminine faces during times of peace. Another study he sites had children looking at pictured pairs of faces where they were asked to choose their preference between the two for a hypothetical boat trip. The paired photos were actually competing candidates from obscure political races, and the children were asked which one would be most competent as captain for the boat trip. Their skippers, 71 percent of the time, were the actual winners of the elections.

We have entrenched biases and preferences. We have the option today (exercised by many) to consume the media output most aligned with our positions . . . and, like we often see partisans do on TV, we end up yelling at and past each other. Rationality or rationalizing? Sapolsky, again, says the latter: “Our conscious cognitions play catch-up to make our decisions seem careful and wise.”

If we’re only watching Rachel Maddow or only Sean Hannity – we’re not doing much more than stoking our own fire. Rational deliberation comes not from “doubling down” but from consideration of different points of view.

As promised, we’ll go deeper with Sapolsky into the biology of our political loyalties and preferences in the next post. Stay tuned!

balm.cover.2Tim/T. Carlos Anderson – I’m a Protestant minister and Director of Community Development for Austin City Lutherans (ACL), an organization of fourteen ELCA (Evangelical Lutheran Church in America) congregations in Austin. I’m also the author of There is a Balm in Huntsville: A True Story of Tragedy and Restoration from the Heart of the Texas Prison System (Walnut Street Books, April 2019).

 

Check out my new author website: http://www.tcarlosanderson.com.

 

 

 

 

Turning the Page to 2019

On By T. Carlos "Tim" AndersonIn CommentaryLeave a comment

As this blog enters its sixth year, it’s time for a new look and a new name. As always, I’ll promote egalitarianism as a way to build up common good in the midst of increasing inequalities. A new addition to this blog will be a heightened emphasis on restorative justice based on the work I’ve done the past two years to write There is a Balm in Huntsville.

Restorative justice is defined as “repairing the harm done by crime beyond what happens in the courtroom” and also as “the opportunity for a crime victim to find hope and resolution.” Restorative justice practices – whether middle school students circling their chairs in a resolution conference, prisoners in a ministry program listening to crime victims tell their stories, or victim-offender mediation – share this important factor: the consequential act of face-to-face encounters between adversaries.

As the current age of hyper-partisanship shows no signs of restraining itself, restorative practices offer a way forward from the morass. Stay tuned.

Five years has produced more than twenty blog posts on books that I’ve read and reviewed. Consequently, I’ve added a new header page to the blog: “The T. Carlos Book Review List.” Check it out. Jane Mayer’s Dark Money, Thomas Piketty’s Capital, and Robert Gordon’s The Rise and Fall of American Growth are but a few of the important books reviewed according to the themes of egalitarianism and inequality.

Additionally, this blog is now linked to my new author website, www.tcarlosanderson.com, in anticipation of Balm’s release date of April 1, 2019. Check it out for updates, reviews, and events related to my new book which weaves a double narrative: the long-term reformation of a drunk-driving teenager who killed two people; and, the development of the Texas criminal justice system’s victim-offender dialogue program, the first of its kind in the nation.

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Expect new posts – or updated ones – at least once a month. Special thanks to my friends Brittany and Sae Cho who took the headshots utilized on my new website. They also took the pic featured above. I do have something to say (the microphone) based upon the social justice convictions of the Christian tradition (the cross) with the goal of positively impacting our shared life.

I appreciate your interest and your support. Please help spread the word as you are able: Egalitarianism – opportunity and access for rich and poor alike, blind to the advantages typically derived from social status, pedigree, and wealth – is a great biblical and American virtue worth fighting for. As long as we continue to effectively advocate for it, we’ll help minimize rampant inequalities and their ugly side-effects in these days and in those that follow.

Tim/T. Carlos Anderson – I’m a Protestant minister and Director of Community Development for Austin City Lutherans (ACL), an organization of fifteen ELCA (Evangelical Lutheran Church in America) congregations in Austin. I’m also the author of Just a Little Bit More: The Culture of Excess and the Fate of the Common Good (Blue Ocotillo/ACTA, 2014) and There is a Balm in Huntsville: A True Story of Tragedy and Restoration from the Heart of the Texas Prison System (Walnut Street Books, April 2019).

Why DOMA is Unconstitutional or America’s Grand Heritage of Egalitarianism

On By T. Carlos "Tim" AndersonIn Commentary2 Comments
For those of us concerned about socioeconomic trends and their consequences, Robert Gordon’s The Rise and Fall of American Growth is one of the most important books we’ll see in 2016. This blog post is the third in a series that touches upon the issues the book covers: inequality, economic growth, and poverty, among others. Click on links for first and second posts in the series.

 

Robert Gordon’s The Rise and Fall of American Growth (Princeton University Press), an economic history of the United States, highlights important moments of American egalitarianism. Yes, good ol’ American egalitarianism!

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In the current age of excess that exuberates in chest-thumping hyper-partisanship and the attitude of winner-take-all, the meaning and sense of egalitarianism seems forgotten. A biblical concept, egalitarianism is the cry of the Israelites wanting freedom from Pharaoh and slavery; we hear echoes of it when the apostle Paul, calling for unity in the nascent Christian community of Galatia, challenges the Galatians’ understanding of entrenched identities, “There is neither Jew nor Greek, slave nor free, male nor female . . .” The word itself comes from the French egal – meaning “equal” – but it refers to much more than equal parts or measurements. Egalitarianism emerges and comes to light from a situation of dominance-subordination, or inequality. Egalitarianism is opportunity and access for rich and poor alike. Egalitarianism is blind to the advantages typically derived from social status, pedigree, and wealth.

“What Happened to Egalitarianism?” is the title of the third chapter of my book Just a Little Bit More. I reference anthropologist Christopher Boehm, who studies primates and their social relationships. Boehm looks for interplay between the competing spirits of egalitarianism and winner-take-all in our evolutionary relatives as he investigates the origins of morality in the human family. He speaks of the principle of “reverse dominance hierarchy” as a form of egalitarianism; he witnessed weaker members in a group joining forces to combat the dominance of alpha males.* I call this not survival of the fittest, but survival of the united. Egalitarianism is a sociopolitical phenomenon. A group or community engaged in the struggle for self-determination within a larger community or with a competing community seeks or maintains a sense of equality. The achievements of the civil rights era in the United States are a prime example of the workings of egalitarianism, as is the process that led to the 2015 Supreme Court ruling that the US Defense of Marriage Act (DOMA) is unconstitutional.

Gordon knows that America has a grand heritage of egalitarianism, starting with the Boston Tea Party and the revolutionary plea “No taxation without representation.” When Thomas Jefferson asserted in the Declaration of Independence that “all men are created equal,” the divine right of kings (sorry, George III) took a decisive egalitarian kick to the groin from which it has not recovered.** The competitive spirit of winner-take-all is legitimate and necessary, and has benefitted American ingenuity, inventiveness, and innovation. The winner-take-all ploy becomes troublesome, however, when there is no mitigating force to keep its excesses in check. Egalitarianism serves as the mitigating force of winner-take-all (and vice versa, for that matter), ensuring that the values of equality and greater access for the many win out over unmerited privilege for the few.

Here are some other gems in the history of American egalitarianism, according to Gordon:

The Price Tag: John Wannamaker opened the nation’s first department store, Grand Depot, in Philadelphia in 1876. Whereas bartering and haggling dominated the ways of buying and selling prior to this time, Wannamaker believed all people were “equal before price.” He eliminated price breaks and discounts for the connected, favored, and powerful. A religious man, he believed that all as equals before the Creator meant “one price for all.” He was the inventor of the price tag, an egalitarian innovation that revoluti0nized the consumer age.

The Networking of  Utilities – Electricity, Heating, Telephone, and Sewer: It wasn’t until the mid-1930s that more than half of Americans lived in cities. A majority of these urban dwellings were constructed after the turn of the century, enabling the inclusion of indoor plumbing, electricity, heat, and telephone. As Gordon says, “Networking implies equality. Everyone, rich and poor, is plugged into the same electric, water, sewer, gas, and telephone network. The poor may only be able to afford to hook up years after the rich, but eventually they receive the same access” (p. 95). Because of American society’s relative youth, the networking revolution of utilities spread much more quickly than it did in older European societies. (The current tragedy of lead-laden water in Flint, Michigan is a shameful example of inequality in this land where we refer to these utilities as “basic.”)

Radio: Pittsburgh’s first department store, Joseph Horne’s, began to sell amateur wireless sets – radios – for 10 dollars in the fall of 1920. On November 2, 1920, KDKA in Pittsburgh made the first radio broadcast in American history by transmitting election results as Warren Harding defeated James Cox to become the nation’s twenty-ninth president. Twenty years later, 80 percent of American households had radios in their domiciles. (For sake of comparison, only 75 percent of American households today have Internet access.) Gordon says the invention and rapid diffusion of radio was an example of “striking egalitarianism . . . enjoyed equally by the richest baron or poorest street cleaner” (p. 193).

Both forces – cooperative egalitarianism and competitive winner-take-all – are legitimate and inherently American; our society shines best when neither force dominates, but when they hold each other’s excesses in check. Too much egalitarianism stifles drive and creativity; too much winner-take-all produces inequality and accompanying ill effects. In Just a Little Bit More, I argue that our much cherished democracy needs egalitarianism in order to function at its best. American egalitarianism has helped make possible the following: emancipation from slavery, women’s suffrage, the many acheivements of the civil rights era, same sex marriage, and other accomplishments. Egalitarianism is a main driver of social progress in American and beyond. May we continue to lift it up and advocate it.

 

*Christopher Boehm, Hierarchy in the Forest: The Evolution of Egalitarian Behavior, Harvard University Press (1999), pgs. 1-3.

**More than two centuries after Jefferson’s famous formulation, we’re still working on fully living out its implied intention.

 

This blog and website are representative of the views expressed in my book Just a Little Bit More: The Culture of Excess and the Fate of the Common Good. Distributed by ACTA Publications (Chicago), JaLBM is available on Amazon as a paperback and an ebook. It’s also available on Nook and iBooks/iTunes, and at the website of Blue Ocotillo Publishing.

isbn 9780991532827

If you’re a member of a faith community – Christian, Jewish, Muslim, Buddhist, or other – consider a book study series of Just a Little Bit More. The full-length book (257 pgs.) is intended for engaged readers, whereas the Summary Version and Study Guide (52 pgs.) is intended for readers desiring a quick overview of the work. It also contains discussion questions at the end of all eight chapter summaries.

Readers of both books can join together for study, conversation, and subsequent action in support of the common good.

The Spanish version of the Summary Version and Study Guide will be available in September 2016. ¡Que Bueno!

¡El librito de JaLBM – llamado Solo un Poco Más – saldrá este Septiembre de 2016!

In Lieu of Flowers . . .

On By T. Carlos "Tim" AndersonIn Commentary3 Comments

inlieuofflowersI recently received a text message from my mom informing me that the mother of one of my high school classmates had passed away. My mom still lives in the locale where I went to high school back in the last quarter of the former century; I most recently lived there twenty-five years ago. As we texted back and forth, my mom further informed me that the deceased woman’s obituary had an interesting closing request: In lieu of flowers, please don’t vote for Hillary Clinton.

How’s that for a new twist on the obit pages? A quick search on the world-wide wonder reveals that, in obits across the country during this political cycle, numerous similar requests reach out to voters from the great beyond, or, at least, from the grave. And in an accurate reflection of unfavorable rating polls, Donald Trump and Ms. Clinton lead the way with negative mentions on the bereavement pages.

hilldonald

Negative requests are a sign of the times, skewed hyper-partisan. Before this era of hyper-partisanship, a rare obit might have kindly solicited a request for a positive vote for a particular candidate. In lieu of flowers, be so kind to consider a vote for candidate X in memory of the deceased. Even so, previous to this current era, such a request would have betrayed a slight breach of etiquette.

Newt Gingrich can be praised or blamed – depending on your point of view – for the current wave of hyper-partisanship. Elected Minority Whip of the House of Representatives in 1989, Gingrich became Speaker of the House as Republicans swept into power in 1994. Named Time‘s Man of the Year in 1995, Gingrich was lionized for his strategy to take the House after forty years of Democratic rule. Gingrich’s strategy wasn’t new, but it was effective: destroy the institution to save it – throw the majority bums out. Under his leadership, House Republicans refused to cooperate with Democrats and publicly portrayed them as the party most benefitting from entrenched corruption. The strategy worked so well, in fact, that the Democrats adopted it and succeeded in bringing ethics violations against Speaker Gingrich in 1998, eventually forcing his resignation from office the following year.

Hyper-partisanship is yet the political modus operandi of the day, and it has spilled over into American society as acceptable behavior. Economic segregation in America has increased; and, in some quarters, the demonization of others who are “different” is on the rise. It makes me wonder: Could the spirit of American hyper-partisanship be strong enough to survive into the great beyond, colonizing a few cloistered places for hyper-partisans? God only knows if there will be gated communities in the afterlife . . .

vernonjohns
Pastor Vernon Johns (1892-1965)

Vernon Johns was Martin Luther King Jr.’s predecessor at Dexter Avenue Baptist in Montgomery, Alabama – the church that proudly stands one block away from the Alabama State Capitol. Johns, provocative and creative, was a firebrand for equality.

One weekday morning in 1949, Brother Johns, as was his custom, arranged the letters on the front sidewalk sign announcing his coming Sunday sermon topic for passersby. What a shock to the good people of Montgomery, abiding by the laws of racial separation, to see the preacher’s sermon title spelled out: Segregation after Death. The Montgomery police chief noticed the sign and demanded that Johns come to the police station to explain himself. Luke 16:19-31 – Jesus’ parable of the beggar Lazarus and the rich man Dives – provided Johns with his textual basis. Johns explained to the chief and his lieutenants that Dives, a staunch practitioner of segregation (economic and otherwise) during his earthly life, was cursed by it in the afterlife. The reversal of fortune – Dives suffering in Hades, and Lazarus being comforted by Father Abraham in Paradise – was not enough for Dives to see that he shared common humanity with Lazarus. The chief and his men, according to Johns’ retelling of the encounter, were moved with empathy. He was not required to alter or take down the sign with his bold sermon title.

Johns’ brilliant interpretation of Jesus’ parable for Montgomery’s specific context focused Luke’s message not on the afterlife, but on how human brothers and sisters, sharing common humanity, treat one another in this life.

That said, brothers and sisters: Vote your conscience, love your neighbor, and begin to shed any negative hyper-partisanship* that unnecessarily discolors your relationships with others in the human family. You can’t take it with you when you go, you know.

 

*I suppose there is an occasional time and place for hyper-partisan strategy. But may it be rare, and not commonplace.

If you’re interested in further reading on the life of Vernon Johns, see Taylor Branch’s incomparable Parting the Waters: America in the King Years 1954-1963; Simon & Schuster (1989) pages 7-25.

 

 

This blog and website are representative of the views expressed in my book Just a Little Bit More: The Culture of Excess and the Fate of the Common Good. JaLBM, distributed by ACTA Publications (Chicago), is available on Amazon as a paperback and an ebook. It’s also available on Nook and iBooks/iTunes, and at the website of Blue Ocotillo Publishing.

isbn 9780991532827

If you’re a member of a faith community – Christian, Jewish, Muslim, Buddhist, or other – consider a book study series of Just a Little Bit More. The full-length book (257 pgs.) is intended for engaged readers, whereas the Summary Version and Study Guide (52 pgs.) is intended for readers desiring a quick overview of the work. It also contains discussion questions at the end of all eight chapter summaries.

Readers of both books can join together for study, conversation, and subsequent action in support of the common good.

 

The Spanish version of the Summary Version and Study Guide will be available in September 2016. ¡Que Bueno!

¡El librito de JaLBM – llamado Solo un Poco Más – saldrá este Septiembre de 2016!

 

 

 

 

Blue Ruts and Red Ruts

On By T. Carlos "Tim" AndersonIn Commentary4 Comments

My wife and I took in Richard Linklater’s Boyhood last year when it came out. Encompassing twelve years of filming, Boyhood gently breaks new ground as viewers watch its characters grow, develop, and age. In one of the opening scenes, siblings Sam (played by Linklater’s real-life daughter Lorelei) and Mason (played by Austinite Ellar Coltrane) seek out their mother’s attention via a good old-fashioned sibling yelling fight. “Mom! Tell her to quit it!” What younger brother wouldn’t yell for his mom to tell his older sister to be quiet when she annoyingly sings and dances out Britney Spears’s Oops! . . . I Did It Again in his face?

brothers2
Mark and Tim (circa 1980)

My brother and I used to pull crap like that all the time; not mugging Brittany, but slamming an imaginary Mike Nesmith axe in the other one’s face, among other pranks. Only 13 months and mere weeks apart, my brother Mark and I used to go at it competitively and contentiously. It’s a miracle we didn’t drive our poor mother out of her mind. (Although, back in the day when embarking on a trip of any sort our mom would instinctively answer our constant query of Where are we going? with the stock reply of Crazy.) But something happened as my brother and I hit our teenage years and headed off to college: we realized we were on the same team. Brothers – family – yes, teammates.

Witnessing the political behavior that emanates from Washington DC (and from other capitols across the country) is akin to watching small children – siblings, no less – fight and argue, kick and scream, and without fail, blame the other. Of course, it’s always been this way and this is how democracy works. Partly true, but things are markedly worse now than they’ve been for a long time. How nostalgic to remember President Ronald Reagan (Republican red) and House Speaker Tip O’Neill (Democratic blue) in action: they agreed that before 6:00 p.m. it was all politics, and after that designated hour they were to be on cordial behavior. Reagan even threw a seventieth birthday party for O’Neill at the White House. They saw themselves as adversaries, and not mortal enemies. Today’s political hyper-partisanship traces back to Newt Gingrich’s strategy as the Republicans, in 1994, took majority control of the House of Representatives for the first time in forty years. It was a brilliant strategy that brought an end to an entrenched status quo: Destroy the institution to save it – throw the majority bums out. But, unfortunately, that same strategy has been the modus operandi for both dominant political parties ever since, producing ample gridlock which helps maintain the status quo. Thomas Mann and Norman Ornstein in their book It’s Even Worse Than It Looks (Basic Books, 2012) argue that political polarization is at an all-time high in American society. And that’s going some 150 years back to the time of Reconstruction.

Blue ruts and red ruts. Not only our politicians, but many citizens are stuck in what I call blue and red ruts. Many people are stuck in place not moving forward, like a spinning car wheel stuck in a rut, not able to perform its task of moving the car forward, but only digging the rut deeper and deeper. Many citizens, of course, align themselves with one of the two major political parties. We all have our preferences and heartfelt convictions. But to be hyper-partisan to the point where one side feels as if the other side has no legitimate ideas or input? If you are a committed Democrat, do you truly feel the country would be better off if everyone was a Democrat? And putting the shoe on the other foot, would we be better off if we all were Republicans – every single one of us? How many of us – aligned with one of the dominant political parties – actually have adult conversations (without temper tantrums or name calling) on important societal topics with a friend or acquaintance aligned with the opposing political party? Think about the possibilities for positive change in our society if we turned off Fox News and MSNBC and actually conversed one with another in a civil manner . . . and then acted upon our convictions in public service to benefit the common good.

Diversity – different parts working together, carrying out specific tasks – moves us forward. As Rabbi Jonathan Sacks claims in his book Future Tense (Shocken, 2009), ideology is “the attempt to impose a single truth on a plural world.” Partisans want to have their way; that’s normal. But they also realize in a big world it’s good to get along with others, share, and not pout (too often). Hyper-partisans, on the other hand, like siblings who can only fight and whine, don’t get along with those who are “different” and certainly don’t want to share or cooperate. That’s not how families or democratic societies function at their best. Getting stuck in a rut – no matter the color – that’s not much good for anyone.

It’s much better to live out and recover the democratic understanding of politics as the art of the possible. Impossible? Time to call out (and vote out when possible) the hyper-partisans who act more like children than adults.

brothers
Brothers Mark, Matt, and T. Carlos

 

If you like what is written in this blog post, you’ll like what I have to say in Just a Little Bit More: The Culture of Excess and the Fate of the Common Good (Blue Ocotillo Publishing, 2014). It’s available at this link, and at other venues where books and ebooks are sold.