As I have prayed for my son’s healing, physically, emotionally, and spiritually, I also have been praying, even before this, for the healing of our country. We are the United States. Have we been united? Do you understand what’s going to happen when we fall? Because a house that is against each other cannot stand. To all of the police officers, I’m praying for you and your families. To all of the citizens, my black and brown sisters and brothers, I’m praying for you. I believe that you are an intelligent being just like the rest of us. Everybody, let’s use our hearts, our love, and our intelligence to work together to show the rest of the world how humans are supposed to treat each other. America is great when we behave greatly.
—-Julia Jackson (mother of Jacob Blake) —-
A grieving mother tells her fellow Americans they must use their hearts, their love, and their intelligence to pull together or risk losing this great union. Her words express the only wisdom that can bring America back from the brink of its own demise. They unlock both the meaning of our founding ideals and their underlying values. In just a few words, she outlined the path forward for our stricken nation.
(Allow me to expand on her eloquence. The following is a partial reprint of a blog I wrote over a year ago, before impeachment and the pandemic.)
The underlying values expressed in our nation’s founding reach beyond the structure of government or the term of any President. They speak directly to our souls and demand our full-throated response. Their antecedents from the Age of Enlightenment were just historical steppingstones to an unforeseeable future beyond the revolutions they inspired. And that future was placed in the American voting booth and in the will of its people. “We the people of the United States” established our government “in order to form a more perfect Union” and, implicitly, to transform a revolution into an evolution. That evolution implies a constant state of becoming. As President Lincoln reminded us at Gettysburg “this nation . . . shall have a new birth of freedom . . . (a) government of the people, by the people, for the people.” Or, as President Obama stated more succinctly, “we are the change we seek.”
When President Elect Trump claimed “only I can” make America great again, he offered to take the burden off the shoulders of Americans. Millions of voters rose to support him, mistaking his opportunism for leadership. But by bequeathing to him the power to act on their behalf, they unwittingly empowered him to act in his own behalf. He identified with their grievances about an unresponsive government and “politically correct” double-speaking politicians. But instead of policy solutions, he offered slogans. Nevertheless, he seemed authentic, even entertaining. They saw in his brutish, pugilistic manner the promise of a fighter, a champion for their cause. But he has proven not to be anybody’s champion or even “a man of the people.” His Administration has only benefited the wealthy and the corporate bottom line. He measures his success by the stock market and the full employment of a two-job economy (i.e., wage earners working multiple jobs). Without a doubt, under his Administration the nation has continued to grow in wealth. But, at the same time, it has fallen precipitously in both public and private debt. The growth in wealth belongs mainly to the one percent with which he identifies; the debt issues unfortunately remain with the rest of us, including his supporters. Those issues portend an economic time bomb. And they are the result of the President’s myopic focus on the affluent rather than the general welfare of all. But the fault here lies mainly with us, the voting public. We Americans put our trust in a man rather than find the change we seek within ourselves. Why?
The simple answer is we have lost faith either in our form of government, in the values upon which it is founded, in ourselves as informed responsible citizens of a democratic republic, or in all the above. We could have taken back control of our government, perhaps along the lines I advocated in August 2015 (reference, “American Revolution 2016”). But, instead, we abdicated our government to a man who prefers despotism to democracy. He discredits a free press, rejects Congressional oversight (which he terms, “Presidential harassment”), attempts to commandeer the Department of Justice to “protect” his interests (by “draining the swamp” of all opposition and fighting his enemies in an alleged “deep state”), and denigrates the Judicial Branch of Government for checking his lawlessness (or, as he states, “they don’t like me”). He will not be content until he has dominated not just the “fourth estate,” but every branch of government.
Within his Administration, he considers his word to be law (“everyone obeys me”) and fires anyone he suspects does or might disagree with him. As a result, he finds it necessary to suppress any disobedient competency or integrity within his Administration by appointing sycophants, job-beholden “acting” officials, and the ethically compromised. Amid the chaos he creates around himself, “only . . . (he) can” stand at its center as the sole decision maker. There he decides whatever serves his public image and his insatiable need for self-aggrandizement. Clearly, this President does not serve the general welfare. He shows no understanding of what it means to be a public servant or of what is required to uphold the public trust in government. If we Americans are responsible for putting this man in office, then how do we right the ship of state? Removing him from office might not solve our problem. In other words, that simple answer is simply too simplistic. There is a more deep-rooted and insidious source that explains the 2016 election.
In my blogs, you may have noticed more than a few references to the Enlightenment, that 17th-18th century revolutionary worldview that affected art, philosophy, and politics. That period is also identified as the Age of Reason, incorporating such luminaries as Bacon, Newton, and Kant. You may have suspected that I write from a philosophical bias carried over from my undergraduate days. In truth, I believe the rebirth of reason was an important break in world history, but not the only breakthrough needed. Europe needed a rebirth of reason to break with the tyranny that spurred religious, ethnic, and monarchical wars. The American revolution was part of that rebirth. But what I now observe in American politics is an excessive dependence on reasoning at the expense of actual intelligence—that same intelligence referenced by Julia Jackson. Let me explain.
Socrates used logic—sometimes imperfectly—to refute the sophists by illustrating the faulty consequences of their arguments. While reasoning is a legitimate tool for understanding, it can be used, as Socrates did, merely to refute an opponent. Whereas his intent was to expose misconceptions or untruths, American lawyers and politicians often use the same tool simply to win a case or a political dispute without regard for the truth. The latter, as it happens, can prove elusive. There are reasoned arguments that seem to support opposing positions: democracy versus socialism, real citizen versus usurped citizenship (like naturalized immigrants or “not like us” citizens of not-white race or heritage), climate change versus weather, or equality versus opportunity. The reasoned differences in these arguments can easily lose the significance of how we experience reality. For example, democracies include social welfare programs; citizenship does not differentiate by class, gender, race, or ethnic origin—though discrimination does; climate change is a global phenomenon, though experienced as local weather; equality assumes equal opportunity—not survival of the fittest. In America, we have heard many reasoned arguments that socialism is the enemy of democracy, that some people “not like us” should not be treated as citizens, that climate change is nothing more than normal weather fluctuations, and that some class of people are inherently less capable or worthy. These arguments may be reasoned, but they defy our intellect and our experience of reality.
When I differentiate “intellect” from “reason,” you might be wondering about my intent. I can explain by way of an interview with the chief of the Pueblo Indians as recounted by Carl Jung. ** That interview revealed the chief’s appraisal of the white man. He “thought that the whites were crazy since they maintained that they thought with their heads, whereas it was well-known that only crazy people did that.” He explained further “that he naturally thought with his heart.” Jung immediately added, “that is how the ancient Greeks also thought.” In fact, Socrates would agree. He would initially question the logic of putting children in cages to deter immigration, whether the Administration’s immigration policies were a logical way to deter immigrants seeking refuge or asylum. The likely consequences of such action, he would point out, indicate otherwise. They would discredit America as a champion of human rights, as a nation governed by rule of law, as a people without feelings for the tired, the poor, or the “huddled masses yearning to breathe free.” Besides these consequential inconsistencies, these policies have proved ineffective: the immigration surge continues while the processing backlog becomes increasingly insurmountable. As a result, many now die just beyond our border fences in Mexican internment camps as well as in American internment camps. Reality bites.
The reasoning behind the Administration’s zero tolerance policy is a tight syllogism: restrictive border admittance of immigrants maintains America’s identity; Trump’s zero tolerance immigration policy is restrictive border admittance of immigrants; therefore, Trump’s zero tolerance immigration policy maintains America’s identity. Or in Trump’s words, “we have no country” unless we turn back migrants at our southern border. Many a logician can counter Trump’s premise which ignores America’s identity as a pluralist society. But therein is America’s problem. We keep running down that rabbit hole of reasoned debate. Talking heads on cable news and political tribes in Congress and in bars continue the debate ad nauseum. And all this reasoned debating misses the obvious reality. Both Socrates and the Pueblo Indian chief would question our intelligence in a different way: we are not thinking from the heart. In modern terms, we are thinking with our left brain without any input from the right brain. But reason is not the same as intellect or a more integral understanding of the world upon which depends our cultural traditions born of metaphor, myth, and symbolism. It can too easily exclude feelings, the emotional element that embellishes thought with felt experience, brings passion and relevance to human lives, facilitates connection with others, and stirs compassion for all who share this common humanity. Compassion (from the Latin cum, “with,” and pati, “to suffer or bear”) is a feeling we share with others and learn initially from family life. Without it, no person can pretend to understand, love, or—God forbid—govern others. Can human intelligence exist without compassion? I think not! But we can engage in “reasoned” debate ad infinitum.
The President explains his use of the military and federal marshals/officers as an appropriate exercise of his “law and order” policy. Is it not reasonable to protect citizens from rioters and public buildings from looters? Likewise, his support for police departments has a reasonable pretext, that is, the need to protect and serve the general population. But this rationale is suspect when he deploys federal marshals and officers, untrained in crowd control, against peaceful protesters. And, likewise, his support for policing is inexplicable in the circumstances of George Floyd’s or Jacob Blake’s deaths. His policy positions may appear reasonable under the banner of “law and order.” But they are unconscionable, immoral, and inhuman. Would anyone with even a modicum of intelligence or compassion think otherwise?
Reasoning breaks things down into abstractions we can analyze and then reconstruct into a static, though understandable, coherence. But we experience the world as a dynamic phantasmagoric landscape forever slipping away with the arrow of time. What remains is stamped in memory as an experience colored and charged with feelings. It is from this storehouse of memories and feelings that we evolve. And it is from our love and compassion that we raise families, unite into communities, develop culture, and, ultimately, evolve civilizations. America, consequently, reflects who we Americans are at any moment in our history. And, in this moment, we are being challenged to define who we are as a people. What we agree is real or factual and what we value will determine who we will be. And what we value is colored brightly by our feelings. The allegedly rational policies of this Administration often defy reason. But, more importantly, they are totally devoid of human feeling or compassion. It is therefore fair to state that they denigrate “our hearts, our love, and our intelligence,” as Julia Jackson stated so simply and eloquently.
The President does stir up emotions in his supporters. At his rallies, they cheer him as their champion or, in his words, “the greatest President in history . . . nobody has achieved what I have achieved.” His crowd response reminds me of a story I heard or read many years ago. It begins with a Jewish man who dared to slip into one of Hitler’s rallies, perhaps out of curiosity. Before long, he found himself caught up in the emotions of the crowd, forgot his initial foreboding, and began saluting the Fuhrer. Hitler, despite his megalomania, was an effective demagogue. When he once said, “I use emotion for the many and reserve reason for the few,” he was explaining how a demagogue stirs the masses to gain power and controls his lieutenants with reason. Of course, his reasoning was filled with lies and racism. He accused his political opposition to be unpatriotic and said Jews should be feared and banished as non-Aryan. Unbelievably, his demagoguery, lies, and racial animosity gained him absolute power over the German people – even though he never achieved more than 37% support of the German electorate. When our President says, “don’t believe what you see or hear . . . it’s all fake news,” he not only attributes to himself the sole ability to distinguish fact from fiction but also the ex-cathedra ability of an absolute ruler whose word is law. We have seen this playbook before. The male “warrior king” has dominated Western mythologies for centuries.
A few millennia ago, when the Goddess myth dominated human culture and communities, human feelings had a preeminent role in determining human relations with nature and with each other. Perhaps it is time for the industrial and technology era, both progenies of the Age of Reason, to reengage with the Goddess. She has a role to play in capitalism that would reorient the profit driven mantra to embrace the needs of humans—specifically, employees and customers—and of the natural environment. She would restore the balance between the female and male archetypes in the human psyche to reintegrate care for others in leadership roles and restore respectful dialogue in place of discordant discourse or combative harangues. As Carl Jung reminded us, neither of these archetypes can be suppressed without damage to the human psyche. Further, contemporary societies exist within interdependent systems of local and state governments, of assorted technologies, and of diverse social structures. And these systems cannot survive without feedback loops responsive to human needs and ambitions. There is a human dimension to society that is ignored only at our peril.
Do the needs and ambitions of Americans align with the ideals and values expressed in our founding documents? If so, then our love of country would be heartfelt, and our patriotism would be displayed in the intelligent exercise of our right to vote. Our belief in equality and human rights would stir love and compassion in our hearts? And we would indeed be one nation (E Pluribus Unum, Out of Many One). If, however, we no longer believe the inscription on The Great Seal of America (Novus Ordo Seclorum, a New Order of the Ages), then we would have lost faith in America’s ability to endure, that is, to succeed with its experiment in self-government. And that loss would be the harbinger of its end—unless we heed Julia Jackson’s admonition.
Everybody, let’s use our hearts, our love, and our intelligence to work together to show the rest of the world how humans are supposed to treat each other. America is great when we behave greatly.
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** This interview and quotes are taken from Allan Combs book, “The Radiance of Being,” p.134.
Still my question of the day: is it possible to reform our economy and our government without serious campaign reform that honors voting rights and replaces unlimited fund raising with equitably disbursed public funding? Or is there another way to return sovereignty to the American people?