Ain’t There No Decency Left?
Today’s issue of The On-The-Other-Hand News comes to you via David Brooks’ article in The New York Times from Friday, August 2, 2019. Its title is: “Marianne Williamson Knows How to Beat Trump”
It is, perhaps, disingenuous to use a lyric from Mama Morton’s song “Class” in the musical Chicago when addressing the insidious narcissism of our time, but perhaps it is not. Class is one of those ‘isms’ we’ve learned to sniff out as a less-than-optimal perception, and indeed, it is.
Decency, however, is a different story.
It took me three definitions deep in the OED to get to this one:
“In accordance with or satisfying the general standard of propriety or good taste, in conduct, speech, or action; esp. conformable to or satisfying the recognized standard of modesty or delicacy; free from obscenity.”
This, of course, presumes that someone, anyone, knows what a ‘general standard of propriety or good taste’ is. I submit to you that, actually, we all know what that is. It cuts across cultural and racial divides, socio-economic strata, and religious variance.
This is not the first time a morally-corrupt leader has attempted a coup over a polyglot nation like ours, nor will it be the last, but instead of the helpless, hopeless, heartless posture many of us are taking in the face of the corruption, we can, instead, do something to change it.
Ain’t there no decency left?
I think there is. At the moment, it isn’t on the national stage, but it could be, if we all started to do the right thing. By that I mean, the thing—whatever it is—dictated by conscience and common sense. When I treat others in the way I’d like to be treated, the whole world is a better place.
If it weren’t just me, waging my one-woman campaign for decency, and instead, there were individuals across this fair nation doing the same things right where they are, it wouldn’t take long for a tidal wave of decency to mow down the moral corruption.
The devastating issue here is not the moral corruption, Beloved. Oh no, although that’s tough enough. Instead, the issue that is breaking hearts all over this country is the disregard for one another that is fueling the hatred that, in turn, fuels the corruption.
Hatred has within itself the seeds of its own destruction. Haters may be gonna hate, but we, despite our disengagement and apathy and political burn-out, must take a stand for the right thing.
The sentence of David Brooks’ article that brought me to a complete standstill was: “We are all subtly corrupted while this guy is our leader.” Given the metaphysical basis of my personal life philosophy, I have known this, but it was utterly chilling to read such classical metaphysics in the pages of The New York Times. The Times is not avant garde, ergo if you read it in The Times, you know it’s been around for a while.
How do we recognize, isolate, and name this corruption for what it is?
We make the decent choice. Over and over and over and over again, till decency becomes the norm again in our culture. We go the extra mile. We pick up another piece of litter. We pray for those we love to hate. We recognize that we are, like it or not, touched by the people who are our leaders, and we work to change their influence if we don’t like it.
I agree with Mr. Brooks. Marianne Williamson does know how to defeat the Toddler-in-Chief. What I want to know is who is going to be smart enough to take a page out of her thoroughly unorthodox book and rewrite the fundamental story of our nation?
Until a political leader comes forward with that as her/his agenda, we must do it ourselves, one interaction at a time.
Let me remind you of the decency values against which we can measure our every thought, word and deed. Mr. Brooks lists them as Unity, Honesty, Pluralism, Sympathy, and Opportunity.
He finishes with, “Trump has put himself on the wrong side of all these values. So Democrats, [I’d add Republicans, Independents, Greens, et al] go ahead and promote your plans. But also lead an uprising of decency. There must be one Democrat who, in word and deed, can do that.”
What we must look for now is a leader who is, first, thinking these thoughts. Thoughts will lead to the words and deeds so critically needed to right our morally wrong-headed course.
Marianne Williamson Knows How to Beat Trump
We need an uprising of decency.
By David Brooks
Opinion Columnist
Aug. 1, 2019
If only …
If only Donald Trump were not president, we could have an interesting debate over whether private health insurance should be illegal. If only Trump were not president, we could have an interesting debate over who was softest on crime in the 1990s. If only Trump were not president, we could have a nice argument about the pros and cons of NAFTA.
But Trump is president, and this election is not about those things. This election is about who we are as a people, our national character. This election is about the moral atmosphere in which we raise our children.
Trump is a cultural revolutionary, not a policy revolutionary. He operates and is subtly changing America at a much deeper level. He’s operating at the level of dominance and submission, at the level of the person where fear stalks and contempt emerges.
He’s redefining what you can say and how a leader can act. He’s reasserting an old version of what sort of masculinity deserves to be followed and obeyed. In Freudian terms, he’s operating on the level of the id. In Thomistic terms, he is instigating a degradation of America’s soul.
We are all subtly corrupted while this guy is our leader. And throughout this campaign he will make himself and his values the center of conversation. Every day he will stage a little drama that is meant to redefine who we are, what values we lift up and who we hate.
The Democrats have not risen to the largeness of this moment. They don’t know how to speak on this level. They don’t even have the language to articulate what Trump represents and what needs to be done.
Part of the problem is that the two leading Democratic idea generators are both materialistic wonks. Elizabeth Warren is a social scientist from Harvard Law School who has a plan for everything — except the central subject of this election, which is cultural and moral. Bernie Sanders has been a dialectical materialist all his life and is incapable of adjusting his economics-dominated mind-set.
They are what Michael Dukakis would be if he emerged in an era when the party had swung left. This model has always had appeal to a certain sort of well-educated Democrat.
The bigger problem is simply the culture of the Democratic Party. The modern version of the party emerged during the Great Depression to solve one problem: material want. It is a secular party, trapped in a Lockean prison: Politics should be separate from faith. Politics should be separate from soulcraft. Democrats believe they can win votes by offering members of different groups economic benefits and are perpetually shocked when they lose those voters.
It is no accident that the Democratic candidate with the best grasp of this election is the one running a spiritual crusade, not an economic redistribution effort. Many of her ideas are wackadoodle, but Marianne Williamson is right about this: “This is part of the dark underbelly of American society: the racism, the bigotry and the entire conversation that we’re having here tonight. If you think any of this wonkiness is going to deal with this dark psychic force of the collectivized hatred that this president is bringing up in this country, then I’m afraid that the Democrats are going to see some very dark days.”
And she is right about this: “We’ve never dealt with a figure like this in American history before. This man, our president, is not just a politician; he’s a phenomenon. And an insider political game will not be able to defeat it. … The only thing that will defeat him is if we have a phenomenon of equal force, and that phenomenon is a moral uprising of the American people.”
They are unready for it, but it falls on the Democrats to rebuild the moral infrastructure of our country. That does not mean standing up and saying, “Donald Trump is a racist!” 500 times a day. It means reminding Americans of the values we still share, and the damage done when people are not held accountable for trampling on them. The values are pretty basic and can be simply expressed:
Unity: We’re one people. Our leader represents all the people. He doesn’t go around attacking whole cities and regions.
Honesty: We can’t have deliberative democracy without respect for the truth. None of us want congenital liars in our homes or our workplaces.
Pluralism: Human difference makes life richer and more interesting. We treasure members of all races and faiths for what they bring to the mosaic.
Sympathy: We want to be around people with good hearts, who feel for those who are suffering, who are faithful friends, whose daily lives are marked by kindness.
Opportunity: We want all children to have an open field and a fair chance in the great race of life.
Trump has put himself on the wrong side of all these values. So Democrats, go ahead and promote your plans. But also lead an uprising of decency. There must be one Democrat who, in word and deed, can do that.