Make Orwell fiction again

One of the better slogans I’ve seen lately is “Make Orwell Fiction Again,” a reference to the British writer best known for books like Animal Farm and 1984, and for his hatred of totalitarianism and authoritarianism.

He was particularly concerned with how words can be distorted by the powerful to justify or hide injustice.

Here are some lines from his “Politics and the English Language”:

In our time, political speech and writing are largely the defense of the indefensible…

The great enemy of clear language is insincerity. When there is a gap between one's real and one's declared aims, one turns as it were instinctively to long words and exhausted idioms, like a cuttlefish squirting out ink. In our age there is no such thing as "keeping out of politics." All issues are political issues and politics itself is a mass of lies, evasions, folly, hatred, and schizophrenia. When the general atmosphere is bad, language must suffer...

Political language--and with variations this is true of all political parties, from Conservatives to Anarchists--is designed to make lies sound truthful and murder respectable, and to give an appearance of solidity to pure wind.

For an example close to home, we need look no farther than House Bill 4011 and Senate Bill 498, which would basically stifle the teaching of history and of issues related to race and gender. They’ve been titled the “Anti-Stereotyping Act” and the “Anti-Racism Act,” respectively.  

(I’ve often wondered lately how different things would be if some legislators were as concerned with sanitizing and monitoring the quality of our rivers, lakes, and streams as they are with the teaching of history and public education…but I digress.)

Fortunately, HB 4011 was turned into a study resolution, but SB 498 passed the Senate and was referred to House Education and Judiciary committees. It’s not clear now what kind of amendments might be tacked on.

It’s hard to know where to start with this, but here are some issues in no particular order:

*This is a solution in search of problems. These bills didn’t originate from any situation in West Virginia. Rather, they’re part of a well-orchestrated national effort to impose cookie-cutter legislation on states designed to foment bogus culture wars and thus distract people from their real agenda of pushing policies that make the very rich richer at the expense of everybody else. 

This is why we can’t have nice things.

*This would have a chilling effect on public education, which is already under attack in West Virginia in so many ways. There seems to be an effort now to punish teachers and school service workers for winning during the historic 2018 work stoppage.  

*Sticking with the issue of undermining public education, these attacks also seem to be consistent with other none too subtle efforts to promote the privatization of education for the sake of profit. And sticking with the theme of history, we’re moving from extracting wealth from strip mining the land to doing the same with public education funds. 

(What’s next? Oh yeah, state parks, as in HB 4408.)   

*It’s impossible to look at American history without considering race, starting with the impact on indigenous people during and after “the Columbian exchange”—another Orwellian whopper—to the Middle Passage of the transcontinental slave trade to the role of slavery in shaping the American economy (agriculture, manufacturing, banking, finance, insurance, transport, etc.) to the Civil War to post-war Klan terror and sharecropping to Jim Crow to the Civil Rights Movement to mass incarceration and beyond. Yes, there are some horrific things there, but there’s also a lot of heroic and inspiring acts as well. Keeping people ignorant of them isn’t doing anybody any favors.

*It’s just as impossible to appreciate West Virginia history without discussing race. There are huge events like the biracial raid on Harpers Ferry, the Civil War and the creation of the state in 1863, but we’ve also been graced by brave individuals who made history here, whether they passed through or were born here. 

Those include trailblazing educators like Booker T. Washington and Carter G. Woodson; groundbreaking legislators like Elizabeth Simpson Drewry and Minnie Buckingham Harper; scholars and advocates like W.E.B. DuBois; attorneys like J.R. Clifford; math and science geniuses like Katherine Johnson; rank and file union coal mine leaders like Dan Chain aka “Few Clothes Johnson;” white labor leaders and civil rights champions like Walter Reuther, and more.

*Speaking of history and manipulating education in the interests of the powerful, generations of West Virginians already experienced a censored version in 8th grade West Virginia studies classes that left out the history of our colonial economy and multi-ethnic labor struggles, something that only changed in the 1980s with films like Matewan and books like Denise Giardina’s Storming Heaven. 

*Then there’s the idea that sometimes learning can make kids uncomfortable. I get that. It happened to me lot too, usually in any math class after 7th grade--or when I was required to read Great Expectations in 9th. But real education is about challenging our minds. As an adult, I’ve come to appreciate subjects like algebra…and Pip’s journey to insight and adulthood.

*Finally, if we ever want to keep our brightest in the state or invite others to come from elsewhere, it might be good if we stop publicly embarrassing ourselves.

(This ran as an op-ed in the Charleston Gazette-Mail. There was a public hearing today at which 24 people spoke against SB 498 while only four spoke in favor. Outcome TBD.)

Pass the chronos, please

I often think about how the New Testament uses two Greek words for time, kairos and chronos. Times of kairos can be described as critical, make-or-break, pivot points, hinges of history, times of decision and all that. Chronos is like the ordinary run of times when things are not so...interesting. 

It seems like this truly is a time of kairos for the nation and the planet with so much at stake, including ensuring the future of democracy; dealing with catastrophic climate change; fighting off authoritarianism; addressing gross inequalities and such, all in the middle of a pandemic. And things seem pretty close to unraveling all over the place.

And, just to prove that God, the gods, Lady Fortuna and/or world history have a sense of humor, people from West Virginia are going to have a disproportionate impact for good or ill. Will the right to vote be guaranteed or will the forces of racist voter suppression win? Will we "build back better" with a stronger and cleaner infrastructure and more just economy for all? Will we take what may be a last chance to deal with climate?

Which also means, what are the most effective things that we can do here and now to move things in a more positive or at least less bad direction? A lot of my friends are working on it. And we're all feeling it.

I keep thinking about those lines from Lord of the Rings where Frodo said "I wish it need not have happened in my time." 

To which Gandalf replies, "So do I...and so do all who live to see such times. But that is not for them to decide. All we have to decide is what to do with the time that is given us."

I wouldn't mind a good chunk of chronos right about now.

In the spirit of fair play...and protecting the constitution

I've mentioned before in this blog that I used to referee karate tournaments in another lifetime. I always made an effort to call a legitimate point when I saw one, regardless of what I thought of the competitor, their style, uniform, or sensei.  Although I'm no longer a huge fan of sport karate, I've tried to keep the habit of calling a point when I see one.

It would probably surprise no one to hear that I frequently disagree with WV's Senator Shelley Moore Capito. However, I commend her for coming out with a strong and clear statement on the need to certify the results of the 2020 presidential election.

In ordinary times, such a thing would be a matter of course and require no special statement...but these aren't ordinary times as President Trump persistently tries to discard the constitution and overturn the results of an election he lost by seven million popular votes and an electoral margin of 306-232. Since November, we've been as close to an authoritarian coup as we ever have been, so there is merit today in stating the obvious.

Here are some excerpts from her statement:

Several of my congressional colleagues have made clear their plans to object to counting certified electoral votes from certain states. I will oppose their effort because the will of voters in each state—not political considerations or the individual preferences of senators and representatives—must determine the winner of the presidential election....

and

Allegations of fraud in the 2020 presidential election have been investigated by federal and state law enforcement agencies. Investigations have been overseen by governors, secretaries of state, and local election officials of both political parties who ultimately certified election results in their respective states. Multiple lawsuits have been filed in the contested states and have been decided in state and federal courts, to include the Supreme Court, by judges appointed by both Democrats and Republicans. None of these investigations or lawsuits has resulted in evidence of fraud that comes anywhere close to the standard for rejecting a state’s electoral votes.

and

Refusing to count a state’s electoral votes in the absence of such evidence would disenfranchise millions of American voters and call into question the very foundation of representative government enshrined in our Constitution. Therefore, I plan to vote to reject the objections that will be raised and to count the electoral votes that were certified by each state.

and 

Yesterday when I took office for a new six-year term, I did not swear allegiance to any individual or political party. I swore an oath to support and defend the Constitution of the United States. Recognizing the individual chosen by the American people to be our president is in keeping with this oath...

I'm calling the point. As we say in karate, "Ippon!"

The other pandemic

Italian author and philosopher Umberto Eco (1932-2016)

Umberto Eco was a brilliant thinker who is probably best known for his 1980 novel The Name of the Rose, which became a popular film. Aside from that bestseller, he wrote many works of fiction, criticism, and philosophy. His specialty was semiotics, which has been defined as the study of signs symbols and their interpretation.

Eco was born during Mussolini's fascist rule in Italy and remained fascinated with--and opposed to--that kind of political movement. He was also fascinated with conspiracy theories (a theme in his baroque novel Foucault's Pendulum) and the potential role of new technology in creating post-modern authoritarian political movements. Here's an interesting article on what Eco saw coming, including his 14 characteristics of fascism.

Some items on his list hit pretty close to home these days, including an exalting of traditionalism (often imagined), rejection of modernism and Enlightenment values, cult of action for action's sake, viewing disagreement as treason, fearing differences, contempt for the weak, social anxiety and frustration (usually of the middle class) as a driver, an obsession with plots and conspiracies, selective populism, a cult of machismo and weaponry, and Newspeak as in the distortion of language to impede critical thought (fake news!). There's more as listed in the article above.

He pretty much nailed it. The rise of the internet and social media, with all its positive features, provides a perfect environment for this kind of thinking to grow, especially in times of anxiety and frustration.

His views of how this plays out on social media were particularly scathing:  “Social media gives legions of idiots the right to speak when they once only spoke at a bar after a glass of wine, without harming the community  . . . now they have the same right to speak as a Nobel Prize winner. It’s the invasion of the idiots.” I think it's actually darker than that, given the deliberate use of misinformation for political purposes by people--and algorithms--who/that are very good at it.

Eco seemed to retain a faith in reason and the self-destructiveness of the fascist mentality. 

We'll see.

Thinking about the other f word

There’s been a lot of interest in the f-word lately. Of course, I mean the seven-letter one. To wit, fascism.

According to Merriam Webster, it was the most searched word on the internet on election night in 2016. It came close to being the word of the year for 2016 but it was trumped, no pun intended, by “surreal.” In Feb. 2017, The Washington Post reported that fascism’s share of internet searches in the new year was already five times the level of 2015.

Last year, former Secretary of State Madeline Albright, who spent her early years in its shadow in Europe, published a book titled “Fascism: A Warning.”

It’s shown up in the news quite a bit lately.

No doubt the word gets kicked around inappropriately, often coming to define a fascist as anyone with whom one disagrees.

The word had a fairly innocent origin. During the Roman Republic, one of the more democratic governments in the ancient world, lictors or bodyguards of officials carried fasces, a bundle of rods tied around an axe blade as a symbol of legitimate authority.

The symbolism was powerful. A single rod could be easily broken, but not many joined together.

It survived as a non-fascist symbol long after the ancient world, showing up both in the reign of French King Louis XIV (1638-1715) and in the symbols of the French Revolution which overthrew his dynasty in the late 1700s. You can even find fasces behind the podium of the US House of Representatives, on the left and right and on the seal of the US Senate.

It acquired its modern connotations when adopted by Italian dictator Benito Mussolini. Mussolini was originally a socialist before embracing authoritarianism, militarism, imperialism and extreme nationalism after World War I.

At first, Mussolini was more opportunist than ideologue. His initial platform called for women’s suffrage and social programs including greater representation of workers. However, those ideals soon faded as he reached an accommodation with traditional economic elites and crushed independent workers’ organizations.

Eventually the term was applied to other movements, most of which didn’t gain power. One notable exception, of course, was Germany, which would far eclipse fascist Italy in terms of power while it lasted.

Fascist movements often begin as a variety of populism, which can take many forms, some benign. Michael Kazin defined populism as “a language whose speakers conceive of ordinary people as a noble assemblage not bounded narrowly by class; view their elite opponents as self-serving and undemocratic; and seek to mobilize the former against the latter.”

John B. Judis distinguished between the populism of the left and right. In his recent book “The Populist Explosion,” he suggested that:

“Leftwing populists champion the people against an elite or an establishment. Theirs is a vertical politics of the bottom and middle arrayed against the top. Rightwing populists champion the people against an elite that they accuse of coddling a third group, which can consist, for instance, of immigrants, Islamists, or African American militants.” Or some other group. You can pretty much fill in the blank.

(Side note: I’d personally prefer we retire the language of left and right when it comes to current politics. Those terms refer to which side supporters or opponents of the French monarchy sat on at the National Assembly in 1789, which isn’t exactly a burning issue these days.)

Still, one can have populism of the “right” without having fascism. And fascist movements that gain state power generally ditch the populist agenda as leaders reach understandings with conservative and business elites. The populist base of such movements generally get thrown under the proverbial bus. A classic example of this is Hitler’s 1934 purge of more radical Nazi supporters in what came to be known as “the night of the long knives.”

So what does the word mean mean these days? And does it matter?

One scholar who has researched the history exhaustively is Robert Paxton author of “The Anatomy of Fascism” (2004). He defined it as “a form of political behavior marked by obsessive preoccupation with community decline, humiliation, or victimhood and by compensatory cults of unity, energy, and purity, in which a mass-based party of committed nationalist militants, working in uneasy but effective collaboration with traditional elites, abandons democratic liberties and pursues with redemptive violence and without ethical or legal restraints goals of internal cleansing and external expansion.”

He saw the mobilizing passions of early stage fascism to also include the need for authority and “the closer integration of a purer community;” belief in superiority of the leader’s instinct over reason and logic; the beauty of violence and the will in pursuing the group’s aims; and the right of the chosen group to dominate others without restraint.

He saw the movement as including stages from their emergence to their establishment in the political system to gaining power to wielding it to a final stage of either radicalization or entropy. The good news is that while authoritarian regimes can last a long time, fascist ones don’t have much of a shelf life. So far.

Ever since fascist movements emerged in the first half of the 20th century, many Americans have asked themselves if it could happen here, a question that has been asked more frequently these days.

I think it’s possible but not inevitable. While this may be to be the closest this f-word has had to a moment in the sun in this country, I’m hoping it’s more of a flirtation than a long-term relationship.

Still, it might be good to recall the words of Pearl Buck, the only West Virginian (so far) to win the Nobel Prize for literature: “When good people in any country cease their vigilance and struggle, then evil men prevail.”

(This appeared as an op-ed in the Charleston Gazette-Mail.)

Gazing into the abyss

It’s comforting to think that good and evil people are completely different, and that “our” side, whatever that is, is all good, while evil belongs exclusively to the other.

Too bad this is a dangerous illusion.

As Aleksandr Solzhenitsyn put it in “The Gulag Archipelago,” his study of Soviet punishment camps:

“If only there were evil people somewhere insidiously committing evil deeds, and it were necessary only to separate them from the rest of us and destroy them. But the line dividing good and evil cuts through the heart of every human being. ... During the life of any heart this line keeps changing place; sometimes it is squeezed one way by exuberant evil and sometimes it shifts to allow enough space for good to flourish.

“One and the same human being is, at various ages, under various circumstances, a totally different human being. At times he is close to being a devil, at times to sainthood.”

He quotes a Russian proverb that, “From good to evil is one quaver,” noting it works the other way, too.

That’s a good summary of social science on how ordinarily good people sometimes do terrible things.

Someone who explored this field for decades is Philip Zimbardo, creator of the infamous Stanford Prison experiment and author of “The Lucifer Effect: How Good People Turn Evil.”

He argues that we tend to attribute evil actions to the individual dispositions of people who do them but ignore the powerful forces situations exert on individuals. Further, powerful people create systems that put decent people in situations in which they do things they otherwise never would have.

He warns that we often have a dangerously inflated notion of our ability to resist evil influences.

“For many, that belief of personal power to resist powerful situational and systemic forces is little more than a reassuring illusion of invulnerability,” he wroted. “Paradoxically, maintaining that illusion only serves to make one more vulnerable to manipulation by failing to be sufficiently vigilant against attempts of undesired influence subtly practiced on them.”

Two powerful toxins that can unleash the beast in any of us are dehumanization and deindividuation.

Zimbardo: “Dehumanization is one of the central processes in the transformation of ordinary, normal people into indifferent or even wanton perpetrators of evil. Dehumanization is like a cortical cataract that clouds one’s thinking and fosters the perception that other people are less than human. It makes some people come to see those others as enemies deserving of torment, torture, and annihilation.”

Dehumanization happens at an individual level, but it is most dangerous when the powerful create systems that label and target some groups as being less than human.

When we dehumanize others, another process that kicks in is what social psychologist Albert Bandura called “moral disengagement,” when we convince ourselves that some people are unworthy of empathy and compassion.

Then it’s on.

Deindividuation happens when we identify so closely with a group that we lose our sense of individual responsibility. This happens in organized or informal ways. When countries send people off to war, the warriors are often deindividualized with shaved heads, uniforms and drills that emphasize following orders and acting as a unit. It can also happen in informal groups like mobs and gangs. Things like masks and hoods can add to the effect.

This is most dangerous at the systemic level, particularly when it goes hand in hand with dehumanizing some vulnerable group via ideology and propaganda. Throw in our tendency to conform and obey authority, and you have a pretty lethal brew. Signals from above give permission to abuse those below.

The scary side to group behavior has long been recognized. Sigmund Freud noted that, in groups, emotionalism rises while rationality falls (think political rallies, rock concerts, some sporting events).

He believed that when groups fall under the spell of a charismatic authority, the people in it regress to a more primitive mental state. He wrote, “It is not so remarkable that we should see an individual in a group doing or approving things which he would have avoided in the normal conditions of life.”

The theologian Reinhold Niebuhr even titled one of his books “Moral Man and Immoral Society.” He didn’t have any delusions about the flaws of individuals, but rather noted that, “In every human group there is less reason to guide and to check impulse, less capacity for self-transcendence, less ability to comprehend the needs of others and therefore more unrestrained egoism than the individuals, who compose the group, reveal in their personal relationships.”

After all, most individuals have consciences. But often the conscience of a group is a dissenting minority accused of disloyalty.

We live in are dangerous times. Polarization runs high. There are calls for dehumanization coming from high places around the world. America may be on its own dark journey, although it’s unclear how far it will go. I’m consoled by the thought that many other nations have gone through dark times and come out on the other side.

I hope we step back from the edge of the cliff and resist the temptation to see the other, whoever it may be, as some kind of monster.

As the German philosopher Friedrich Nietzsche said, “Whoever fights monsters should see to it that in the process he does not become a monster. And if you gaze long enough into an abyss, the abyss will gaze back into you.”

(This ran as an op-ed in the Gazette-Mail a day or so ago.)

A blast (and warning) from the past

Since the tragic events of the last weekend in Charlottesville, a long forgotten video produced by the US War Department during WWII has gone viral over the internet. I think most of what's gone out over the interwebs has been excerpts from the full version, which lasted about 17 minutes.

The uncut version of the film "Don't Be a Sucker" is available here. It was first produced in 1943 and re-released in 1947. I highly recommend giving it a look. It's an eerily contemporary warning to Americans to resist the temptations of fascism and authoritarianism.

Too bad it's not just a curious relic of another time.

Apropos of nothing again

I'm a philosophical fan of American pragmatism, especially of the William James variety. Not sure how I feel about John Dewey, but I'd probably like him better if he would have been a better writer. I've also read a few by the late Richard Rorty, who died in 2007.

Some lines from his 1998 book Achieving America have attracted attention lately. Here's a slightly condensed version:

[M]embers of labor unions, and unorganized unskilled workers, will sooner or later realize that their government is not even trying to prevent wages from sinking or to prevent jobs from being exported. Around the same time, they will realize that suburban white-collar workers — themselves desperately afraid of being downsized — are not going to let themselves be taxed to provide social benefits for anyone else.

At that point, something will crack. The nonsuburban electorate will decide that the system has failed and start looking around for a strongman to vote for — someone willing to assure them that, once he is elected, the smug bureaucrats, tricky lawyers, overpaid bond salesmen, and postmodernist professors will no longer be calling the shots. …

One thing that is very likely to happen is that the gains made in the past 40 years by black and brown Americans, and by homosexuals, will be wiped out. Jocular contempt for women will come back into fashion. … All the resentment which badly educated Americans feel about having their manners dictated to them by college graduates will find an outlet.

Jeez, good thing that didn't happen, right?

You can read more about Rorty's prediction here.

Apropos of nothing

So the last few days have been interesting or something, although I would have been fine with boring.

I'm thinking of three things I've read that crossed my path this week. One was this piece by Andrew Sullivan on the dangers of fascism to the USA from the Trump campaign. That was before.

Then a friend sent me this item from Vox about how Trump's proposed policies will be a disaster for the white working class.

Then there's this item from Jacobin about how urgent it is to engage in (small d) democratic political action.

Otherwise, I've been thinking about a book someone told me about with a title I can't print in a family blog. It was something like "**** yes: A Guide to the Happy Acceptance of Everything." The **** in question is neither scatological nor eschatological. I haven't read it (yet) but I think it's kind of a comic novel about someone who tries to say "Yes!" to everything that life throws at him. And yes can be kind of complicated.

I can't say that's my worldview, but I think at some point we all need to say "**** yes" to the challenges that have been thrown our way. And deal with them.

One last thing. A quote that has been on my mind lately is attributed to Mao Zedong (of whom I'm not a fan, btw). It goes like this: "Everything under heaven is in utter chaos; the situation is excellent."

**** yes!

Escape from freedom?

This op-ed of mine appeared in the Sunday Gazette-Mail.

Sometimes I get in the mood for a big fat Russian novel. It’s kind of like having a craving for a corn dog.

One hot mess of a novel that’s been on my mind lately is Dostoevsky’s Brothers Karamazov. It’s about the relationships between three brothers, the passionate and impulsive Dmitri, the saintly Alyosha and the tortured intellectual Ivan.

(If you think your family is weird, this book just might make you feel better.)

The most memorable part for me is the discussion about freedom and authority. It’s a riff on the New Testament story of the temptation of Jesus by Satan in the wilderness at the start of his ministry. In the novel, it takes the form of a “poem” or story told by Ivan about an imaginary encounter between Jesus and the Grand Inquisitor at the height of the Spanish Inquisition.

In it, Jesus appears as he did on earth even while heretics are being burned at the stake. He doesn’t make a scene but the people recognize him instantly and, drawn by his love and compassion, surround him asking for healing and his blessing.

The Grand Inquisitor is having none of it. He orders Jesus to be arrested immediately. The people are so used to being obedient to authority that they don’t object. That night he visits his prisoner in the dungeon and harangues him, asking “Why have you come to hinder us?”

In his view, Jesus’ fatal flaw was wanting people to be free to choose to follow him without coercion. The Inquisitor argues that freedom is the last thing people want and need, saying “nothing has ever been more insupportable for a man and a human society than freedom … I tell Thee that man is tormented by no greater anxiety than to find someone quickly to whom he can hand over that gift of freedom with which the ill-fated creature is born.”

In other words, what people really crave is a strong authoritarian leader who will tell them what they want to hear and overawe them with spectacle. The “wise and dread spirit” who tempted Jesus in the desert called it: Give the people “miracle, mystery and authority” (or at least the lying promise of it) and they will throw themselves at the feet of the charismatic leader.

Jesus listens in silence, gazing gently at his jailer. In the end, “he suddenly approached the old man in silence and softly kissed him on his bloodless aged lips.” The old man shuddered, opened the cell door and told him to go away and never come again.

Jesus disappears into the night.

As for the Grand Inquisitor, “The kiss glows in his heart, but the old man adheres to his idea.”

This story within a story isn’t really about an unfortunate period in European history. It’s about an unfortunate but periodically recurring tendency in humanity to willingly submit to authoritarian leaders, systems and regimes.

This was also the theme of Erich Fromm’s classic study “Escape From Freedom,” which was first published 1941. Fromm had fled Germany shortly after the Nazi takeover, which also prompted him to write the book.

His basic argument was that modern capitalist societies affect people in two contradictory ways: people become “more independent, self-reliant, and critical” while also becoming “more isolated, alone, and afraid.”

This leaves us with two alternatives: We can either move toward “positive freedom,” the often difficult step of creatively relating to others in work and love; or we can surrender to authoritarianism or conformity, both of which come at the cost of an authentic life. Of these, the former is more dangerous, particularly in hard times, while the latter is more common.

Those who give way to authoritarianism are aroused by and ready to submit to powerful leaders, whether they are individuals or institutions. They are also contemptuous of the weak and frequently target marginalized groups. For them, “the world is composed of people with power and those without it, of superior ones and inferior ones” and the lack of power of the “losers” is seen as a sign of guilt and inferiority.

Leaders of authoritarian political movements play on these feelings and on the resentments and frustrations of people in uncertain times. In “Mein Kampf,” for example, the worst of the lot wrote that the German masses really wanted after years of defeat and depression was “the victory of the stronger and the annihilation or the unconditional surrender of the weaker.” They “are far more satisfied by a doctrine which tolerates no rival than by the grant of liberal freedom …”

He described in detail how authoritarian movements help people overcome their sense of isolation:

“The mass meeting is necessary if only for the reason that in it the individual, who in becoming an adherent of a new movement feels lonely and is easily seized with the fear of being alone, receives for the first time the pictures of a greater community, something that has a strengthening and encouraging effect on most people. … If he steps for the first time out of his small workshop or out of the big enterprise, in which he feels very small, into the mass meeting and is now surrounded by thousands and thousands of people with the same conviction … he himself succumbs to the magic influence of what we call mass suggestion.”

That sounds like a contemporary political rally. It’s not a coincidence that both the Washington Post and the New York Times have recently published columns and news stories about the renewed debate on fascism in the United States and around the world.

Authoritarian movements and leaders can be tempting. At different times, many admirable peoples and cultures have fallen for them. The results generally aren’t good, either for their victims or supporters. The temptations of “the wise and dread spirit” and the Grand Inquisitor will always be there and at times they can seem very alluring.

It comes down to a choice.

(Note: Over 20 years ago I listened to a recorded lecture on this topic by now retired Barnard College professor Dennis Dalton. I found it fascinating but remote at the time. Recent events prompted me to revisit the sources.)

The other F bomb

If you are one of those people who are getting weirded out by the current political climate, and particularly with the whole Trump vibe, you're not alone. Recently Robert Kagan, a Brookings Institution fellow often regarded as a neocon published an op-ed in the Washington Post titled "This is how fascism comes to America."  Shortly after that, the NY Times published this piece about how the Trump campaign has helped spark a global debate about the F word.

Thing is, I didn't like it the first time around. In fact, my dad and two uncles spent a good chunk of the 1940s fighting against it. I'm hoping it's a false alarm but this isn't the kind of thing to ignore.

Authoritarianism in our time.

OK, so this is another example of a post that's more like a tweet, but here's a look at authoritarianism in our time. Those who have ears, let them hear.