Indomitable - Some Unformed Thoughts

I was listening to the BBC World radio broadcast the other day and caught part of a piece on Syrian refugees.  Apparently the conditions are quite bad where many of the refugees are located (as if there are ever 'good' conditions for refugees).  In any case, the refugees face the significant problem of living in unusually cold conditions without having proper cold weather clothing.  A portion of the interview focused on kids who were noted to have the whitish pink hands that happen when one stays out in the cold without gloves or mittens for too long.  A number of the kids had visibly cold feet, some of whom were wearing sandals.

In any case, the interviewer asked some of the kids questions about being cold and pointed out that the kids frequently hold hands to stay warmer.  When she asked them about dealing with the cold one kid piped up and said, laughing, "It's so cold we have to dance," which prompted further laughter from the others.  The interviewer tried to prod the kids to get them to speak of hardship and difficulty, but they remained undaunted and resolute in their cheer.

Indomitable.  That is what I thought about the kids.

Experience denudes life of wonder; experience renders us cynical.  But the spirit of indomitable wonder, the capacity for joy, can remain with us.  This, I think, is apolitical.  And remarkable.

Remarkable because practically everything in life assaults our ability to wonder.  Life contains disappointment and unrealized dreams.  The quotidian drags us into automaton-like routine.  Pedants cause us to question ourselves, create reactionary feelings.  Parents say "no" which turns into teachers and professors and authorities of every stripe.  Our fellows see the world as a nihilistic place that is little more than a contest of wills to dominate.  We are told suffering is the norm.  We suffer.  We age and become aware that growing ultimately means senescence.

Still, most of us retain the ability to wonder.  The indomitable spirit of the Syrian refugees lives in us if we allow it.


"My heart leaps up when I behold 

     A rainbow in the sky: 

So was it when my life began; 

So is it now I am a man; 

So be it when I shall grow old, 

     Or let me die!"

William Wordsworth.

"The arm of my friend hanging idly over my shoulder,
The hill-side whiten’d with blossoms of the mountain ash,
The same, late in autumn—the hues of red, yellow, drab, purple, and light and dark green,
The rich coverlid of the grass—animals and birds—the private untrimm’d bank—the primitive apples—the pebble-stones,
Beautiful dripping fragments..."

Walt Whitman, "Spontaneous Me"

These are words of wonder.

Wonder is indomitable, the sense that every situation is an opportunity for something - perhaps laughter, dancing, fellowship, love, accomplishment; the sense that life is possibility - Hemingway's old man whose sail unfurled, a flag of perpetual defeat, did not defeat him and captured the admiration of a boy, who perhaps recognized the miracle of the indomitable spirit that lived in the man, in whom experience should have extinguished that spirit long ago.

I struggle with this post because the subject cannot be easily articulated and is not necessarily subject to reasoned argument. The spirit I heard in the Syrian kid's voices seems perfectly real to me, but also ineffable and practically indescribable. It is not optimism in any conventional sense nor is it simple naivety. The spirit is almost an inclination of mind, a way of seeing. But it is more than an inclination or a vision. The indomitable spirit requires action. The Syrian kids respond to the cold by dancing. That does not render their lives easy or ameliorate the misery of being cold without knowing when one will feel true warmth again, but by looking at the deprivation as an opportunity for a fanciful dance the kids actualize hope and possibility. Perhaps the Syrian kids have no right to be hopeful. Perhaps hope and possibility delude us. I choose to believe otherwise.

Indomitable. A bit crazy, perhaps. But a little crazy is good, if it gets you to dance.

The Shouting Class and Political "Discourse"

Popular political discourse in America resembles neither debate nor discourse.  Instead, popular political "discourse" in America most closely resembles a shouting match in which volume and bombast are equated with "winning" debate.  Even those political participants with the education, training, and experience to argue persuasively and with logical consistency tend to participate in the shouting match rather debating (in any commonly understood definition of the word).  Presumably those who know better engage in the shouting match do so to pander to the marketplace for political "discourse" which is dominated by the shouting class.

Ultimately, the shouting class is a dispiriting example of an immaturity and selfishness that pervades America. Immature because the shouting class has not yet developed the adult understanding that one can neither know everything nor always be right.  Selfish because the shouting class will not extend the courtesy and respect of accepting another viewpoint.  There is an onanistic self-reflexivity about this.  The panderers essentially tell the shouting class exactly what they want to hear:  confirming every suspicion and bolstering every belief.  The shouting class in turn becomes more demanding and strident in their desire to have their suspicions confirmed and beliefs bolstered which seems to render the class more rigid, insular, and suspicious.

The weird and frustrating thing about this is the upside down tribalism it creates.  Thinking their position is the only legitimate one and having confidence in their own inerrancy, groups in the shouting class (especially but not exclusively the far right) equate their beliefs with patriotism.  Thus, to certain groups in the shouting class, one cannot be patriotic if one holds opposing views.  Since there can be no patriotic individuals who hold opposing views, patriotism is conflated with nationalism.  Hence, if there can be no patriotic individuals who hold opposing views, then there can be no true Americans who hold opposing views.  Hence, America and Americans are implicitly (or explicitly in some cases) are defined as members of the group holding the same view.  In this way, the tribal, the smaller group view, becomes the national.  Once tribalism becomes nationalism, any dissent from the group's biases and beliefs is seen as seditious and as a mortal threat to the tribe.  The right's characterization of President Obama as a socialist bent on destroying "America" would be an apt example.  Conversely, any rhetoric that reinforces the group's preexisting biases and beliefs becomes patriotic and is not seen for the jingoistic, proto-fascism that it usually is.

The phenomenon is weird because jingoism seems to be so at odds with the philosophical underpinnings of the American republic.  I recognize that my characterization of the shouting class makes the resulting jingoism predictable, but it still surprises me that there is such a large portion of the populace that has so poor an understanding of or a total disregard for what might be deemed "the American idea," our central political philosophy or our creation myth, if you will:  that we are a republic born out of the idea that freedom requires that protection from tyranny, whether in the form of a monarch or a mob or an aristocracy; that the only just society is a plural one in which protecting the right to believe as one chooses is more important than enforcing a supposed right belief.  This is why we have a Bill of Rights and why the Constitution prescribed the popular election of members of the U.S. House of Representatives.  The very notion of jingoism seems directly opposed to the spirit of Enlightenment, compromise, and debate that produced our constitutional form of government.

The phenomenon is frustrating because it is puerile.  To raise the volume of one's voice or the bombast of one's language in response to debate is not argument.  It is childish.  Not allowing one's opponent in a political debate to have the courtesy of silence while she speaks demonstrates a lack of manners, the same manners we teach our young children to abide by.  To assume that one's opponent is un-American simply because he has a different vision of how to make America a better place is to adopt the absurd rigidity and lack of nuance that young children often demonstrate.

Perhaps some day civility and respect will be restored to American political discourse.  Until then I will cover my ears and remain steadfast in my belief that we cannot act like children forever.

The Elitists Among Us

The right usually charges the left with being comprised of paternalistic elitists who think they know better than the rest of us.  While it is not clear who "the rest of us" is given the fact that the so-called elitists cannot enact policies without getting elected in our representative democracy (or having the ear of elected politicians who are subject to elections), the right frequently laments the control that this group of leftist intellectuals from the Northeast and West Coast exercises over American politics.  Normally I consider this charge to be the product of a paranoid sense of irrational effrontery (see Hofstadter, The Paranoid Style in American Politics and Other Essays for a fuller account than I am capable of giving); however, I have recently witnessed an elite cabal operating right here in Milwaukee County.  The cabal is comprised of members of Milwaukee's business community, most notably those with significant pull in the Greater Milwaukee Committee (whose name itself implies some sort of supra-legislative approbation of power), the Milwaukee County Executive, and local Republican legislators.  What does this fine collection of magnates, wealthy scions, and their legislative minions want?  They would like to turn the Milwaukee County Board of Supervisors into a part-time entity because, in their collective opinion, county government is broken and the only way to fix it is to remove the checks that the elected legislative body exercise against our apparently enlightened philosopher king county executive.

The cabal uses the pretext of arguing that reducing the board to part-time status will save the county money.  Since the proposal will lower the county board budget by about 77% this is certainly true.  However, the county board budget currently amounts to 0.005% of the total county budget.  The proposal would reduce the county board budget to 0.004% of the total county budget.  This reduction will have virtually no impact on the county's ability to deliver public services or otherwise balance its budget.  To the extent that the cabal suggests the reduction in the county board budget serves the purpose of helping the county deliver public services or otherwise balancing its budget by virtue of the cut itself, the cabal is being disingenuous.  Reducing the county board budget will have a profound impact on the ability of the board to act as a legislative check against the unfettered power of the county executive.

One can imagine valid arguments for changing the role of the county board, including whether the supervisors on the board ought to be full-time employees or not.  However, the argument the cabal advances is, as noted  above, disingenuous.  The cabal proposes a referendum that simply asks the voting public if they want to turn the county board supervisor position into a part-time one with a concomitant reduction in the board's budget.  Of course this will enjoy overwhelming support because the referendum offers the public the choice of cutting public money without discussing the possible consequences of doing so.  I am sure a statewide referendum turning the state assembly and senate offices into part-time ones by reducing their budgets 77% would enjoy overwhelming support as well.  This does not mean that saving this money would lead to good government.  The problem is that the cabal really does not care about the county board budget.  The cabal believes that the son of a magnate from Boston who relocated his life to Milwaukee through happenstance and got himself elected county executive largely through his ability to outspend his opponents knows best what Milwaukee County needs and should be as unhindered in his executive actions as possible by an elected legislative body.

In effect, the cabal has one of their own in office and would like the unfettered, benevolent dictatorship of their philosopher king to begin post haste.  Never mind that pesky dispersion of power to a legislative body whose members, elected from smaller, more representative local districts, might have different ideas about how the county ought to develop, allocate, and spend its resources.  How can this board comprised of persons who actually resemble their constituents possibly know what is best for the county and the people they represent?  Everything about the movement of the cabal is anti-democratic and elitist.  The movement presupposes that the members of the Greater Milwaukee Committee and the Milwaukee County Executive know what is best for the citizens of Milwaukee County better than the citizens do themselves.  Perhaps I am being too generous in thinking that the cabal actually cares about what is best for the citizens of Milwaukee County and not solely for what is best for themselves.

Milwaukee County voters should be wary of this movement of the Greater Milwaukee Committee, County Executive Chris Abele, Rep. Joe Sanfelippo, and Sen. Alberta Darling (always a dedicated champion of the classes below the upper one).  Under the offensive and patently false guise of increasing local control, the movement seeks to remove the power of Milwaukee County's legislative body and centralize it in the County Executive's office.  The movement is anti-democratic and elitist.  The Greater Milwaukee Committee, the County Executive, Rep. Sanfelippo, and Sen. Darling think they know better than we do as to what is best for Milwaukee County and they have crafted a movement to wrest power from the hand of our elected supervisors so they can put their elitist beliefs and attitudes in action.  Personally, I find this paternalism distasteful and this elitism offensive.

For some lame local coverage of this issue:

http://www.jsonline.com/news/statepolitics/fitzgerald-quick-action-unlikely-on-county-board-pay-referendum-4u8d6uu-186990321.html

See the "related coverage" links for additional historical coverage.

From the horse's mouth:

http://gmconline.org/initiatives/make-it-your-milwaukee-county - notice the benign and benevolent sounding language ...

http://makeityourmilwaukee.com/ - check out the link to Aaron Rodriguez's JS blog, which the Greater Milwaukee Committee does everything in its power to make it seem like an actual piece of journalism reflecting the views of the Journal Sentinel.  He's a peach!  He also has some incredibly strained metaphors that incite an elitist feeling in me...

Vigilantism and the Death of A Teenage Boy

A sixteen-year-old boy died at the hands of three men after they restrained him on December 14, 2012.  The men were customers at a convenience store in West Allis, Wisconsin.  The men claim that the boy was trying to steal "alcohol items" from the store.  Apparently the boy put the disputed items on the store's counter before trying to leave.  The men restrained the boy outside the store as he tried to leave.  When police responded the men were restraining the boy outside the store and the boy was no longer breathing.  The boy was revived but later died, having suffered "major brain damage."  The boy was an African American student at Nathan Hale High School.  The men who restrained him are white.  http://www.jsonline.com/news/crime/student-died-after-being-restrained-in-alleged-shoplifting-bn8830n-185606331.html

Where to begin?

I was sixteen once and I possessed the recklessness characteristic of boys that age.  I lacked foresight to the same degree that most of my companions did.  I broke the law as did my friends and acquaintances.  I do not recall if I shoplifted when I was sixteen, though I do not believe I did.  This was an offense I committed, though infrequently and at an earlier age.  I did purchase and consume alcohol when I was sixteen, as did many of my friends and acquaintances.  I also did some stupid things after dark, such as toilet papering my high school, that no doubt technically violated more than one law when I was sixteen.  The thought that I might end up dead because of any of this minor-league delinquent behavior never entered my head.  I cannot believe the thought entered the mind of Corey Stingley when he walked into a convenience store on December 14, 2012 either.

Why would I never have thought that I might end up dead when doing petty, stupid things?  Principally because the things I was doing were petty and stupid.  Any common notion of justice requires that justice be proportional to be just.  Shoplifting some booze from a store, if that in fact is what Corey Stingley was doing, is a petty offense.  For any response to be just, it would have to be commensurate with the offense.  Most sixteen-year-old kids caught trying to shoplift booze would probably not even face criminal charges and if they did, most judges would recognize the fact that the decision was an instance of poor judgment and would offer a deferred prosecution agreement or some other such alternative that would convey the message that what the kid did was wrong but was not a capital offense.  At some level, who would have cared if the kid got away?  The store had a camera, the kid attended school nearby, and at least four persons would have been available to identify him for the police.  This case would not have presented a challenge for the police to investigate.  I have a difficult time conceiving that three adult males would not grasp that their response in restraining Corey Stingley was grossly disproportional to the offense he allegedly committed unless they acted with evil intent.  Nevertheless, the men chose to restrain Corey Stingler.

Perhaps something else is at play here, though.  As a culture, we have become inundated with messages that question the benevolence and legitimacy of the government and advocate a sort of state-sanctioned vigilantism in its place.  This anti-government rhetoric has led to radical changes in self-defense laws along with expanded rights to own and carry firearms.  The change in self-defense laws that are variously called "stand your ground" or "the castle doctrine" explicitly give individuals the power to use deadly force in instances that previously were reserved for the state through the police or other law enforcement agencies.  In this regard, such laws act as state sanctioned vigilantism because they give the individual the power to use deadly force whether its use is in fact proportional to the threat that the individual faces.

More perniciously, the expansion of self-defense rights to allow disproportional use of force when responding to a threat along with the push to allow every person to carry a concealed weapon creates an atmosphere or belief that carrying a concealed weapon and using disproportional force when responding to a threat are necessary.  If we disentangle the potential racist elements from the Corey Stingley tragedy (which I will discuss below), one wonders if the rhetoric that has led to state-sanctioned vigilantism and the belief that vigilantism is necessary played a role in Corey Stingley's death.  I am at a loss to otherwise explain how three men could consider physically restraining a boy who may have attempted to shoplift to the point where he stopped breathing could fall anywhere within the realm of reasonableness or propriety.

If my explanation is correct, it represents social regression, a step toward barbarism and away from being a civil society.  The reason we allow the state to administer justice is that the state is expected to do so impartially and by providing due process to the accused.  In addition, the state is required, at a minimum, to administer sentences that are proportional enough to the offense for with a person is convicted so they do not run afoul of the Eighth Amendment proscription against cruel and unusual punishment.  Whether the state administers justice fairly may be debated, but the state is certainly always preferable to three men at a convenience store as the administrator and arbiter of justice.

As a society, we ought to ask ourselves why we consider the message that we need more guns and less restraint on the civilian use of deadly force to be a good thing?  The more civilized a society becomes ought to be inversely proportional to the need for expanded private rights to use self-defense.  The message one would think a civilized society should send is that we have courts and other mechanisms for resolving disputes, that we have police forces for investigating and responding to crime, that we do not need vigilantes to administer our laws effectively.  Corey Stingley would have benefited from a society whose members believed these simple precepts and would probably be alive today if those three men at the convenience store did.

I have not addressed the possible impact racism played in the Stingley tragedy.  Nothing in the Milwaukee Journal Sentinel article I read mentions race as a motive, but in this particular place in this particular time it is hard to believe race did not play some role in the behavior of the three men who restrained Corey Stingley.  Assuming for the moment that the men were not overtly racist and actually attempted to injury Corey Stingley because of his race, racism nonetheless could have played an enormous role in what happened.  The biggest effect of racism that I observe is depersonalization of the other.  What I mean by this is the multifaceted response to difference that leads to assumptions based on fear and prejudice rather than on actual experience.  In colloquial terms, it is the response that leads a white person to think four black kids walking down the street are a gang while four white kids walking down the street are just four kids walking down the street.  The assumption one way or the other has no bearing in fact or experience.

I am quite certain that just as many white kids commit petty crimes to obtain beer and liquor as black kids, but most white people have built in prejudices about the rate at which black males commit crimes and the propensity of black males toward violence so that when they encounter a black kid doing what a white kid would be equally likely to do they overreact.  Witness Trayvon Martin and the nefarious act of wearing a hooded sweatshirt.  The hyper-segregation of the Milwaukee metropolitan area only serves to heighten prejudice.  Most white persons in the Milwaukee area can avoid having any meaningful social contact with black persons almost without thought.

Without meaningful social contact, most white persons in the Milwaukee area will never question their prejudices and assumptions about African Americans.  When persons do not question prejudices and assumptions about a category of persons, the individual persons falling within that category i.e. individual African Americans, lose their humanity and are judged as a category rather than as an individual.  As such, it is easy for a white person to treat an individual African American like Corey Stingley as representative of a population that steals, cheats, uses drugs, milks the system, etc. (an assumption that is neither valid for the category nor the individual, but is nonetheless an assumption many white persons have).  When Corey Stingley functions as a representative of this category rather than as Corey Stingley the sixteen year old junior at Nathan Hale High School who plays football and runs track and has a family and likes music and girls and all the other normal things every sixteen year old likes, it is concomitantly easier for the men who restrained him to act more like they were restraining an animal than a boy (even if the prejudice operates a subconscious level).

Do I know for a fact that this occurred?  Of course not.  It may be that the men involved were just idiots.  It may also be that they were outright racists and actually wanted to hurt Corey Stingley.  I do, however, believe it is tragic that we live in a city in which so many persons of different ethnicity, race, religion, socio-economic status, etc. isolate themselves from one another.  While there is comfort in familiarity, there is adventure, growth, and opportunity in the new.  There is also the potential for understanding.  We have an ethical obligation to treat each person as a person, not as a category or as a representative of a category.  Perhaps if we can all make an effort to know and understand at least one person who does not look like us or talk like us, we can begin to connect our community and break down the prejudices that pit us against each other.  Perhaps if the three men at the convenience store had done so, they would have looked at Corey Stingler as just another teenage boy who made a dumb decision and he would be with us today.