The inherent closeness of conservatism amounts to a worldview premised on the twin beliefs that people don't need to share and that nothing should be done to fix things that aren't fair. Oddly, nothing about the psychological underpinnings of conservatism are democratic, despite the constant prattle about freedom and democracy that comes from those on the right.
Life as we know it contains hardship and can be a struggle, but these facts do not suggest that life is also not replete with wonder or that we should not attempt to assuage hardship and struggle. Neither does the fact that life has difficult aspects suggest that we ought to respond with dour self-righteousness to the whole of life. Such a gross and derelict puritanism bleeds life of what makes it interesting and worthwhile. Contrary to the conservative animosity toward generosity and happiness, there is much to enjoy in the world, enough to go around for everyone.
What is it that I enjoy? I yearn for expansive experiences. I yearn for soul-satisfying laughter. I yearn for hours and hours of conversation with interesting people about interesting things for no other reason than to experience the pleasure of good and thoughtful fellowship. I yearn to share lovely memories with my family. I yearn to take my son out early in the morning with a fishing pole to see the sun peak over the horizon as our lures splash into the water. I yearn for the marauding rhythm of Whitman's verse. I yearn for the meditative splendor of Yeats at his best. I yearn for the earthy humor of "A Midsummer Night's Dream." I yearn for the insatiable desire to keep reading, ceaseless, without rest or breaks, that I experienced when I picked up the Snopes trilogy or the Lord of the Rings or The Unbearable Lightness of Being. I yearn for the excitement I felt when I was in college and first experienced the humanities from an open-ended critical view.
But the inherent closeness of conservatism suggests that these pleasures should not be democratic. They should not be available to all of the people. If this is not the de jure position of conservatism it is at least the de facto effect. Why should any person who is capable of sensing beauty and experiencing joy be deprived of the opportunity to do so? I remain convinced that no humans should be treated as or be allowed to become societal detritus. The best society, it would seem to me, is one in which all members are given the opportunity to live freely and in modest comfort, with access to an education that ignites curiosity and inspires the desire to learn more. In short, the best society is one in which we share with strangers and strive to make things better for persons other than ourselves.
Thursday, January 28, 2016
Jeb! Likes Education Choices (If He Gets to Make Them for Parents)
"The conservative conundrum-- if you allow freedom and choice, you have to accept that people may choose things you don't like..."The quote is lifted from a blog post about Jeb! Bush's education plan. His candidacy seems more and more irrelevant as each day goes by, but his "plan" offers a great opportunity for Peter Greene to discuss why the conservative fetish with choice is both oxymoron and bad policy. I thought the first post was better, but both are worth reading.
Friday, January 15, 2016
Rage, Rage Against the Dying of the Light
When I was an undergraduate, I read some Dylan Thomas poems in a modern poetry class. Of course we read "Do not go gently into that good night." I enjoyed the poem immensely. I have always been drawn to things demonstrating what might be called a rebel impulse, especially when I was young. For me, "rage, rage against the dying of the light" could effectively have been read as "rage, rage against every injustice" since injustice was the chief vice to be opposed. I was full of rage and fury; Dylan Thomas seemed to be speaking to me. I would rage, rage, rage.
I hadn't thought of Thomas for some time when my father reached the end stage of the colon cancer that had been consuming him for several years. The poem struck me as inapposite. What could my father rage against? Had my father raged, it would have been futile and weird, like Lear on the heath. There is no raging against a disease that you have lived with for nearly a decade, a disease that you have known for some time would take your life. Instead, there is gnawing pain and existential anxiety. There is occasional regret and occasional insight. Mostly, there is simple adaptation. Waking and getting through each day because each day keeps coming and that is what we do when we live. We wake, we get through, we wake, we get through.
Watching my father waste away did not diminish Thomas' words, but it demonstrated for me that the way of life and death is not binary. Life is not a question of desire or its absence. Were it so, my father would be alive today. He had much desire to live. He may even at times have had rage. However, desire, even at the extreme edge, cannot guarantee life. Neither is it even a possibility with the slow waste of metastatic cancer.
I have, however, recently been reminded that there are things worth raging against. Not too long ago, Kraft-Heinz announced that it would be closing the Oscar Mayer facility in Madison, Wisconsin. Executive jobs will be located in Chicago and all production jobs in Madison will be lost. On my way into work around the time of the news, I heard a piece on public radio mentioning that the Wisconsin Economic Development Corporation ("WEDC") did not attempt to work with Kraft-Heinz to keep the plant open. This despite the fact that at least two other states successfully offered tax credits and other benefits to keep their local Oscar Mayer plants open. I feel like Wisconsin's light is dying and there ought to be more raging.
The Wisconsin legislature and the governor continuously tout themselves and the policies they contrive to be better for Wisconsin businesses and hence better for Wisconsin because they will lead to job growth. This is complete and utter baloney. The Walker administration and the Wisconsin legislature have no interest actually doing anything that will preserve decent union jobs in Wisconsin, especially not in a city that votes heavily Democratic. They do not care and are almost certainly happy to see those jobs go so they can continue to drive decent jobs with decent benefits (and the Democratic voters that often hold them) out to be replaced by lousy jobs with lousy benefits held by resentful workers who seem to think that progressive social policy is the reason for their economic insecurity. Oddly, white persons holding non-union blue collar jobs in rural Wisconsin are reliably Republican despite Republican policy being responsible for much of their economic insecurity.
This is messed up and is worth raging against. Buying the Republican line of political reasoning amounts to implicit racism. When you think the reason that you don't have a good job is because of Obamacare or welfare, you are a racist. You are effectively saying that you would have a good job if income was not being redistributed to pay for handouts to black people (because that is who the anti-welfare crowd assumes all the benefits are going to). You know what, though: you are not only a racist, you are a moron. The reason you don't have a good job has almost nothing to do with social programs and almost everything to do with political policies that maximize the wealth of businesses and the wealthiest individuals at your expense.
I have for too long attempted to be nice about this stuff. I'm done. I don't think Wisconsin has much left to commend it. This saddens and angers me. Losing Oscar Mayer and knowing our state government did nothing to prevent it from happening sickens me. I recommend that everyone write to the WEDC and Governor Walker and tell them how disappointed you are in their lack of caring for Wisconsin workers. Tell them how disappointed you are in the direction Wisconsin is heading.
More importantly, call out all the people who voted these kleptocrats into office. Tell them they are racist if they oppose social welfare benefits because they think they disproportionately benefit black persons and other minorities. Tell them they are fools if they believe welfare benefits have anything to do with their own economic insecurity. Tell them they are fools if they believe unions have caused or contributed to Wisconsin's current economic woes. Tell them they are making Wisconsin into a sluggish backwater that is a national joke.
I feel like I am losing something meaningful as Wisconsin drifts right and becomes more know-nothing. I also feel like nothing I or anyone else can do or say will change things. Nevertheless, I can remain silent no longer. Like the wise men and the good men and the wild men and the grave men, I will not go gently into that good night; I will rage against the dying of the light.
I hadn't thought of Thomas for some time when my father reached the end stage of the colon cancer that had been consuming him for several years. The poem struck me as inapposite. What could my father rage against? Had my father raged, it would have been futile and weird, like Lear on the heath. There is no raging against a disease that you have lived with for nearly a decade, a disease that you have known for some time would take your life. Instead, there is gnawing pain and existential anxiety. There is occasional regret and occasional insight. Mostly, there is simple adaptation. Waking and getting through each day because each day keeps coming and that is what we do when we live. We wake, we get through, we wake, we get through.
Watching my father waste away did not diminish Thomas' words, but it demonstrated for me that the way of life and death is not binary. Life is not a question of desire or its absence. Were it so, my father would be alive today. He had much desire to live. He may even at times have had rage. However, desire, even at the extreme edge, cannot guarantee life. Neither is it even a possibility with the slow waste of metastatic cancer.
I have, however, recently been reminded that there are things worth raging against. Not too long ago, Kraft-Heinz announced that it would be closing the Oscar Mayer facility in Madison, Wisconsin. Executive jobs will be located in Chicago and all production jobs in Madison will be lost. On my way into work around the time of the news, I heard a piece on public radio mentioning that the Wisconsin Economic Development Corporation ("WEDC") did not attempt to work with Kraft-Heinz to keep the plant open. This despite the fact that at least two other states successfully offered tax credits and other benefits to keep their local Oscar Mayer plants open. I feel like Wisconsin's light is dying and there ought to be more raging.
The Wisconsin legislature and the governor continuously tout themselves and the policies they contrive to be better for Wisconsin businesses and hence better for Wisconsin because they will lead to job growth. This is complete and utter baloney. The Walker administration and the Wisconsin legislature have no interest actually doing anything that will preserve decent union jobs in Wisconsin, especially not in a city that votes heavily Democratic. They do not care and are almost certainly happy to see those jobs go so they can continue to drive decent jobs with decent benefits (and the Democratic voters that often hold them) out to be replaced by lousy jobs with lousy benefits held by resentful workers who seem to think that progressive social policy is the reason for their economic insecurity. Oddly, white persons holding non-union blue collar jobs in rural Wisconsin are reliably Republican despite Republican policy being responsible for much of their economic insecurity.
This is messed up and is worth raging against. Buying the Republican line of political reasoning amounts to implicit racism. When you think the reason that you don't have a good job is because of Obamacare or welfare, you are a racist. You are effectively saying that you would have a good job if income was not being redistributed to pay for handouts to black people (because that is who the anti-welfare crowd assumes all the benefits are going to). You know what, though: you are not only a racist, you are a moron. The reason you don't have a good job has almost nothing to do with social programs and almost everything to do with political policies that maximize the wealth of businesses and the wealthiest individuals at your expense.
I have for too long attempted to be nice about this stuff. I'm done. I don't think Wisconsin has much left to commend it. This saddens and angers me. Losing Oscar Mayer and knowing our state government did nothing to prevent it from happening sickens me. I recommend that everyone write to the WEDC and Governor Walker and tell them how disappointed you are in their lack of caring for Wisconsin workers. Tell them how disappointed you are in the direction Wisconsin is heading.
More importantly, call out all the people who voted these kleptocrats into office. Tell them they are racist if they oppose social welfare benefits because they think they disproportionately benefit black persons and other minorities. Tell them they are fools if they believe welfare benefits have anything to do with their own economic insecurity. Tell them they are fools if they believe unions have caused or contributed to Wisconsin's current economic woes. Tell them they are making Wisconsin into a sluggish backwater that is a national joke.
I feel like I am losing something meaningful as Wisconsin drifts right and becomes more know-nothing. I also feel like nothing I or anyone else can do or say will change things. Nevertheless, I can remain silent no longer. Like the wise men and the good men and the wild men and the grave men, I will not go gently into that good night; I will rage against the dying of the light.
Free Play, Organized Sports, and the Death of Joy
I took my son to an outdoor ice rink a couple of nights ago and we played some pick-up hockey with a couple of his teammates and their older brother. It was magnificent. We had the rink to ourselves for 90 minutes. I had a great time, but watching the kids play was even better. Later that night, I thought about the seeming diminution in free play that kids engage in today. I know, I am nostalgic crank. Now get off my lawn, etc. But seriously, the loss of free play seems less nostalgic than an observable phenomenon. Nowhere is this more apparent than in youth sports.
In many ways, youth sports have become routinized to the point that playing can seem more like a job than an enjoyable diversion. This is shameful for many reasons, not least of which is the fact that the primary purpose of sport is play, which is generally supposed to be fun. As youth sports have become more routinized and formal, kids spend less time engaging in free play. Historically, free play is where kids learned to love the games they played and where they taught themselves the individual skills necessary to participate in particular sports. Athletes were born on the pond or the playground or the schoolyard. It is there that they developed love for the game and self-reliance. If a kid wanted to learn a move, they essentially had to teach themselves. Free play was essential both to learning the game and learning to love it.
Now, many kids spend little or no time playing sports outside the organized setting. If they cannot pick up the game in formal practices or official games, they are not likely to pick up the game. The exception is the kid with the driven parent who sees that his daughter could use more time and pays for her to have private lessons. Rather than finding time for her to play, the driven parent finds more time for formal instruction. Certainly all this time will lead to improvement and produces many exceptional athletes, but it also sends the messages that athletics are about something other than fun and that the player is incapable of self-improvement. I think this is a mistake that first and foremost hurts kids, but also damages sport in general.
I am partial to hockey because it caused me to think about this and I love it, but all active free play is glorious: no coaches, no instructions; just happiness, creativity, and passion. This is the genius of free play: doing something because you alone are moved to do it. The experience is both greatly satisfying and enormously valuable. As a purely athletic endeavor, free play spurs creativity like nothing else. The whole point of free play is to have fun and the way you have fun is trying to beat your opponent, which gives you an incentive to do something clever. It breeds experimentation. It also breeds self-reliance because the only one who can figure it out is the player him or herself.
Free play is also satisfying in ways that formal games are not. Nobody wants to lose, but in true free play the stakes are essentially personal so the consequences of games are much less stressful. Free play is one of the few venues in sport where what in fact matters is simply playing the game. Stepping off the ice after an impromptu pick up game feels good. There is no worry about how you defended or played offense. The only thing that matters is that you played.
This is the nation that gave the world jazz. We are improvisational specialists. We are at our best not when we are carefully following a script, but when we are allowed the freedom to react and think for ourselves in whatever situation are in. I for one will continue to find opportunities for us to just play and I suspect that in the end my son will be better for it. I know he will be happier.
Now, many kids spend little or no time playing sports outside the organized setting. If they cannot pick up the game in formal practices or official games, they are not likely to pick up the game. The exception is the kid with the driven parent who sees that his daughter could use more time and pays for her to have private lessons. Rather than finding time for her to play, the driven parent finds more time for formal instruction. Certainly all this time will lead to improvement and produces many exceptional athletes, but it also sends the messages that athletics are about something other than fun and that the player is incapable of self-improvement. I think this is a mistake that first and foremost hurts kids, but also damages sport in general.
I am partial to hockey because it caused me to think about this and I love it, but all active free play is glorious: no coaches, no instructions; just happiness, creativity, and passion. This is the genius of free play: doing something because you alone are moved to do it. The experience is both greatly satisfying and enormously valuable. As a purely athletic endeavor, free play spurs creativity like nothing else. The whole point of free play is to have fun and the way you have fun is trying to beat your opponent, which gives you an incentive to do something clever. It breeds experimentation. It also breeds self-reliance because the only one who can figure it out is the player him or herself.
Free play is also satisfying in ways that formal games are not. Nobody wants to lose, but in true free play the stakes are essentially personal so the consequences of games are much less stressful. Free play is one of the few venues in sport where what in fact matters is simply playing the game. Stepping off the ice after an impromptu pick up game feels good. There is no worry about how you defended or played offense. The only thing that matters is that you played.
This is the nation that gave the world jazz. We are improvisational specialists. We are at our best not when we are carefully following a script, but when we are allowed the freedom to react and think for ourselves in whatever situation are in. I for one will continue to find opportunities for us to just play and I suspect that in the end my son will be better for it. I know he will be happier.
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