By now most people have seen the photo of Pope Francis kissing the pilgrim with neurofibromatosis in St. Peter's Square. I am not sure what to make of this other than that the world seems to have an incredibly humble and pious man in what is probably the single most significant and powerful ecclesiastical office in the world.
Amy Davidson has a nice piece in the New Yorker about the picture, the moment, Pope Francis, and whether the Catholic Church is in the midst of change. I think, however, that she misses the importance of moments like this. Whether Pope Francis effects institutional change or not will be an important historical question some day, but the remarkable thing about this photo is the striking manner in which it seems to capture the essence of Francis as a man. I didn't get the impression that this is theater. Commentators seem to agree that this is a genuine moment and genuinely reflects who Pope Francis is. If that is the case, then we should celebrate the man not because of his historical significance but instead because as the Vicar of Christ he actually lives as Christ commanded.
Friday, November 8, 2013
Friday, September 27, 2013
Riding a Bicycle
I recently had a discussion with some friends about why we ride bikes. The answers were typical for persons in their mid-thirties to mid-forties: it keeps us healthier than we would otherwise be, we like the competitive aspects, we enjoy the camaraderie of racing and the community bikers we see around, etc. As I thought about it a little more though, I realized that I ride my bike because it puts me in the world in a way that a car cannot.
The immediate trigger for this line of thought was commuting to work on a bicycle. I enjoy my commute for many reasons. I love the way the air feels early in the morning. I love ticking out a rhythm on my ride in to work. The cadence of my pedaling can almost be musical, unifying mind and body. I enjoy looking around at the buildings and houses I pass, the people waiting for the bus, the athletes practicing on the fields. I cannot tell you how sublime it feels when I find myself riding along the lake front on one of those perfect days when the breeze pushes gently off the lake, driving away the summer heat, and the light causes the water to turn a mesmerizing cerulean hue.
I could go on and on about all the things I enjoy when I am commuting by bicycle; however, I realized that what drives all of these things, what makes commuting by bicycle different than commuting in a car or riding a bus, is that cycling puts you in the world. You are present in your community and almost by default have to engage it. When I come to a stop light and put my foot down while I wait for the light to change, I hear the people at the bus stop talking. I hear and feel the vibrations of the car engine next to me. I smell the exhaust. I look around and see what is there, my surroundings. Of course I am focused on the road, but I am also focused on the buildings and the people and the horizon, the clouds in the sky, the wind, the heat (or cold). I ride by a high school and see the boys preening for the girls and the girls laughing. I see a group of men under an awning awaiting the bus, commiserating. I see the city workers painting the lines. I hear the train rumble on the tracks as I cross one of the bridges and marvel that the cars seem to go on to infinity.
I tell pedestrians that I am passing on their left and they often acknowledge me and say 'thanks.' I always reply, 'you're welcome.' I meet other cyclists and sometimes we ride for a while together, chatting. I see many of the same riders passing me each morning and enjoy the sense of familiarity that this engenders. I see mothers running behind jog strollers containing their smiling or nodding toddlers. I see a father riding with his young daughter who pedals furiously to keep up. I see the young men and women at the Urban Ecology Center planting and clearing and making the river beautiful again. I pass walkers and runners and old women in scooters. Often we look at each other and smile or wave or say 'hello.'
I am in the world when I am on my bike. I hear the city and feel the city and smell the city and see the city in all of its brilliance and ugliness and the in between. The meat packing plant sometimes burns my nose with the ammoniac reek. I pass through places with torn sleeping bags and shredded cardboard that were somebody's home. I see placarded houses and empty storefronts. I see and feel and hear and smell everything. The lovely addition to our art museum with its brise soleil unfurled fills me with wonder. The fox crossing the bike path puts a smile on my face. The neighborhoods with old trees canopied over the streets and the families in front yards kicking a ball or riding bikes or chasing around fill me with hope. All of this is my city and I love being part of it.
When I ride I engage my surroundings. I am not averse to automobiles and like taking road trips, but in the city you miss so much when you drive. The radio is on or the air conditioner is on and the windows are shut and you look at the road and listen to the news or the music and pay little attention to anything not on the road. Sure, we all look around, but cars move fast and before you have time to think about what you see (and usually it is just see) you are already gone. On a bike I move slow enough to think about what I am experiencing, to pay attention to the world around me. While I move faster than a pedestrian, I am still slow enough to notice the world and pay attention to it. And I am able to cover much more ground than I could walking.
It is lovely to ride and feel and hear and smell and see the place where you live. It is lovely to be on a bicycle riding. That is why I ride.
The immediate trigger for this line of thought was commuting to work on a bicycle. I enjoy my commute for many reasons. I love the way the air feels early in the morning. I love ticking out a rhythm on my ride in to work. The cadence of my pedaling can almost be musical, unifying mind and body. I enjoy looking around at the buildings and houses I pass, the people waiting for the bus, the athletes practicing on the fields. I cannot tell you how sublime it feels when I find myself riding along the lake front on one of those perfect days when the breeze pushes gently off the lake, driving away the summer heat, and the light causes the water to turn a mesmerizing cerulean hue.
I could go on and on about all the things I enjoy when I am commuting by bicycle; however, I realized that what drives all of these things, what makes commuting by bicycle different than commuting in a car or riding a bus, is that cycling puts you in the world. You are present in your community and almost by default have to engage it. When I come to a stop light and put my foot down while I wait for the light to change, I hear the people at the bus stop talking. I hear and feel the vibrations of the car engine next to me. I smell the exhaust. I look around and see what is there, my surroundings. Of course I am focused on the road, but I am also focused on the buildings and the people and the horizon, the clouds in the sky, the wind, the heat (or cold). I ride by a high school and see the boys preening for the girls and the girls laughing. I see a group of men under an awning awaiting the bus, commiserating. I see the city workers painting the lines. I hear the train rumble on the tracks as I cross one of the bridges and marvel that the cars seem to go on to infinity.
I tell pedestrians that I am passing on their left and they often acknowledge me and say 'thanks.' I always reply, 'you're welcome.' I meet other cyclists and sometimes we ride for a while together, chatting. I see many of the same riders passing me each morning and enjoy the sense of familiarity that this engenders. I see mothers running behind jog strollers containing their smiling or nodding toddlers. I see a father riding with his young daughter who pedals furiously to keep up. I see the young men and women at the Urban Ecology Center planting and clearing and making the river beautiful again. I pass walkers and runners and old women in scooters. Often we look at each other and smile or wave or say 'hello.'
I am in the world when I am on my bike. I hear the city and feel the city and smell the city and see the city in all of its brilliance and ugliness and the in between. The meat packing plant sometimes burns my nose with the ammoniac reek. I pass through places with torn sleeping bags and shredded cardboard that were somebody's home. I see placarded houses and empty storefronts. I see and feel and hear and smell everything. The lovely addition to our art museum with its brise soleil unfurled fills me with wonder. The fox crossing the bike path puts a smile on my face. The neighborhoods with old trees canopied over the streets and the families in front yards kicking a ball or riding bikes or chasing around fill me with hope. All of this is my city and I love being part of it.
When I ride I engage my surroundings. I am not averse to automobiles and like taking road trips, but in the city you miss so much when you drive. The radio is on or the air conditioner is on and the windows are shut and you look at the road and listen to the news or the music and pay little attention to anything not on the road. Sure, we all look around, but cars move fast and before you have time to think about what you see (and usually it is just see) you are already gone. On a bike I move slow enough to think about what I am experiencing, to pay attention to the world around me. While I move faster than a pedestrian, I am still slow enough to notice the world and pay attention to it. And I am able to cover much more ground than I could walking.
It is lovely to ride and feel and hear and smell and see the place where you live. It is lovely to be on a bicycle riding. That is why I ride.
Friday, September 13, 2013
Revisiting Race
Gary Gutting has an interesting piece in the New York Times online edition. In "Getting Past the Outrage on Race," Gutting contrasts the opposing and seemingly irreconcilable views that arose in the context of the Trayvon Martin killing. On the one side are those who consider the plight of young black men to be the result of prejudice, institutional and otherwise. On the opposite side are those who consider the plight of young black men to be the result of a lack of resolve and self-respect.
Please note the very word I used, "plight." This signifies something pernicious about the way a young black man is viewed by someone who is not black. I considered editing the word, but I think leaving it in is instructive because it demonstrates the unconscious infantilizing of young black men in which many white commentators engage. On average a young black man faces enormous challenges that on average most young white men do not; however, using the word "plight" paints too broad a stroke because it assumes that all young black men face an identical and intractable problem. While circumstances of poverty make for an intractable problem that many young black men have, circumstances of poverty make for an intractable problem for many persons of all races. Surely an upper class or upper middle class young black man faces issues of race that his white peers do not, yet the issues he faces are different from the issues a young black man growing up in extreme urban poverty faces. To discuss the "plight" of young black men does erases the quantitative and qualitative differences in the actual and potential experiences of discrimination across the gamut of young black men. In this way, "young black men" serves as a category bereft of individuality, positive capabilities, and humanity. Young black men become objects of pity and confusion for white commentators rather than persons living actual lives.
While I digress, I believe the digression is an important one to measure any comments that I (or anyone else for that matter) make against a backdrop of potential paternalism. While race in America is a significant issue that gives rise to significant problems, the permutations are myriad and do not lend themselves to a one-size-fits-all analysis or solution. Indeed, one of the great peculiarities of our discussions of race in America is the paucity of attention that is placed on the effects of racism on the white population. I don't mean this in the sense that white persons are subject to reverse discrimination or any such nonsense, but rather in the sense that a white person who engages in racist thought or behavior, even of the unconscious sort, must also be affected by racism.
Too often white commentators act as if they are at an objective remove from racism, neutral observers not subject to the affects of the racism about which they write and speak. It seems to me that nothing could be further from the truth. For example, I (and many others) have long believed that the reason the "southern strategy" works is that the last three decades have seen a significant diminution in the standard of living of middle and lower class white persons who do not possess college degrees and it is convenient for these persons to displace their anger and frustration onto African Americans; hence, the vitriol in discussions about affirmative action and any other legal apparatus that is perceived as disproportionately benefiting African Americans. This has led to enormous numbers of white persons who derive no benefit from conservative policies to vote for conservative politicians out of a racial bias (conscious or not), especially those conservative politicians who explicitly promise to gut affirmative action, welfare, and any other program perceived (rightly or wrongly) to favor African Americans. The impact of the racial bias on political choice has been severe: diminution of organized labor, diminution of the social safety net, an increase in regressive taxation schemes, etc. Ultimately the racism of many white persons has had a clear impact on the actual power this population wields and the prosperity available to them.
Back to Gutting's piece. His thesis is that "our continuing problems about race are essentially rooted in a fundamental injustice in our economic system." Gutting cites Martin Luther King's "I Have a Dream" speech and notes that Dr. King's principal thesis was that African Americans were "not free" because they "live on a lonely island of poverty." The thrust then, of Gutting's critique is that persons who lack "basic goods" are at a staggering disadvantage in trying to advance their material prosperity when compared to those who do not have to compete for basic goods. Cass Sunstein has a fantastic piece on the deleterious effects of scarcity on the poor that effectively demonstrates Gutting's point. The unstated premise of Gutting's argument is that race will become less of an issue if African Americans are not disproportionately represented among the poor, with which I take some issue as noted in my digression above. Ultimately Gutting persuasively argues that the distribution of material wealth is unjust and that we need to examine whether this is an injustice subject to correction.
The primary benefit of Guttings' piece is to call attention to the fact that most of the platitudes and polemics about race in America fail to say anything intelligible about the actual causes and effects of racism. In this way, he presents an effective critique of the diametrically opposed responses to the Trayvon Martin killing as being unhelpful in advancing our understanding of race in America. While I believe that his contention that systemic economic injustice is the root cause of racial disparity is not entirely accurate, it is refreshing to see a point of view that looks below the surface and at least tries to get to the heart of the matter. And regardless of whether Gutting accurately diagnoses the reason that many young black men in America face long odds against success, he is most certainly right that:
Please note the very word I used, "plight." This signifies something pernicious about the way a young black man is viewed by someone who is not black. I considered editing the word, but I think leaving it in is instructive because it demonstrates the unconscious infantilizing of young black men in which many white commentators engage. On average a young black man faces enormous challenges that on average most young white men do not; however, using the word "plight" paints too broad a stroke because it assumes that all young black men face an identical and intractable problem. While circumstances of poverty make for an intractable problem that many young black men have, circumstances of poverty make for an intractable problem for many persons of all races. Surely an upper class or upper middle class young black man faces issues of race that his white peers do not, yet the issues he faces are different from the issues a young black man growing up in extreme urban poverty faces. To discuss the "plight" of young black men does erases the quantitative and qualitative differences in the actual and potential experiences of discrimination across the gamut of young black men. In this way, "young black men" serves as a category bereft of individuality, positive capabilities, and humanity. Young black men become objects of pity and confusion for white commentators rather than persons living actual lives.
While I digress, I believe the digression is an important one to measure any comments that I (or anyone else for that matter) make against a backdrop of potential paternalism. While race in America is a significant issue that gives rise to significant problems, the permutations are myriad and do not lend themselves to a one-size-fits-all analysis or solution. Indeed, one of the great peculiarities of our discussions of race in America is the paucity of attention that is placed on the effects of racism on the white population. I don't mean this in the sense that white persons are subject to reverse discrimination or any such nonsense, but rather in the sense that a white person who engages in racist thought or behavior, even of the unconscious sort, must also be affected by racism.
Too often white commentators act as if they are at an objective remove from racism, neutral observers not subject to the affects of the racism about which they write and speak. It seems to me that nothing could be further from the truth. For example, I (and many others) have long believed that the reason the "southern strategy" works is that the last three decades have seen a significant diminution in the standard of living of middle and lower class white persons who do not possess college degrees and it is convenient for these persons to displace their anger and frustration onto African Americans; hence, the vitriol in discussions about affirmative action and any other legal apparatus that is perceived as disproportionately benefiting African Americans. This has led to enormous numbers of white persons who derive no benefit from conservative policies to vote for conservative politicians out of a racial bias (conscious or not), especially those conservative politicians who explicitly promise to gut affirmative action, welfare, and any other program perceived (rightly or wrongly) to favor African Americans. The impact of the racial bias on political choice has been severe: diminution of organized labor, diminution of the social safety net, an increase in regressive taxation schemes, etc. Ultimately the racism of many white persons has had a clear impact on the actual power this population wields and the prosperity available to them.
Back to Gutting's piece. His thesis is that "our continuing problems about race are essentially rooted in a fundamental injustice in our economic system." Gutting cites Martin Luther King's "I Have a Dream" speech and notes that Dr. King's principal thesis was that African Americans were "not free" because they "live on a lonely island of poverty." The thrust then, of Gutting's critique is that persons who lack "basic goods" are at a staggering disadvantage in trying to advance their material prosperity when compared to those who do not have to compete for basic goods. Cass Sunstein has a fantastic piece on the deleterious effects of scarcity on the poor that effectively demonstrates Gutting's point. The unstated premise of Gutting's argument is that race will become less of an issue if African Americans are not disproportionately represented among the poor, with which I take some issue as noted in my digression above. Ultimately Gutting persuasively argues that the distribution of material wealth is unjust and that we need to examine whether this is an injustice subject to correction.
The primary benefit of Guttings' piece is to call attention to the fact that most of the platitudes and polemics about race in America fail to say anything intelligible about the actual causes and effects of racism. In this way, he presents an effective critique of the diametrically opposed responses to the Trayvon Martin killing as being unhelpful in advancing our understanding of race in America. While I believe that his contention that systemic economic injustice is the root cause of racial disparity is not entirely accurate, it is refreshing to see a point of view that looks below the surface and at least tries to get to the heart of the matter. And regardless of whether Gutting accurately diagnoses the reason that many young black men in America face long odds against success, he is most certainly right that:
Unless we work for this fundamental [economic] justice, then we must reconcile ourselves to a society with a permanent underclass...And that, regardless of race, is tragic.
Sunday, August 25, 2013
Lines about Syria
Assad
Doctor butcher man-of-the-world,
Smug tyrant in an air-conditioned palace
While an infant wakes choking to die.
A child with world-weary eyes looks pleading at his mother without surprise,
She reaches to his face and they touch each other's tears.
Silent cries, choking cries, all without surprise.
Rage against, rise against,
Doctor butcher tyrant, suited-slaughterer
Choking, stuttering
Back into bed.
Doctor butcher man-of-the-world,
Smug tyrant in an air-conditioned palace
While an infant wakes choking to die.
A child with world-weary eyes looks pleading at his mother without surprise,
She reaches to his face and they touch each other's tears.
Silent cries, choking cries, all without surprise.
Rage against, rise against,
Doctor butcher tyrant, suited-slaughterer
Choking, stuttering
Back into bed.
Friday, August 23, 2013
Always Remember
Caleb Crain has a well-written piece in the New Yorker online, an obituary of sorts, regarding his teacher, Peter Kussi, a Czech who emigrated to the United States when the shadow of Hitler loomed near Czechloslovakia in 1939. Kussi's father was born in the U.S. and was able to obtain a passport to this country as a result. The Kussis were Jewish. Crain's article traces the impact of the Holocaust on Kussi's life and work through the letter one of Kussi's uncles had written him from Czechloslovakia in 1942, before being deported to Auschwitz. As Crain writes,
Several years ago I attended the United States Holocaust Memorial Museum in Washington, D.C. I do not exaggerate when I write that the experience moved me in the most profound way possible. I particularly remember an exhibit in which shoes upon shoes upon shoes were piled up behind museum glass. Visitors were informed that these were the shoes of children who died in concentration camps. I stood before the shoes mute, tears welling up in my eyes, wanting to explode in a supernova of grief. So all encompassing was my sorrow and disgust that I thought I could swallow the world with it.
And yet, the shoes of these children represented, for the administrators of death, a byproduct of an industrial process, industrial waste, if you will. This realization caused, if it is possible, redoubled disgust and fury. These shoes once adorned the feet of children. Children who liked ice cream and sat on their fathers' laps while being read to. Children who danced and laughed and cried when they scraped their knees. Children who were born into a world of doom through no fault of their own. Children. These shoes were traces of the children. There can be no adequate answer to the question of how this could have happened? Any rationalization, however accurate, melts in the face of the enormous sorrow that attends the industrial act of brutality.
Jiri Eisenstein wrote to his nephew of the memory of what happened to the Jews of central Europe:
I would like to give some thought to the children who died or lived through the Holocaust. I would like to perform my act of contrition and remembrance. I would like to remind readers that we owe the children of our world today a moral duty to acknowledge them and to ensure that they are treated with the dignity and respect befitting all human beings, that the children of the Holocaust serve as a perpetual reminder of our duty to the living as well as to the memory of the dead.
I am not sure how many are familiar with the children of the Terezin Concentration Camp (known also as Theresienstadt), but their story is a remarkable one.
Here is a poem written by a child named Franta Bass:
In considering the children of Terezin and the Holocaust we face a constant reminder of the moral obligation we have to our fellow human beings to treat them as moral equals. While the poems still break my heart and the shoes at the Holocaust Museum stoke fury and almost limitless despair in me, when I turn my attention to them and consider the children who wrote the poems and wore the shoes I am elevating the children above the casual death of the concentration camps. I am pulling them out of the banalities of the bureaucratic death machine and putting them first. I am elevating the children above their prison. I remember the children above all else.
Kussi didn’t receive the letter until 1944, and in January of that year Jiří Eisenstein was deported to Auschwitz, where he died. His wife, Mimi Eisenstein, was killed in the same camp in March, 1944.Human tragedy is not unique to the Jews of Europe during the Holocaust. Jiri Eisenstein himself compared the activities of the Germany to those of the Turks against the Armenians:
The setting is a different one, the procedure is more refined, as beho[o]ves people who live in the centre of Europe, yet the spirit is the same, perhaps even more cruel behind the mask of orderliness and flawless organization.Nevertheless, the Holocaust leaves a scar on the memory of humankind because of "the mask of orderliness and flawless organization." In short, the Holocaust represented the industrialization of genocide. Not only did the concentration camps function as models of industrial efficiency, they were also beset with bureaucratic banalities (as Hannah Arendt so astutely recognized) that rendered the extermination of human life, in many cases, almost secondary to procedure, quota, and supply chain management. In many ways, this represents the horror of the Holocaust as much as anything else: that it became ordinary, routinized.
Several years ago I attended the United States Holocaust Memorial Museum in Washington, D.C. I do not exaggerate when I write that the experience moved me in the most profound way possible. I particularly remember an exhibit in which shoes upon shoes upon shoes were piled up behind museum glass. Visitors were informed that these were the shoes of children who died in concentration camps. I stood before the shoes mute, tears welling up in my eyes, wanting to explode in a supernova of grief. So all encompassing was my sorrow and disgust that I thought I could swallow the world with it.
And yet, the shoes of these children represented, for the administrators of death, a byproduct of an industrial process, industrial waste, if you will. This realization caused, if it is possible, redoubled disgust and fury. These shoes once adorned the feet of children. Children who liked ice cream and sat on their fathers' laps while being read to. Children who danced and laughed and cried when they scraped their knees. Children who were born into a world of doom through no fault of their own. Children. These shoes were traces of the children. There can be no adequate answer to the question of how this could have happened? Any rationalization, however accurate, melts in the face of the enormous sorrow that attends the industrial act of brutality.
Jiri Eisenstein wrote to his nephew of the memory of what happened to the Jews of central Europe:
you may be reminded of the tragedy your people went through, and curiosity being inborn to mankind, you might give them a few thoughts—how did they bear it, how did they live, what did they suffer, which were their hopes, longings and comfort?These were not my 'people,' but the scale and international scope of the Holocaust makes Kussi's people everyone's people, in a sense. As such, it is incumbent upon all of us who are heirs to the history and traditions of the West to give the persons who lived through and died in the Holocaust more than a few thoughts. We must do so not because any reminder of the Holocaust will prevent it from happening again. Genocide will take whatever terrible forms contemporary technology, political organization, and hatred offer. It is folly to suggest otherwise. Still, giving thought to those persons whose life ended in or was indelibly scarred by the Holocaust is a necessary act of contrition and acknowledgement that every life must be elevated above process, bureaucracy, and convenience. It is a necessary acknowledgement that we are responsible as individuals to behave in an objectively ethical way toward our fellow human beings. We cannot hide behind the veil of the crowd or the mandate of the state. Giving thought to the children who wore those shoes is a perpetual reminder that we owe our fellow human beings a duty of care, that we are obliged to consider them always as human beings, as our equals in moral worth if in no other way.
I would like to give some thought to the children who died or lived through the Holocaust. I would like to perform my act of contrition and remembrance. I would like to remind readers that we owe the children of our world today a moral duty to acknowledge them and to ensure that they are treated with the dignity and respect befitting all human beings, that the children of the Holocaust serve as a perpetual reminder of our duty to the living as well as to the memory of the dead.
I am not sure how many are familiar with the children of the Terezin Concentration Camp (known also as Theresienstadt), but their story is a remarkable one.
A total of 15,000 children under the age of fifteen passed through the Terezin Concentration Camp between the years 1942 and 1944; less than 100 survived. (Volavková, Hana. I Never Saw Another Butterfly: Children's Drawings and Poems from Terezín Concentration Camp, 1942-1944. New York: Schocken, 1978).While at the Camp, many of the children of Terezin wrote poems and drew pictures. Despite the odds, a number of the poems and drawings have been preserved.
In these poems and pictures created by the young inmates of Terezin, we see the daily misery of these uprooted children, as well as their courage and optimism, their hopes and fears. (Id.)These are the children of Terezin. They were children like any other children for whom humanity failed. Read their words and meditate on what it would have been like to be a Jewish child, one of the 1.5 million that died, in the Holocaust. Meditate on what it would have been like to see hope squashed constantly and yet to still feel hope against reason, how painful that sliver of possible deliverance must have been knowing you held it against all reason. Meditate on what it would have been like to be twelve years old and to lose hope.
Here is a poem written by a child named Franta Bass:
THE GARDEN
Only take heed, and keep your soul diligently, Lest you forget the things which your eyes have seen, And lest they depart from your hearts all the days of your life; Make them known to your children and your children's children.
--Deuteronomy 4:9
A little garden,
Fragrant and full of roses.
The path is narrow
And a little boy walks along it.
A little boy, a sweet boy,Here is another by a child named Michael Flack:
Like that growing blossom.
When the blossom comes to bloom,
The little boy will be no more.
ON A SUNNY EVENING
On a purple, sun-shot eveningWe are shamed by the fact that a child could write the line, "The little boy will be no more," and yet the indomitable human spirit of "[i]f in barbed wire, things can bloom/Why couldn't I? I will not die!" ennobles us and gives us hope in equal measure. In our shame and wonder at the children of Terezin we can, in small measure, redeem our world if we take our shame and wonder and turn it into action. There are little boys and girls in this country for whom life seems as fleeting as the boy in the "Garden." It is within our power to help these children learn that life does not have to be all deprivation and precariousness. Whether it is through mentoring or community involvement or political action, everyone can do something to turn the our shame and wonder at the children of Terezin into positive action in our world.
Under wide-flowering chestnut trees
Upon the threshold full of dust
Yesterday, today, the days are all like these.
Trees flower forth in beauty,
Lovely too their very wood all gnarled and old
That I am half afraid to peer
Into their crowns of green and gold.
The sun has made a veil of gold
So lovely that my body aches.
Above, the heavens shriek with blue
Convinced I've smiled by some mistake.
The world's abloom and seems to smile.
I want to fly but where, how high?
If in barbed wire, things can bloom
Why couldn't I? I will not die!
In considering the children of Terezin and the Holocaust we face a constant reminder of the moral obligation we have to our fellow human beings to treat them as moral equals. While the poems still break my heart and the shoes at the Holocaust Museum stoke fury and almost limitless despair in me, when I turn my attention to them and consider the children who wrote the poems and wore the shoes I am elevating the children above the casual death of the concentration camps. I am pulling them out of the banalities of the bureaucratic death machine and putting them first. I am elevating the children above their prison. I remember the children above all else.
Thursday, August 22, 2013
Do Nothing Foreign Policy
The American response to the ongoing atrocities in the Middle East and North Africa continues to sicken me. William Dobson has a well-written article in Slate.com addressing the issue in response to the apparent chemical weapons attack in Syria.
http://www.slate.com/articles/news_and_politics/foreigners/2013/08/barack_obama_is_failing_in_the_middle_east_syria_s_bashar_assad_and_egypt.html
Once again, the administration has demonstrated a bent for the practical and ethically indefensible. As Dobson notes,
So what can be done? How about less lawyer-speak and more frankness? How about calling a coup a coup? How about telling Egypt that democracy requires elections for regime change? How about telling Assad that the U.S. will do everything in its power to stop him from slaughtering Syrians? How about telling Assad that the U.S. will do everything in its power to assist with the orderly transition to a representative democracy, including combating any party who would use violence and terror to subvert the will of the people? How about acting in away that does not give ammunition to every anti-democratic nation in the world to call attention to our hypocrisy when we advocate for the rule of law, peace, and democracy elsewhere? How about we just try something other than to sit on our hands?
In Dobson's words:
http://www.slate.com/articles/news_and_politics/foreigners/2013/08/barack_obama_is_failing_in_the_middle_east_syria_s_bashar_assad_and_egypt.html
Once again, the administration has demonstrated a bent for the practical and ethically indefensible. As Dobson notes,
The Obama administration isn’t responsible for preventing this massacre in Syria. President Obama cannot control what happens in Damascus or Cairo, and it’s unfair to suggest otherwise. But he must also own the policies he creates and the messages those policies send. And here’s the truth: The president will run out the clock on the problems he likes least. In Egypt, while Washington fretted over the definition of a “coup,” the Gulf’s monarchies happily stepped in to fill the void. In Syria, the administration hemmed and hawed about arming the rebels for 18 months. When they finally came around to the notion, the “good rebels” were buried in shallow graves. As it turns out, there is a cost to slow walking a foreign policy crisis...
The Middle East’s autocrats understand how to turn a president’s “judiciousness” into an effective weapon for murder. These strongmen—be it Assad, Sisi, or a host of others—recognize that when an American president demands proof, evidence good enough to stand up in court, to make foreign policy decisions, he is effectively turning a blind eye to their crimes. So, for every peaceful protester who is gunned down in Cairo, the regime gives us an armed mob of Muslim Brothers. As Assad’s death squads go from house to house, Damascus issues denials and counterclaims. If that’s all it takes, then it is easy enough to create the fog of war, even when it’s truly a massacre.In this way, the administration's inaction makes it culpable. Perhaps not complicit because American power is not absolute, but still culpable. Culpable of what? Culpable of tolerating criminal behavior of autocrats and dictators when the autocrats and dictators in question appear to be more sympathetic to U.S. interests than the alternative. Culpable of hypocritically abandoning commonly held principles of fairness and justice so as to not rock any boats. The administration should denounce the coup in Egypt, denounce the Assad massacre, and take appropriate and forceful steps to develop an international coalition to force an end to the Egyptian coup and the Syrian civil war. Doing nothing is unethical and amounts to condoning the deaths of innocents in Syria and Egypt.
So what can be done? How about less lawyer-speak and more frankness? How about calling a coup a coup? How about telling Egypt that democracy requires elections for regime change? How about telling Assad that the U.S. will do everything in its power to stop him from slaughtering Syrians? How about telling Assad that the U.S. will do everything in its power to assist with the orderly transition to a representative democracy, including combating any party who would use violence and terror to subvert the will of the people? How about acting in away that does not give ammunition to every anti-democratic nation in the world to call attention to our hypocrisy when we advocate for the rule of law, peace, and democracy elsewhere? How about we just try something other than to sit on our hands?
In Dobson's words:
I used to think that, in the long run, when the memoirs are written and the minutes of the White House meetings are known, the 100,000 people who died in Syria would be one of the worst stains on this administration. Not because they failed to stop it, but because they failed to try. But I was wrong. One hundred thousand was the floor.This sickens me. It should sicken you too.
Wednesday, August 21, 2013
"30 Americans," A Response
I recently went to the Milwaukee Art Museum ("MAM") and viewed, among other things, the current exhibit, 30 Americans. The Art Museum describes the exhibit thus:
Despite the tendency of most pieces to stir a response in me, I found myself sensing something inaccessible in the pieces. After thinking about the matter, I have concluded that the inaccessible place is a parodic or ironic aspect to the work that derives from a presence to which I will always remain outside because the parodic or ironic aspect is rooted in lived experience. Even though the art is expressed in shared 'rhetorical' or artistic forms that allow me comprehend aspects of the pieces, I can only sense the deepest or profoundest presence from which they arise, feeling the reverberations of what the pieces mean without having the experiential capacity to understand and articulate what the pieces mean at the felt level. The Mastercard piece moved me, but I have never lost a friend or a relative to gun violence, particularly of the type of gun violence that often besets impoverished, urban minority communities. The way this experience resonates with the piece of art is something I can only access through assumption and inference, which has a slightly disconcerting and bewildering effect, a shade of which can almost be described as sadness.
What does it mean that a significant part of the art I viewed is inaccessible to me? First, that the artist can bring to my attention, in a public space, awareness of the arrest or gap in my experiential capacity to understand is significant. Communication enables the creation of experiences otherwise not possible. Through dialog, whether visual or audible, written or unwritten, new presences arise. The artists creating the pieces exhibited at MAM function as hero-translators (in the mythic or epic sense), bringing news of different worlds to their audience. Marco Polo brought news of a new culture to Europe, enriching and expanding the experiential capacities of Europeans in the process. Think of the rich history of culinary delight to which Italians have access simply because Marco Polo brought noodles back with him. Surely Italians have been enriched in this exchange.
The artists whose works are being exhibited do the same thing. I may not be able to access the felt reality of urban gun violence, but the poignancy of the Mastercard piece gives me a sense of what it must do to persons and communities that experience urban gun violence. In giving me (and anyone lacking experiential capacity) this sense, the artist creates a new presence, a new statement that is the acknowledgement f the inaccessible experiential aspect of the work. When persons like me who have not experienced urban gun violence directly (who are surely the majority of the viewers) respond to the piece, we bring the previously unexpressed or poorly expressed experience into the public sphere and give it voice. The responses, even when incomplete or inchoate, acknowledge the felt experience of the artist and so gives it space in the broader cultural exchange of ideas. Once the art is exhibited publicly, it is an utterance of sorts that cannot be taken back, silenced, or otherwise erased.
Giving voice to a a real experience, even one experienced by a minority of persons, is important to recognize the breadth of experiences that persons in our culture have and to legitimize those experiences as valid and public parts of the greater culture. In bringing a new or poorly disseminated experience to the public sphere, the artist brings us closer as people to acknowledging our common humanity and individual differences, creating a communicative space for respect and learning. From this platform we become a more integrated but less homogeneous culture, a culture that craves contact with difference rather than suppressing it, running from it, or fearing it. And so, despite my ability to only glimpse the profound parodic and ironic elements of the many of the pieces, I am better for having seen them and remaining open to the aspects I cannot fully understand.
30 Americans is a dynamic exploration of contemporary American art. Paintings, sculptures, installations, photographs, video, and more made by African American artists since 1970 raise questions of what it means to be a contemporary artist and an African American today. Whether addressing issues of race, gender, sexuality, politics, or history—or seemingly remaining silent about them—these works offer powerful interpretations of cultural identity and artistic legacy.A number of things struck me during and after the exhibit. I found myself able to access the pathos, frustration, disgust, rage, powerlessness, pride, confidence, bravado, sorrow, joy, ebullience, and other feelings that the works inspired. For example, there is a take on the Mastercard "Priceless" advertising campaign showing a scene at a funeral of a young black man who was shot and killed for jewelry he was wearing. The final line of parody, "Picking the perfect casket for your son. Priceless" stirred powerful emotions in me. The elegaic quality brought tears to my eyes; the senselessness angered me, etc.
Despite the tendency of most pieces to stir a response in me, I found myself sensing something inaccessible in the pieces. After thinking about the matter, I have concluded that the inaccessible place is a parodic or ironic aspect to the work that derives from a presence to which I will always remain outside because the parodic or ironic aspect is rooted in lived experience. Even though the art is expressed in shared 'rhetorical' or artistic forms that allow me comprehend aspects of the pieces, I can only sense the deepest or profoundest presence from which they arise, feeling the reverberations of what the pieces mean without having the experiential capacity to understand and articulate what the pieces mean at the felt level. The Mastercard piece moved me, but I have never lost a friend or a relative to gun violence, particularly of the type of gun violence that often besets impoverished, urban minority communities. The way this experience resonates with the piece of art is something I can only access through assumption and inference, which has a slightly disconcerting and bewildering effect, a shade of which can almost be described as sadness.
What does it mean that a significant part of the art I viewed is inaccessible to me? First, that the artist can bring to my attention, in a public space, awareness of the arrest or gap in my experiential capacity to understand is significant. Communication enables the creation of experiences otherwise not possible. Through dialog, whether visual or audible, written or unwritten, new presences arise. The artists creating the pieces exhibited at MAM function as hero-translators (in the mythic or epic sense), bringing news of different worlds to their audience. Marco Polo brought news of a new culture to Europe, enriching and expanding the experiential capacities of Europeans in the process. Think of the rich history of culinary delight to which Italians have access simply because Marco Polo brought noodles back with him. Surely Italians have been enriched in this exchange.
The artists whose works are being exhibited do the same thing. I may not be able to access the felt reality of urban gun violence, but the poignancy of the Mastercard piece gives me a sense of what it must do to persons and communities that experience urban gun violence. In giving me (and anyone lacking experiential capacity) this sense, the artist creates a new presence, a new statement that is the acknowledgement f the inaccessible experiential aspect of the work. When persons like me who have not experienced urban gun violence directly (who are surely the majority of the viewers) respond to the piece, we bring the previously unexpressed or poorly expressed experience into the public sphere and give it voice. The responses, even when incomplete or inchoate, acknowledge the felt experience of the artist and so gives it space in the broader cultural exchange of ideas. Once the art is exhibited publicly, it is an utterance of sorts that cannot be taken back, silenced, or otherwise erased.
Giving voice to a a real experience, even one experienced by a minority of persons, is important to recognize the breadth of experiences that persons in our culture have and to legitimize those experiences as valid and public parts of the greater culture. In bringing a new or poorly disseminated experience to the public sphere, the artist brings us closer as people to acknowledging our common humanity and individual differences, creating a communicative space for respect and learning. From this platform we become a more integrated but less homogeneous culture, a culture that craves contact with difference rather than suppressing it, running from it, or fearing it. And so, despite my ability to only glimpse the profound parodic and ironic elements of the many of the pieces, I am better for having seen them and remaining open to the aspects I cannot fully understand.
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