UP@NIGHT

Chicago lost a big one last week, the 2016 Olympics.  This week, one of its sons won a Nobel Prize.   Chicago has once again proven to be the city of big shoulders.

Some rejoiced last week when Chicago lost its bid, because it was seen as Obama’s failure.  Many of the same folks are criticizing his recent “win.”  The man can’t seem to please some people.

The criticisms, hours after the announcement, are already taking shape:  He didn’t deserve it.  It’s too early in his tenure as president.  It just goes to show that he is more concerned about the world than troubles at home, etc.

Let’s clear up a few misconceptions.  The Nobel Peace Prize has been awarded for various reasons.  There isn’t a single criterion.  Some individuals have won for helping to end a war (Theodore Roosevelt and Henry Kissinger), for humanitarian work and conflict resolution done over the years (Jimmy Carter), for seeking to improve international relations by supporting an international organization (Woodrow Wilson).  It can also be given to the individual who has done the most in the past year to bring about world peace.  The latter is the reason cited by the chair of the Nobel Committee, and former prime minister of Norway, Thorbjorn Jagland,  for honoring Obama.  The New York Times reports:

“The question we have to ask is who has done the most in the previous year to enhance peace in the world,” Mr. Jagland said. “And who has done more than Barack Obama?”

He compared the selection of Mr. Obama with the award in 1971 to the then West German Chancellor Willy Brandt for his “Ostpolitik” policy of reconciliation with communist eastern Europe.

“Brandt hadn’t achieved much when he got the prize, but a process had started that ended with the fall of the Berlin Wall,” Mr. Jagland said. “We have to get the world on the right track again,” he said. Without referring specifically to the Bush era, he continued: “Look at the level of confrontation we had just a few years ago. Now we get a man who is not only willing but probably able to open dialogue and strengthen international institutions.”

But wouldn’t you know it.  Instead of experiencing some pride in the fact that a sitting American president has won the Nobel Peace Prize, which certainly sends a positive message to the world, like the conservatives who rejoiced at Chicago losing the Olympics, Republicans can’t wait to criticize the man for winning a prize he wasn’t even seeking.  Listen to Michael Steel, chairman of the Republican Party.  (From The New York Times , Oct. 9, 2009)

Even before Mr. Obama appeared in the Rose Garden to discuss the award, he was facing criticism from the chairman of the Republican National Committee, Michael Steele.

“The real question Americans are asking is, ‘What has President Obama actually accomplished?’ It is unfortunate that the president’s star power has outshined tireless advocates who have made real achievements working towards peace and human rights,” Mr. Steele said in a statement. “One thing is certain — President Obama won’t be receiving any awards from Americans for job creation, fiscal responsibility, or backing up rhetoric with concrete action.”

This is cheap and mean spirited.  Its concern with scoring domestic political points is on a par with those who thought embarrassing Obama over the Olympics was worth more than the benefits of an Olympics to Chicago and America.

Obama won the prize in part because he is a genuine cosmopolitan, in the best sense of the term.  His politics look to the world stage and America’s place on it, not behind or above it.  But it appears that many Americans simply don’t realize the extent to which his words during the election and his approach to international relations–one which emphasizes the idea of respect–have transformed perceptions of America.  (Perhaps America might really be interested in decreasing violence around the world, in decreasing nuclear weapons, etc.)

Leading America, the most powerful nation on Earth, out of the moral and political myopia of the last eight years is surely worth a Nobel Prize.  In this regard, who has done more for world peace this past year than Barack Obama?

A poll recently done for the New York Times and CBS News on the state of the American Dream has some interesting results.  It appears that more Americans believe that they have achieved the American Dream today (44%) than they did four years ago (32%).  The results may seem strange given the depth of the recession.   However, it appears that for a substantial number of Americans the way in which the Dream is understood has undergone a revision.  There is now less emphasis on financial security.  The New York Times article excerpted below is worth a read, although the examples given in the article are open to alternative interpretations.

What Happens to the American Dream in a Recession? (excerpt)

The Times and CBS News asked this same open-ended question four years ago and again last month: “What does the phrase ‘The American dream’ mean to you?”

Four years ago, 19 percent of those surveyed supplied answers that related to financial security and a steady job, and 20 percent gave answers that related to freedom and opportunity.

Now, fewer people are pegging their dream to material success and more are pegging it to abstract values. Those citing financial security dropped to 11 percent, and those citing freedom and opportunity expanded to 27 percent.

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Delacroix’s Lady Liberty leading consumers and investors who say, enough is enough.

April 26, 2009.  The United States declared a public health emergency today.   Although it appears that no one has died or become seriously ill in the U.S. from a new strain of the swine flu, health officials are taking no chances.  All of the traditional measures to combat epidemics have been set in motion.   Funds will be made available for anti-viral drugs, and time-tested and effective methods for tracking and preventing the spread of disease will be utilized.  The CDC (Center for Disease Control) is reassuring the public, citing its decades of experience in handling epidemics and its recent preparation for pandemics.

However, former Vice President Cheney, through a spokesman, is calling on the CDC to avoid thinking within the box in deciding on measures to halt this attack on our nation.  “We can’t afford not to act with every means available to us,” said his spokesman.   Inside the CDC there is mounting pressure to consult with agents from the CIA to examine how harsh interrogation techniques might be of service.  With fear mounting and pressure growing, expert legal advice is being sought in order to provide the proper “legal cover” for actions that international agreements have outlawed as torture.

“Look,” said a representative from the former VP’s office, “you gotta do what you gotta do.  There are swine out there who, or I should say, that are dangerous.  We need to know what, where, and when.”   The plan seems to be to find the pigs that are harboring the terrorist virus, and apply harsh techniques, torture if you will, in order force them to provide operational intelligence.

There has been some concern that the swine won’t talk.  But everyone should know that swine are among the most intelligent animals, according to experts in covert intelligence.   A spokesperson for the CDC insists that with proper guidance, waterboarding a pig is possible, and it will get the animal to talk, and talk fast.  (He then handed this reporter a copy of Animal Farm.)

Questioned about violating the rights of these animals, a Cheney spokesman said, “What’s the difference?  Whether it’s a human animal or an animal animal.  If it attacks you, or if you believe that it might possibly attack, you go after it.”  There was little response to a question directed to Cheney himself  (as he was walking his dog) by one reporter, “What about all of the innocent pigs, for example, the three little ones, that were just minding their business, trying to build lives for themselves?”  Cheney did say that if we could apply harsh techniques to the virus itself, we would.  But since we don’t have the technical means to do so, as many of the swine as possible gotta be boarded.

Asked to comment, The White House declined, claiming that as an inanimate object it had little to say.   Although a spokesman for the President did say that if the tactics were forward-looking enough, and did not constitute a threat to his domestic agenda, he might be able to get his team behind the CDC.  In any case, no CDC employee will be prosecuted for actions deemed acceptable by agency lawyers.

A spokesperson for the Humane Society claimed to be too upset to return this reporter’s call.

America, land of opportunity, where hard work and merit determines who gets ahead.   A nation where a good education, the gateway to success, is available to all.

Not so fast, I’m afraid.   America is actually losing ground in providing access to college.   And disparities in income are responsible.   How bad is the situation?  It seems that, “bright and focused kids from poor families are going to college at the same rate as unfocused or low-scoring kids from families much better off.” This quotation is from a recent piece by Andrew Delbanco, “The Universities in Trouble,” in The New York Review of Books.  It’s worth a read.  Here is an excerpt.

But the public–private partnership that did much to democratize American higher education has been coming apart. In 1976, federal Pell grants for low-income students covered 72 percent of the average cost of attending a four-year state institution; by 2003, Pell grants covered only 38 percent of the cost. Meanwhile, financial aid administered by the states is being allocated more and more on the basis of “merit” rather than need—meaning that scholarships are going increasingly to high-achieving students from high-income families, leaving deserving students from low-income families without the means to pay for college.

In 2002, a federal advisory committee issued a report, aptly entitled “Empty Promises,” which estimated that “more than 400,000 students nationally from families with incomes below $50,000″ met the standards of college admission “and yet were unable to enroll in a four-year college because of financial barriers. More than 160,000 of these students did not attend any college because of these barriers, not even a two-year institution.” Two years later one leading authority pointed out that “the college-going rates of the highest-socioeconomic-status students with the lowest achievement levels is the same level as the poorest students with the highest achievement levels.”[1] In short, bright and focused kids from poor families are going to college at the same rate as unfocused or low-scoring kids from families much better off.

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1. Donald E. Heller quoted in Paul Attewell and Davd E. Lavin, Does Higher Education for the Disadvantaged Pay Off Across the Generations? (Russell Sage Foundation, 2007), p. 199; Donald E. Heller, “A Bold Proposal: Increasing College Access Without Spending More Money,” Crosstalk, Fall 2004; and Brian K. Fitzgerald and Jennifer A. Delaney, “Educational Opportunity in America,” Condition of Access: Higher Education for Lower Income Students, edited by Donald E. Heller (ACE/Praeger, 2002).

Adam Smith, on the left, looks through Brooks, while Hegel, on the right, can only think, “Oy.”

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Poor David Brooks.  You just never know when he is going to get in over his head, and neither does he.  One can only marvel at some of the “out of left” field claims and arguments that he has made, while continuing to present himself as the most reasonable man on the planet.  Don’t get me wrong.  It’s hard to dislike the guy, with his schoolboy enthusiasms and his deferential comments about the brains (specifically, the high SAT scores) of the members of the new administration.  And you have to prefer him to Rush.

But sometimes in his desire to show off and create a splash he goes too far.  Yesterday, April 7, 2009, was just such a day.  Brooks entitled his column in the NY Times, “The End of Philosophy.”  If that wasn’t pretentious enough, he then proceeded to tell us how philosophers have spent 2,500 years barking up the wrong tree because scientists have now discovered connections between morality and emotion.  (As if this is not an old topic, even in Ethics 101.)

Well, I couldn’t resist a quick response, and it appears that neither could hundreds of others.  I am reproducing my comments here (unedited) because it seems that they were recommended by good number of readers, and well, you know, one can never pass up an opportunity to knock David’s books out of his hands, figuratively speaking, that is.  His article, The End of Philosophy, is a wonderful example of what happens when one goes into the water before one knows how to swim, believing that one doesn’t have to learn.  (Just act naturally.)  I recommend it to instructors of philosophy (and writing) as a useful classroom tool.  Don’t do as David does, or else….  I recommended it to everyone else as a rewarding screamer.

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David,

Oy. I think that we need to talk. I am afraid that you are practicing philosophy without a license, which is okay, up to a point. (First rule: do no harm.) What is striking is how consistent you have been over the years in basically holding to a view of morality that Adam Smith and his followers would fine congenial, especially on cooperation. And then presenting from time to time “new insights” that support this position. (The notion that sympathy is the foundation of our moral sensibilities is certainly a feature of this school.) The one place where this School would have let you down in the past (that is, before you discovered emotion) was your desire to believe that Reason (with a capital R) can be depended on for moral guidance. (More on this below.)

I hope that you will not be offended if I say, your piece needs a bit more work. It is not entirely consistent and cogent, for example, in the way that it leans on emotions and then suddenly takes a turn toward “responsibility” at the end, without any sort of explanation for how the latter relates to the former. (And how are we to understand the development of the responsibility?)

But it also contains some rather bizarre claims, for example,

“Moral judgments are like that. They are rapid intuitive decisions and involve the emotion-processing parts of the brain. Most of us make snap moral judgments about what feels fair or not, or what feels good or not. We start doing this when we are babies, before we have language. And even as adults, we often can’t explain to ourselves why something feels wrong.”

Are you really claiming the babies make moral judgments? Is any sort of emotional response to be understood as a moral judgment? Is the fact that we can’t explain why we think something is wrong always a failure of reason or a failure to appreciate the ways in which habits and judgments get built up over time? (Not all failures in understanding are failures of reason. I am afraid that you suffer a bit from the jilted lover of reason syndrome. You were a believer and now Reason hasn’t lived up to its billing. So, we jump from Reason to Emotion.)

Much to be said here. But this is only a space for quick comments. I have a suggestion. You might want to take a look a classical American Pragmatism, for it tries to grapple with morality in terms of values without relying on a “traditional” notion of reason. (This may be especially interesting to you, since it can be argued that Obama is a philosophical pragmatist, a topic I have written about, if I can engage in a bit of germane self-promotion.)

— Mitchell Aboulafia, NY

Aretha Franklin sang it, “Respect,” and the Obama administration is making it a watchword of both foreign and domestic policy.  Obama’s repeated invocation of “respect” isn’t merely a ploy, a tactic.  It is driven by a deep egalitarianism.  It is very Obama, and it’s America at its best.  And it’s worth considering the recent handshake incident at 10 Downing Street in this light.

“Larger Than Life in London” (excerpt)

By A. A. GILL, New York Times, April 4, 2009

IT’S invariably the little things, the unconsidered, off the cuff, in passing, unrehearsed things that snag our attention, and seem to be telling of the bigger things. In the case of Barack Obama’s first visit to London and the Group of 20 conference to save the endangered habitat of bankers and real estate salesmen, it was the handshake with the bobby that seemed to be emblematic. In a forest of waving palms, this handshake meant more.

As the president stepped up to 10 Downing Street, he leant over, made eye contact, said something courteous, and shook the hand of the police officer standing guard. There’s always a police officer there; he is a tourist logo in his ridiculous helmet. He tells you that this is London, and the late 19th century. No one has ever shaken the hand of the policeman before, and like everyone else who has his palm touched by Barack Obama, he was visibly transported and briefly forgot himself. He offered the hand to Gordon Brown, the prime minister, who was scuttling behind.

It was ignored. He was left empty-handed. It isn’t that Mr. Brown snubbed the police officer; he just didn’t see him. To a British politician, a police officer is as invisible as the railings.

Here is a prediction: the culture wars will be left by the wayside as we enter a seemingly new land, the land of the tactically minded chief executive, whose tactics are the tip of a philosophical iceberg.  The executive is Obama and the iceberg is Pragmatism.

Comments regarding Obama’s pragmatism constitute something of a cottage industry. These discussions usually involve contrasting Obama’s pragmatism, for example, in choosing his cabinet, with the ideological approach of Bush and the neo-cons.  Here the term pragmatism is meant to denote political flexibility, comfort with the expedient, and a willingness to compromise.  For critics it is meant to suggest an unprincipled orientation toward questions of great moment. Given Obama’s willingness to label himself a pragmatist, many have been mystified by his commitment to specific values, finding him not only unclassifiable in accepted political categories, but mystifying as a person.  For example, in a recent article in Harpers, “The American Void,” Simon Critchley treats Obama as, well, a void.  He just can’t figure the guy out.   In fact, as I have noted elsewhere (PBS site), there is nothing strange about Obama’s political views for those who are familiar with the American philosophical tradition of Pragmatism or the Social Gospel Movement. Interestingly, Critchley makes much of Obama’s mother being an anthropologist, but what he fails to mention is that Ann Dunham’s thesis director was Alice G. Dewey, John Dewey’s granddaughter.  (John Dewey was perhaps the most famous Pragmatist of the twentieth century.) This is no accident. Obama’s thought and practice can be located in the tradition of American Pragmatism (pragmatism with a capital P) and in the liberal Social Gospel Movement that was influential in Chicago during the early part of the 20th century. The latter is still influential in some Chicago churches and community groups, especially those that would have most engaged Obama’s attention as a community organizer.

One of the few commentators who has begun to tease out the differences between Obama’s pragmatisms is Chris Hayes. He writes in The Nation, “Pragmatism in common usage may mean simply a practical approach to problems and affairs. But it’s also the name of the uniquely American school of philosophy whose doctrine is that truth is pre-eminently to be tested by the practical consequences of belief. What unites the two senses of the word is a shared skepticism toward certainties derived from abstractions–one that is welcome and bracing after eight years of a failed, faith-based presidency. . . . And if there’s a silver thread woven into the pragmatist mantle Obama claims, it has its origins in this school of thought. Obama could do worse than to look to John Dewey….For him, the crux of pragmatism, and indeed democracy, was a rejection of the knowability of foreordained truths in favor of ‘variability, initiative, innovation, departure from routine, experimentation.’ ” The Nation, Dec 10, 2008

Hayes is moving in the right direction.  I would take his claims a step further.  There is no understanding of Obama without an understanding of Pragmatism. Take for instance the question of whether one can have principles and still be a pragmatist.  From the vantage point of philosophical Pragmatism, the question is non-starter.  The use of principles to address philosophical and political issues extends back to Plato and Aristotle, and migrates through Kant’s deontological ethics into the twentieth century.  But the Pragmatist wants to bypass this mode of thinking, one that requires us to believe that affirming values requires a principled affirmation of values.  Principles are in fact problematic and counterproductive.  Dewey, for example, railed against Kant during WWI, claiming that the rigidity of his ethics of principled imperatives was reflected in the dictatorial and undemocratic mindset of the German regime.  People who believe in democracy should be suspicious of permanent truths and principles.  As Hannah Arendt argues, debate is at the heart of political life, and Truth (with a capital “T”) kills debate. (Obama’s father was a man of principle to the point of stubbornness.  He had a failed career and a led a troubled life.  It is hard to read Dreams of My Father and not conclude that Obama came away from his “journey” with a lasting distaste for principles. His mother, on the other hand, was the epitome of a Deweyan in her love of experience, experimentation, novelty, change, and belief in the transformational power of education.)

In the “Epilogue” to Dreams of My Father, Obama reports a conversation that he and his sister, Auma, had with Dr. Rukia Odero, a professor of history.  A central question in the discussion: how should Africans adapt to the values that Westerners have brought to Africa?   That Obama chose to report the conversation is telling.  Rukia, I would argue, is meant to give voice to Obama’s views.  She states, “I suspect that we can’t pretend that the contradictions of our situation don’t exist.  All we can do is choose.”  And after discussing the complexities of the issue of female circumcision, she goes on to say, “You cannot have rule of law and then exempt certain members of your clan.  What to do?  Again you choose.  If you make the wrong choice, then you learn from your mistakes.  You see what works.”  (Dreams from My Father, New York: Crown, 2004, p. 434)  “Seeing what works” is indeed the mantra of Pragmatism.  Yet as in existentialism, this doesn’t mean that one doesn’t feel the weight of moral and political decisions.  It means that one can’t appeal to principles in advance to justify one’s decisions or “what works.”

But doesn’t being a pragmatist, in both senses of the term, just make Obama a relativist?  No doubt for the ideologically committed, those who fear a leader without a moral compass, this would be a central concern.  But once again this is to frame the issue in the wrong fashion.  Relativism is a problem for moral absolutists.  Without a lasting commitment to absolutes, there isn’t a problem of relativism.  Instead there is the problem of deciding what values to hold.  To frame the discussion in terms of absolutism versus relativism is already to accept the framework of the religious right, which is what the Republicans have been notoriously successful in doing for two generations.  However, the choice is not between absolutism and relativism.  It is between different values. Commitments to values arise from numerous sources, including thoughtful deliberation and prudential considerations.  And it is in the realm of “prudence” that one finds a symmetry between upper and lower case pragmatism.  For the Pragmatist prudential considerations do not always trump other values, but sometimes they do, because prudence or tactical maneuvering may be required to realize successfully a greater good.  As a matter of fact, a thoughtful political agent doesn’t make dogmatic, read absolutistic, decisions in advance regarding what values and tactics may be the most vital and relevant.

The culture wars have depended on disagreements over specific values and the belief that principles are central to morality.  Or at least this is the way that the religious right has sought to frame the controversy, a perception that neo-cons have used to reinforce their political agendas.  When Obama speaks of being post-ideological, of being a pragmatist, I read him as trying to address logjams over values by avoiding divisive discourses based on principles.  How does one accomplish this?  Well, one way is to sound as if one is not ideological, for example, by showing flexibility on specific moral and political questions.  By so doing Obama is not simply maneuvering. He is not being disingenuous.  He is behaving as if he is a committed Pragmatist, and as such he is seeking to change the ground rules for political discourse.

Obama may very well succeed with a little help from his (several million) friends, and realities on the ground, namely, a serious financial crisis that suddenly has life-long, dogmatic free-marketers running for cover.  He may also succeed because he is attuned to something very basic about the American psyche.  It is no accident that Pragmatism is the most significant philosophy that America has produced.  There is something deeply American about it.  But is it Left, Right, or Center? Once again, this is to ask a misleading question.  Its tent is large enough to contain persons from across the American political spectrum, if one judges political commitments by specific values.  Yet in an American context Obama’s Pragmatism presents a much greater challenge to the ideological Right than to the ideological Left.  How so?  If the conversation is shifted away from absolutes, the Right in America will lose the ground from which it has hurled its most potent missiles.  Some on the Right are beginning to recognize the threat that Obama poses.  Some still believe that they can bring back the days of the culture wars. The latter, however, are predicated on the “principled versus pragmatist” distinction, one that is becoming less consequential with each passing day.  So, I wish the dogmatic Right lots of luck. They will need it.  As for the non-dogmatic Right, if debate is crucial to a thriving democracy, I wish them well, and so does the Pragmatist Obama.

Obama on pragmatism (with a small p) and the dangers of certainty (which relates to philosophical Pragmatism).

A window in the Riverdale section of the Bronx, November 4th, 2008, near where my wife and I had the privilege to vote:

Speaking of hope and America, in words not pictures, from the other side of the Gulf Stream, sentiments shared by many around the world:

They did it. They really did it. So often crudely caricatured by others, the American people yesterday stood in the eye of history and made an emphatic choice for change for themselves and the world….Mr Obama will take office in January amid massive unrealisable expectations and facing a daunting list of problems….These, though, are issues for another day. Today is for celebration, for happiness and for reflected human glory. Savour those words: President Barack Obama, America’s hope and, in no small way, ours too. The Guradian, November 5th, 2008.   President Obama, guardian.co.uk

In a television interview with Bob Costas on Sunday, August 10th, 2008, George Bush told the nation, “I don’t see America having problems.” The response: People laughed. “Just what planet does this guy orbit? I mean, really, no problems, George.”

Here is the strange part. George pretty much got away with passing this sentiment off as “state of the art” for a good part of his administration. We didn’t have problems. We had adversaries. Scary ones, indeed. And once we dealt a blow to them, we wouldn’t have any problems. End of story.

The summer of 2002, after the Afghanistan War had begun, but before the war in Iraq had started, I wrote an essay focusing on how there really was something wrong in America, how we knew it, and how we wouldn’t admit it. But it was simply too out of sync with the times to bother editing for publication. I reread it a few years ago and it still seemed out of sync with the times. If we could just deal with Iraq and terrorism, it would be morning (or at least noon) in America….

But now the essay doesn’t seem so out of touch. The war in Iraq is generally acknowledged to have been a terrible mistake and the economy is tanking. And this has opened the door for more somber reflections. So I offer “The Ostrich Factor,” here and now, unedited (except for very minor corrections and photos) from August 7, 2002. Why? Because we really need a major change of direction in this country, and we have one candidate running for President who appears to believe that if only we could just do away with Islamic radicals, America would pretty much be okay (with a few band aids here and there).

“The Ostrich Factor”

I can feel It. I am sure you can too. It’s no secret. It is there in the shadows of your neighbors’ smiles. It is there behind the strained avowals that America has become a land of solidarity since 9/11. We feel that something has gone wrong with America, and whatever It is preceded the horror of 9/11 and will not disappear in a struggle against its perpetrators. Certainly It is difficult to diagnose and discuss. And in political circles virtually impossible. Jimmy Carter was the last significant political figure who was willing to take on the role of messenger regarding It, famously pronouncing that there was a “crisis of the spirit” in America and a “national malaise.” He actually used the bully pulpit to raise questions about whether the nation had lost its bearings. For his efforts he was trounced in his bid to be reelected by Ronald Reagan, a man whose handlers told us that It did not exist, and that it was really “morning in America.” Of course Carter didn’t lose the election solely because he spoke of these matters. But his attempt to address them left a footprint so deep that no politician since has been willing to engage in a sustained discussion of them.

Politicians do not discuss them. We do not discuss them. We try to bury them as we do the feelings for an ailing friend. America is just fine, thank you. And soon it will be morning again…once we take care of foreign threats and get the economy rolling.

But the economy did roll in the 1990’s, and it was a high time for many. On this we can all agree. Yet if this as good as it gets in America, just where are we? Will posterity remember that we became the promised light on the hill as the Nasdaq went into orbit? Quite the contrary. We dreamed even less than usual of vital collective undertakings during these years. Think for a moment. Just what was our last great national mission? Was it going to the moon, ridding the country of poverty, extending civil rights to all? And who in power speaks of such matters in anything but platitudes these days? We laud past deeds and mouth vacuities about glories to come. We wear little flags on our lapels. But we focus on early retirement. And we certainly don’t discuss whether we have lost our way or if our collective life is meaningful. We prefer the of pretense of “I’m ok and you’re ok.” Is this what happens when great countries enter their twilight years?
A sometimes wise individual once told me that people will buy almost anything when they are unhappy. He was referring to goods, consumer items, commodities. There is no doubt a lot of truth here. More than may be obvious at first. For as any psychologically inclined type will tell you, when there is malaise, depression, ennui, anomie, insecurity, lack of direction, alienation, etc., people will find all sorts of ways to compensate, especially when they are unwilling to confront them and acknowledge them. One way is filling up one’s time with mindless and mind numbing activities, consuming for the sake of conspicuous consumption, for instance. Another is to give oneself over to mania or frenzy–Dow 20,000. Another is to find demons to blame for whatever may be making you feel uncomfortable. The latter may be an especially congenial path if you have spent most of your adult life deeply accustomed to fending off a powerful and dangerous adversary such as the Soviet Union. As a matter of fact, our attitude toward “It” appears to be coupled with our attitude toward adversaries. Allow me a seeming digression.

When was the last time that you counted the number of wars that we have been involved in over the last fifty years? There was the Korean War and the Cold War, the latter some forty years long. There was the war in Vietnam, in the Gulf, in Grenada, assorted military actions, countless proxy wars, and now a war in Afghanistan, a war on terrorism, and maybe a war in Iraq. However, it seems that foreign nationals are not our only adversaries, for we have also had wars on drugs, poverty, cancer, organized crime, etc. We have had a lot of wars. I know, some will say this comes with superpower territory. And surely many of them were necessary, you will say. But I say, we seem to have a difficult time thinking about problems and getting motivated to do something about them without framing our response in terms of war. There are surely historical and cultural explanations for this phenomenon. I will leave them to the side here. I will say that whatever else our track record shows, it shows that we have often exhibited a rather peculiar mind set since the end of the second world war. Think about it, a war on drugs, a war on poverty, a war on cancer, etc. It’s really quite a strange way to approach these problems. Yet we have come to take it for granted. If we have a problem, we throw a war at It.

This brings us back to It. We are a practical people. We like to draw the lines in the sand. We like to solve problems. We like to move on. But no one seems to know where we should be going. The frontier is dead and the New Frontier turned out to be a bust. We live from pay check to the promise of a comfortable retirement. We feel that something is deeply wrong but can’t put our finger on It. How then will we deal with It? What will be our response? To even acknowledge that we have lost our way has come to seem unpatriotic, a denial that it is morning in America. Surely there will be a temptation to handle it by moving into familiar territory. And war I am afraid is very familiar territory. If I were living in Iraq right now, I would be losing a lot of sleep, because Americans are losing a lot of sleep, and they don’t know why, and they are not discussing it. One thing is for certain, however, whatever It is will not go away with the defeat of Saddam Hussein or any other two bit villain.