The Hanging Judge, Part 3

This essay follows my prior entries, The Hanging Judge in the Court of Public Opinion and The Hanging Judge, Part 2

So there I sat, watching the Facebook furor over the Covington Catholic kids burn itself out, in the time-honored online moral panic style, when something happened. Somebody posted a story about a Lincoln, Nebraska, woman who abused an animal. Apparently this twenty-something woman let an adult pitbull starve to death inside its kennel in her home. So this responsible citizen posted a Facebook story about the case.

Including the woman’s photo, full home address, and date of birth.

If you wanted to deliberately put somebody in danger, I cannot imagine a more effective way than posting everything necessary to whip readers into outrage than sharing a rage-inducing story, then tacking on the target’s full identifying information. I can imagine no way this person didn’t know this action would result in people demanding righteous payback, a common coin of online discussions today. (No, I won’t link to the story. This woman has been jeopardized enough.)

The responses to this story were predictable: I hope this woman dies in a fire. Somebody should lock her in a kennel and starve her. What an evil bitch, she deserves everything coming to her. Imagine any vile, repellent response you want, I read several of them. And when I posted a comment suggesting it was irresponsible to dox a private citizen, the same sort of comments got directed at me, accusing me of being complicit.

This mirrors the patterns I witnessed with the Covington Catholic kids. Complete strangers, who know nothing of the accused’s background or what might have precipitated the shameful action we learned about later, rushed to demand summary retribution. And if you demand people slow their roll and maybe let cooler heads investigate, you risk getting caught in the rush to condemn.

Because yes, it’s infuriating that somebody would starve a dependent animal to death. You know who else was infuriated? The local PD, who, according to the story, had already arrested her. She now rests upon the mercy of the court system, dedicated to fairness and justice. Which is how it should be: if we let people undertake vigilante justice, then “justice” becomes the purview of whoever has the biggest muscles and strongest sense of self-righteousness.

Malcolm Gladwell, in his book Outliers, dedicates an entire chapter to the pitfalls of an honor-based society. His definition of “honor” involves two important elements: maintaining a positive personal reputation, and avoiding offending others. I’ve known several people, mostly current or former military, who believe America suffers today from a paucity of honor. But evidence over the last two weeks makes me think we, perhaps, suffer an excess of misplaced honor.

Nick "the Accused" Sandmann

Because social media groups people by shared values, people like me get flooded with progressive fellow-travelers. Thus I’ve seen people attempting both sides of the honor equation. People I know post several politically themed memes and diatribes daily, but don’t much get involved in direct actions like public protests or contacting their elected officials. This form of “reputation progressivism,” also called virtue signalling, aims mostly at maintaining good image.

Simultaneously they take highly visible offense at perceived transgressions. From Covington Catholic to Calvin Trillin, I’ve had the distinct displeasure of watching good friends flip their shit about perceived public sins on FaceTube and InstaTwit for several years now. By whipping themselves into a highly public lather, they reassure friends that they’re still “allies” of whatever oppressed people have fallen under their rubric this week.

Watching this same outrage directed at a local story, I understand, most people expressing their anger at this negligent dog-killer probably aren’t evil. Most probably won’t pursue this woman and hurt her. But most don’t have to; it only takes one self-righteous arsehole to do something which feels right in the moment, but only makes things worse.

Because, deep down, honor is never wholly satisfied. If somebody punches me once in the nose, I don’t feel redressed punching back once; I keep punching until my aggression is depleted. Then, because I escalated, they escalate again. We see this in multiple honor-based cultures, from medieval Europe to the America of the Hatfields and McCoys: if you kill one of ours, we’ll kill one of yours, and I don’t care who started it.

Somebody needs to step off this wheel and let lawful justice have its say. From national concerns to hometown criminals, we must stop displaying public outrage as righteousness theatre. Because we can never, truly, see the consequences further down the line, until they’re close enough to run us over.

Right-Wing Radio and the Lonely White Voter

Alex Jones

We have this provocateur at work who brings his stereo to the jobsite every day so he can listen to hours of talk radio: Alex Jones, Limbaugh, Hannity. I call him “provocateur” because, when he and I have to work in close proximity, he locks eyes with me while cranking the volume to truly disruptive levels. He knows I'm a red-state progressive, and he blatantly wants me to say something, so he can claim he's being oppressed by the “lib'ruls.”

So I've learned more about talk-radio politics than I've ever wanted to know. I’ve observed the way these bomb-throwers manipulate anger to retain listeners’ loyalty. I witness the elaborate rituals involved in creating and designating “others” who need loyal right-wingers to control and muzzle them. But of all the lessons I’ve gleaned from this unwanted immersion in the echo chamber, none has struck me more than how friendly it is to insiders.

Recently, Alex Jones paused between enraged rants over “the wall” and scripted plugs for protein shakes and testosterone supplements, to remind listeners how beloved they are. “I’m not the InfoWars,” Jones purred into the microphone, in a tone downright fatherly, though retaining his trademark growl. “You are the InfoWars. I’m just the spokesperson. You make this possible, you and your loyalty and your willingness to go to the barricades.”

In that moment I recalled something Lutheran pastor Nadia Bolz-Weber wrote, that Christian media companies like Trinity Broadcasting Network often make people feel welcome and loved at times when traditional congregations don’t. They came into people’s homes, shared the Good News, and offered a loving embrace, through the television. Churches, by contrast, have often fallen short in their outreach to shut-ins, the sick, and the poor.

Nadia Bolz-Weber

This willingness to make people feel welcome during their lowest times, correlates strongly with where people spend their money. Bolz-Weber notes that many Christian parishioners write TBN and its member ministries into their wills, excluding the congregations that stood by them during times of good health, but vanished during their convalescence. Likewise, conservative radio lets certain groups feel included when the political mainstream has apparently turned deaf.

We could enumerate various reasons why populations which once served as the backbone of the progressive movement have thrown their lot in with conservatism and the status quo. Republicans do a better job at message management than Democrats, who often lose interest in outreach between election cycles. Certain progressive mainstays, like labor unions, were outright racist and haven’t changed with the times. Et cetera.

Yet I find these explanations unsatisfying, simply because I spend significant time around the demographics which have been abandoned by progressivism. The traditional explanations for progressivism’s decline—both parties’ active courting of Wall Street money, the big-tent coalition sundering into feuding identity groups, old-school racism—are all ancillary to working Americans’ biggest issue. And that is, I propose, that they feel lonely.

Donald Trump’s campaign turned heavily on promises to re-enfranchise “the Forgotten Man,” a vaguely defined figure who, somehow, felt adrift in contemporary politics. He never explained who this “man” was. But judging by the electoral coalition that supported Trump, the largest number of people who threw their weight behind him were White, heterosexual, and predominantly male. Honky dudes believed themselves abandoned in today’s politics.

Georgetown law professor Sheryll Cashin notes that, if you disaggregate the very rich (who, in America, are mostly White), the average wealth disparity between Black and White Americans falls to just $5,000. Now of course $5,000 is lots of money if you don’t have it, but it won’t buy you penthouse access on 5th Avenue. Poor White people in America probably aren’t bad off by international standards, but by American standards, things are pretty poorly.

Donald Trump

In today’s politics, you seemingly have to be already rich to run for office as a Republican. Meanwhile, Democrats have thrown their weight behind identity politics. If you’re White and poor in America today, you feel left behind. No wonder White union-style voters substantially throw their weight behind candidates like Donald Trump or Alexandria Ocasio-Cortez, political bomb-throwers who basically promise to be different from anything you’ve seen before.

Right-wing radio, like Christian television approaches people who already feel lonely and dispossessed, and offers to welcome them unconditionally. Of course, both are money-driven instruments, whether they seek tax-deductible donations or sell you erectile dysfunction tablets. But they clothe themselves in the robes of righteousness and welcome. Those who would counter their influence, should ask themselves why they haven’t welcomed the lonely yet.

We'll All Be a Monkey's Uncle

Kaitlyn Greenidge, We Love You, Charlie Freeman

The Freeman family of Dorchester, Boston, has accepted a job at a rural research academy. Because all four family members speak fluent sign language, they’re perfect lab workers to teach an orphaned chimpanzee sign language at the Toneybee Institute, which specializes in teaching primates to speak. So they accept the job over they very young daughters’ objections. Because hey, obviously it’s just a job like any other, right?

Arriving at the Toneybee, the Freemans find themselves the only Black family in Courtland County. The chimpanzee they’re hired to teach proves obstreperous and unwilling to learn. The White students at Courtland County High School, far from greeting Charlotte Freeman with the hostility she expects, seem largely indifferent. And, deep within the institute’s archives, Charlotte finds evidence that the research history is anything but benevolent.

Debut novelist Kaitlyn Greenidge writes a story that, on one level, almost dares you to tease out the autobiographical elements. Charlotte Freeman, the first-person narrator who tells us about half the novel, is roughly Greenidge’s age, a displaced native Bostonian, and shares a smattering of other characteristics. Her primate language backstory includes elements people who enjoy reading science, like me, will recognize from genuine science.

But in other ways, one gets the feeling this novel answers back to previous “great” literature. Charlotte Freeman, fourteen years old in 1990, shares characteristics with famous child narrators, like Holden Caulfield and Scout Finch: a heated childhood perspective, recalled by an adult. That’s just one moment I noticed celebrated White authors’ storytelling subverted by being retold from a Black perspective. You’ll undoubtedly notice even more.

The Freemans have different responses to Charlie. While Charlotte considers him a nuisance and dislikes the inquisitive White research staff, her younger sister Callie throws herself wholly into being a chimp’s sibling and desperately tries to win Charlie’s love. Charles Freeman takes a day job teaching high school geometry, the only Black teacher some students have ever known. Laurel Freeman becomes Charlie’s full-time mother, which starts to blur some boundaries.

Kaitlyn Greenidge

Thrown outside their longstanding comfort zones, the Freemans find their identities disappearing into only one or two characteristics. Surprised by White classmates’ relative nonchalance, she discovers the only other black student in Courtland County; together, they test a mix of revolutionary politics and nascent sexuality. Charlotte’s story increasingly becomes about her deeply felt but directionless anger. She’s earned the right to be pissed off.

While Charlotte’s school days are intricately described, Callie’s education basically doesn’t exist herein (which furthers my belief in Charlotte’s autobiographical qualities). Instead, Callie struggles to win Charlie’s affection, but measures love in human terms: Callie wants a baby brother, Charlie wants a fellow chimpanzee. In desperation, Callie turns to literal wizardry in an attempt to breach Charlie’s defenses.

The parents start off loving and middle-class, but Charlie changes their dynamic. As Laurel’s life orbits permanently around Charlie’s unreasonable demands, Charles disappears into his day job, becoming a stranger. When a disastrous Thanksgiving dinner hastens a collision between the sacrifices Laurel makes for Charlie, and Charles’ brother’s Black Power rhetoric, all semblance of family returns to the dust it came from.

Greenidge’s back-cover synopsis promises the Freeman family will discover shocking secrets inside the Toneybee institute’s history. Well, it’s a Black family in a mostly-White community, and we’re readers, we remember Tuskegee. We already know the discovery will be forthrightly racist. We enter the story with two questions: what will it be? And, how will the living handle learning the secrets the dead strove to conceal?

(As anybody who has taken a postgrad creative writing workshop knows, Black issues are treated as “racial,” but White issues are “normal.” Greenidge plays with that expectation, to great profit.)

One element I think gets short shrift, is sign language. Though the Toneybee Institute hires the Freemans because they speak fluent ASL, it doesn’t get discussed much in the book, besides a few orphaned references to Charlie mimicking the occasional sign. One wonders whether he actually understands what he’s saying; and one never quite finds out, because that story component doesn’t merit enough word count to matter.

Notwithstanding that quirk, Greenidge creates a story of how the need to make a living, and get along in the world, changes people, in ways they usually couldn’t have predicted. The characters undergo their respective journeys and emerge, in unique ways, changed. The novel isn’t “about race,” but it’s definitely tinged by racial experience, which readers will receive their own ways. Because we, too, are changed by the Freemans’ journey.

The Hanging Judge, Part 2

This essay follows my prior blog entry, The Hanging Judge in the Court of Public Opinion

The photo that started it all: Nick Sandmann and Nathan Phillips at the Lincoln Memorial

Let’s start with an uncomfortable confession. I’ve never set this confession in writing, because whenever I’ve spoken it aloud, hearers have responded with shock and outrage. It makes me uncomfortable inscribing it for posterity, knowing it might, someday, get taken out of context and used against me. But here goes:

Back in high school, I used to flash the Nazi salute for laughs.

Not once or twice, either. I did it frequently during the summer between my junior and senior years. It even carried over into my senior year somewhat. In my significantly white suburb, I thought I was being dark, edgy, and ironic, doing something so patently absurd that, obviously, anyone could see I meant almost the exact opposite from what that signal originally meant.

Then, during my senior year, a trusted adult took me aside. He explained, in conversational tones, that I didn’t come across as ironic or grimly humorous; I came across as a dickhead, and I was probably attracting the attention of people whose friendship and support I probably didn’t want. He didn’t scold me or dress me down. He just explained how I appeared to others, in a calm, dispassionate way.

I can’t help remembering that experience this week, as the flame-out about the Covington Catholic boys and their confrontation with Omaha Nation elder Nathan Phillips continues. I’ve seen adults, teachers even, demanding the iron fist of law come after these boys. I’ve seen demands for righteous payback. I’ve watched grown women and men reduced to screaming.

And I’ve wondered: what if adults had treated me that way at that age?

Let’s be clear. Those boys behaved reprehensibly. No matter who started their confrontation with Mr. Phillips (and video shows it wasn’t them), they certainly escalated it. Their behavior, including shouted war whoops and “tomahawk chops,” shows not only that they had racist thoughts in their heads already, but that they’d had time-honored racist tropes modeled for them by adults. Plus, red hats, dammit. Red hats.

So I’m not making excuses for them. Rather, I believe we need to evaluate whether our response guides children out of error, or causes them to defensively retrench their behavior and set their attitudes for life. I think you can guess which side I fall on.

Children, by definition, cannot govern their responses. Whether this means their emotional reactions to minor stresses, as when they collapse into rage or tears after a difficult test; or the way they retaliate when confronted, kids do this because they don’t know any other way. Because they’re children, and self-restraint, decorum, and equanimity are learned over time. Which children haven’t had.

In obvious terms, this reflects the fact that children are young. But it also reflects a neuroscience reality: human beings are born without fully functioning brains. Let me get pointy-headed a moment. At birth, humans have a brain stem and amygdala, so we’re born capable of fear and anger. But we’re born without a cerebral cortex, meaning we’re born incapable of reason, restraint, and self-control.

Let’s go further. Most people’s cerebral cortex isn’t fully developed until age 25. Even more important, the anterior cingulate, which governs the relationship between the cortex and the amygdala, isn’t developed until around age 30. And how these two sub-organs develop depends heavily on live exposures.

A childhood of fear, anger, and retribution causes a larger amygdala. And a larger amygdala tracks positively with addiction, domestic abuse, and racism. (Correlation doesn’t imply causation, of course, but the correlation is strong.) A childhood of nurturance, guidance, and justice causes a larger cortex and anterior cingulate. That tracks with composure, restraint, and yes, anti-racism.

The calls for payback against the Covington Catholic boys are chilling. One I’ve seen even said it’s okay to punitively wallop these boys because of family separations at the border. Really? As a Christian, I believe only Jesus can bear the guilt of others’ crimes. Punishing these kids because the President their parents voted for did something shitty, will reinforce attitudes of fear and hatred I suspect they already have.

If we don't break the pattern, this may be what we see when these boys grow up

Demands for eye-for-an-eye retribution don’t fix the underlying problem. These boys, with their undeveloped brains, did something hasty and revolting. We, the adults around them, have a responsibility to teach them better, as one adult did for me. Instead, we’re reinforcing the patterns that probably created their bigoted behavior to begin with. We’re doubling down on the hatred that warps their future.

And someday, we’ll all have to pay for what we’re doing right now.

My Personal Theory About Teddy Bears

This family used to live in Section 8 housing across the street from me. Many times I’d be sitting on the porch with my then-girlfriend, watching the kids running wild in the grass having fun, as kids do; when one boy’s mom, or maybe gramma (hard to tell) would appear at the door. I never saw this woman, an enormous muumuu-clad cube, without curlers in her hair. And I never heard her speak to the boy without saying the word “fuck.”

“Get the fuck in the house!” she’d bellow, with all the grace and dignity of a Kodiak beat in rut. Or “You need to clean your fucking room!” Or “I told you not to make so much fucking noise!”

One otherwise peaceful day, my girlfriend and I watched this boy stride from the apartment with a large, white teddy bear in his left hand. We watched the most remarkable performance: as he walked across the lawn, this boy would repeatedly punch his bear in the stomach. He’d step out with one foot, swinging his arms wide, then step with the other foot, bringing his arms together and punching the bear. Step, swing; step, punch. Step, swing; step, punch.

The combination was bizarre. He obviously cared enough for his bear to bring it with him, but also considered it something acceptable to punch. He didn’t show any apparent malice toward the bear; he just kept punching it, as casually as I’d slap my briefcase if distracted. He drove a doubled fist into his bear’s midsection casually, neutrally, like he was slapping his thigh with the music playing inside his head.

Martha Bear

In college, my girlfriend gave me not one, but two teddy bears, because she thought it cute seeing me hold them. I bestowed names and personalities upon both. Unlike the bears I had in childhood, which were mostly boy bears, these are both girl bears. Sarah Smack is (present tense) cantankerous and combative, ready to answer slights with swing fists, but frustrated because her soft paws make little difference. Martha Bear, by contrast, is demure and amiable, eager to talk out differences.

I still have both bears. And thus my postulation begins. As a boy, I don’t remember thinking my teddy bears, and other stuffed animals, were anything but inanimate objects. I gave them names, and imbued them with personalities, but I don’t remember not knowing they were toys, or that the personalities I granted them came from my brain. I’ve long since forgotten most of their names, sometime around the point I gave them away to my sister or neighborhood kids.

Their personalities returned whence they originated: my head.

Like the kid in Margery Williams’ classic childrens’ book The Velveteen Rabbit, my stuffed toys became real in exact proportion to how much I invested myself in them. Now, nearly twenty years after I received her from my college girlfriend, Sarah Smack remains real because I imbue her with reality which comes from myself. I give her identity, I give her reality, then I return love to the identity I have created.

I believe children, and perhaps to a lesser degree adults, bestow a portion of their own personalities onto teddy bears, or other suitable substitutes. I’ve seen adults do something similar with vehicles, craft projects, even their houses. We give these inanimate objects names, attribute personality characteristics, then love the thing we’ve created. But we know, fundamentally, we love the fiction which exists exclusively in our heads.

We’ve essentially located a nexus of ourselves externally, in our bear, truck, hobby, or whatever. Then we love that piece of ourselves. Children love bears, dolls, and toys, because doing so teaches us to love ourselves; adults keep doing likewise because we never stop needing to learn to love. Especially in today’s massively isolating technological environment, we constantly must re-teach ourselves how to love.

Except that kid across the street experienced Mom’s love as constant outbursts of verbal violence. So he expressed his love for the externalized piece of himself by holding it close, then punching its gut. Not long after seeing that, his family moved away; it’s been nearly a decade, and he’s probably verging on adulthood. I hope he doesn’t still love himself through displays of reckless violence.

We see teddy bears and other fluffy toys as childlike expressions of naïveté. But every day, I see adults engaged in self-destructive behaviors because they haven’t learned to love themselves. I truly believe more grown-ups could profit from hugging a teddy bear.

The Hanging Judge in the Court of Public Opinion

A photo showing someone, who may be Nick Sandmann,
face to face with Nathan Phillips of the Omaha Nation

I admit, the handheld cell-phone video could've been designed to activate my childhood prejudices. The tight-lipped smirk on the teenager, tentatively identified as Nick Sandmann, sure looks like the face middle-school bullies used to taunt and provoke me. The angle made it look like multiple teens surrounded the Native American elder just like bullies formerly surrounded me. And the red MAGA hats? Dammit, they're like jackboots these days.

Then, amid the outcry, further video began emerging. Progressives claimed the teens chanted “Build that wall!”, but it's almost impossible to discern exactly what they were chanting. Sandmann claims they chanted school spirit slogans to drown out vulgar insults coming from Leftist protesters already on-site, which longer video shows is clearly true. The story wasn't as cut-and-dried as we initially believed.

Most important, video shows the teens didn't approach Omaha elder Nathan Phillips, he approached them. He claims latterly that he hoped his drumming would diffuse tension between protesters and counter-protesters. But how he thought already-agitated teens, unfamiliar with his traditions and prone to snap judgement (as teens are) would know that. In school psychology terms, it seems Phillips, not Sandmann, is the initiator here.

Like millions of Blue Facebook users, I got bilked by a story that couldn't have punched my buttons better had it been scripted in Hollywood. I dislike crowds, distrust Redhats, and despise bullies; this story provided, or appeared to provide, all three. But in the Hollywood style, a sudden twist proves the story doesn't fit my good-versus-evil narrative. Worse, I'm proven vulnerable to the same moralistic binary thinking I condemn in others.

It gets worse. Nick Sandmann and his family are currently shunning media, purportedly because they've received death threats. When Christine Blasey Ford reported she needed to hire a security detail and relocate several times after voicing her sexual assault charges against Brett Kavanaugh, we progressives acted offended. Death threats over politics? For shame! Yet clearly we don't have the moral standing we've tried to claim.

Not every progressive threatened Sandmann, just as not every conservative threatened Dr. Blasey Ford. Yet both ideologies overall have to answer for the climate of violence we've fostered. Violence seems like a viable option to the beaten and the dying, not those who have control or solid moral standing. And when (not if) conservatives threaten a progressive whistleblower next, we Leftists won't be able to claim clean hands.

Other Native Americans present at the Lincoln Memorial that fateful January day

I don't know how many threats Sandmann has received, either in absolute numbers or compared to Dr. Blasey Ford. Nor is it my business. I believe Sandmann, because I've seen the frankly ugly language emerging from social media. I've seen the calls for vengeance and payback directed at a teenager, at a child, and also against his entire high school, all because of a four-minute cell-phone video taken completely out of context.

We're adults, y'all. If I know my readership at all, virtually everyone reading this essay is older than Nick Sandmann. Personally, I'm nearly three times Sandmann's age, and I'm less equipped to evaluate and judge his situation now than I was forty-eight hours ago. I cannot rightly expect a junior in high school, limited by a still-growing body and brain, to face a noisy, chaotic, overwhelming situation like that and make the right decision on the fly. I still don't understand it with rhe benefit of multiple viewpoints.

I take two lessons from this experience. First, I need to police my reactions. Next time I feel myself rising into high dudgeon, I need to pause and ask: do I have enough information to evaluate this situation? One handheld phone video, which begins after the situation commenced, isn't sufficient. Sometimes I need to postpone my reactions while data trickles in.

Second, is my reaction appropriate? Am I condemning someone who just needs mature guidance? From Baraboo, Wisconsin, to the Lincoln Memorial, social media warriors have recently hastened to condemn children for transgressions less severe than many I committed at that age. But adults took me aside, patiently corrected me, and forgave a headstrong kid's sins. Surely I owe today's children at least that much latitude.

I could be wrong again. Sandmann could be guilty of everything we previously accused him of. But knowing what I do now, I doubt it. Evidence says I hastily condemned a child when I should have extended him a classic teachable moment. I'm currently ashamed of my moralistic assumptions. And I hope fellow progressives will join me in working to avoid this mistake in the future.

“Please,” “Thank You,” and the Working Society

“You want your usual pizza to go with that?” the bartender asked.

“Please,” I replied. And she smiled.

I could have said anything, I realized, and it would have yielded largely the same result. Had I said “yes,” she would have brought my favorite white-cheese pizza with chicken and jalapeño. Or “give it here.” Or “dammit, woman, after all this time you know that when I have a beer, I want the same damn pizza, just bring it already.” Because really, it was a spiritless transaction, my money for her service.

But saying “please” changed the dynamic. Instead of a demand, backed with promises of future money, it became a transaction between relative equals. She still expected to get paid, of course, and I still expected to receive my pizza, and receive it quickly, warm, and not spat-upon. Yet simply saying “please” made the transaction civil and pleasant, and my pizza likely saliva-free.

Back in the 1950s, British philosopher J.L. Austin, in his book How To Do Things With Words, pioneered a concept called “performative utterance.” This means language that, by being spoken, somehow changes reality. Performative utterance doesn’t merely describe something that exists; they aren’t merely true. Austin’s most basic form of performative utterance is saying “I do.”

Saying “please” to a bartender isn’t a performative utterance in the same way as marriage vows, naming a baby, or blessing the Communion elements. But it does have social effects. Which, as I ruminate upon it (with one-and-a-half beers in my system) is very strange. Because the sequence of mouth noises which comprise the word “please” don’t have any objective meaning.

Most languages have a word which serves the same role as “please,” but the phonological similarities range from the approximate, with “por favor” and “s’il vous plait,” to the completely absent, like “onegaishimasu.” Yet they perform the same role, turning neutral requests or hostile demands into civil, even friendly exchanges. Simply saying “please” transforms the tenor of the interaction.

Depending on the culture, though, even that isn’t enough. When I lived in the South, I observed the way people, especially White women, needed to append words like “honey” and “sugar” onto every statement. Without the treacly nicknames, anything they said sounded negative and demanding to their ears. They needed the “sweet nothings” to make even the most innocuous exchange sound polite.

Having not grown up around such expectations, the connection of polite honorifics like “sweetie” onto routine statements sounded invasive to me. In other places I’d lived up to that point, mostly in the Northeast and West Coast, you had to earn terms like “sweetheart,” and you generally applied them to your children, your romantic partner, or your puppy. In the South, though, White women called waiters and grocery baggers “honey-pie.”



The ceremony necessary to make inert words into civil discourse are heavily conditioned by our culture. In Japan, for instance, “onegaishimasu” is generally accompanied by ritually executed bows and other performance, always colored by respective hierarchy. Western rituals are often shrouded in history and myth: does the formal handshake really descend from checking strangers for hidden weapons? It sounds plausible, but I don’t really know.

We also, where appropriate, use language to keep people separate. The practice of military enlisted men addressing officers as “sir” is mirrored, in the private sector, by labor addressing management as “Mister.” And in jobs I’ve had recently, where we’re encouraged to call management by their first names, I’ve witnessed breakdowns in morale when managers have to stop being cordial and start giving orders.

All these things we do to make basic interactions productive don’t objectively exist. We’ve created them through generations of social interaction, and we have to teach them to coming generations. Which, sadly, we haven’t always done: I’ve recently discovered that many people under twenty haven’t learned how to shake hands with boldness and dignity, something I learned in Cub Scouts.

When we don’t pass the skills onto the next generation, we cannot communicate as equals. I don’t want to become some granddad bitching out “kids these days,” but when I shake younger men’s hands, their limp handshakes feel far less than cordial to me. I can only imagine my learned firm grip probably strikes them as aggressive, even hostile and domineering. Because we don’t have the same rituals of civility.

At least, for now, the practice of saying “please” remains valuable. Rituals like this oil the wheels of society and commerce. But I wonder: would I still have gotten my pizza if I’d just said “give it here”?

God Give Me Patience, and Give It Right Now!

Drew Dyck, Your Future Self Will Thank You: Secrets to Self-Control From the Bible and Brain Science

Religions and philosophies throughout history place a premium on self-control. But they’ve differed wildly in how they achieve that goal. Modern experimental psychology has made significant inroads on this front, but multiple studies confirm that spirituality plays an important role; if we believe in ultimate consequences, we’ll control ourselves better. What does that mean for Christians in a technological society like ours today?

Christian writer Drew Dyck’s third book began as a personal research project. Despite having a graduate degree in theology and working in Christian publishing, he admits tending to drift into self-indulgence and satisfying his appetite. So he began researching what theologians, psychologists, and other scholars have discovered about self-control. He couples this research with experiments to apply self-control principles in his own life, experiments we could reproduce in our own lives.

His resulting book is scientifically sound, and consonant with secular books I’ve previously read on human psychology. (Dyck cites several of those books extensively.) But it’s also amply Christian. Faith isn’t an overlay for Dyck; he treats self-control not as a precept, but as a spiritual virtue. As he states in his introduction, “Self-control [is] foundational. Not because it's more important than other virtues, but because the others rely upon it.”

The Apostle Paul lists self-control as one of the Fruits of the Spirit in his Epistle to the Galatians. But in Romans, Paul laments his own lack of self-control, culminating in his legendary wail, “Oh wretched man that I am!” How then can modern people, Christian or otherwise, do better? Start, Dyck asserts, by accepting self-control as a process, not an outcome; we control ourselves constantly through discipline, faith, and awareness.

Dyck lays out principles portable across life experiences. These include being as specific as possible in your goals, working to establish productive habits, and paying attention to which cues waylay you on your journey. Dyck’s process isn’t dogmatic, and allows individuals to customize their plan to their unique circumstances. However, he reminds readers that several important principles have proven true across ages and sciences; ignore past wisdom at your peril.

Drew Dyck

Throughout, Dyck remains voluminously Christian. He cites several studies from psychology and behavioral economics that correlate religion and faith with desirable outcomes. His sources flinch from explaining why religion promotes self-control; he quotes one saying that faith remains, by nature, immune to double-blind study. Thus Dyck encourages Christian readers to advance boldly in faith, knowing that science ratifies important precepts of belief.

Some Christians get understandably squeamish about directly claiming we have any self-control. For them, considering theological history and Biblical study, self-anything strays uncomfortably close to “works righteousness.” Dyck anticipates these objections, and dedicates an entire chapter to the theme. Copious Biblical citations encourage believers to act boldly against their sins. We can do nothing without God, Dyck says, then demonstrates Scripturally how God enables our actions against Sin.

And yes, for Dyck, we fight against capital-S Sin. While individual momentary lapses have explanations from brain science and the physical universe, the pattern we establish overall bespeaks a universal condition best comprehended in Augustinian terms. Original Sin says we’ll always struggle against corporeal appetites. But Christian faith gives us authority to stand bold against the flesh, Satan, or whatever you want to call our constant tempter.

Besides Scripture, Dyck cites ancient sources, including Augustine, Eusebius, and Justin Martyr; modern theologians like Tim Keller, John Ortberg, and Kevin DeYoung; and secular researchers and science writers like Kelly McGonigal, Charles Duhigg, and Cass Sunstein. The resulting product is dense with sources, a veritable smorgasbord of further reading for the curious. It’s also solidly argued enough to travel with us into life’s darker corners.

Between chapters, Dyck includes personal stories of striving to improve his self-control. His individual struggles aren’t catastrophic by worldly standards; he isn’t a criminal or addict. But his struggles to overcome fatty desserts, poor housekeeping, and a feeble prayer life let him test religious and scientific principles in his own life. He discovers that self-control isn’t easy, and requires an investment of years. His is the slow fix, but it’s time-tested and works.

Dyck’s thesis reinforces something I’ve seen demonstrated in my personal studies, that developments in psychology confirm principles long known to religious leaders. What Moses, Christ, and Paul describe as precepts, brain science re-discovers as insights. Even if you don’t believe prophets are literally inspired by God, their doctrines nevertheless show familiarity with how human minds work. Saving souls is difficult work. We can start by controlling them for ourselves.

Marie Kondo's Anti-Economic Economy

Marie Kondo (Netflix photo)

I first heard of Marie Kondo, like many middle-class white people, from a meme. When the English translation of her book The Life-Changing Magic of Tidying Up appeared in 2014, the story began circulating that we should hold everything we own, and discard everything that doesn’t “spark joy.” The immediate response, half affectionate and half derisive, gained meme traction: “Sorry, Electric Company, but your bill definitely doesn’t spark joy.”

Now that the American leg of her career has second wind through her Netflix series, she’s become a remarkably divisive figure. I don’t mean her controversial opinion about minimizing your library, which is mostly crap anyway. I mean the collision between people who want (but mostly fail) to enact her principles in life, and everyone else. Let’s start with one important principle: expecting anything inanimate to “spark joy” contradicts every economy everywhere.

It’s easy to say Kondo’s principle of anti-acquisitiveness doesn’t jibe well with contemporary capitalism. Poet and philosopher Wendell Berry has observed that late capitalism depends heavily on advertising, which is the art of creating dissatisfaction. Capitalism, as practiced today, makes people unhappy with what they have, and sells them temporary gewgaws to mollify that unhappiness. Which we then have to become unhappy with, and buy the next gimcrack.

Capitalist philosopher Adam Smith justified his Invisible Hand of Economics with this famous quote: “It is not from the benevolence of the butcher, the brewer, or the baker that we expect our dinner, but from their regard to their own interest.” Which, taken literally, makes sense: small operators want to get paid, so they provide a service. When Smith wrote in 1776, when start-up costs for bread-making were high and competition was scarce, this was hard to dispute.

But it doesn’t explain the present. Meat, bread, and beer are today absurdly cheap, a value distorted by public subsidies. Instead of providing the necessities of life, capitalism floods us with luxuries, distractions, and empty pastimes to make the hours go away. Does anybody really derive joy from watching television? Literally following Marie Kondo’s principles would require you to discard, don’t fool yourself, virtually everything you’ve ever owned.

Still, I’d go further than mere anti-capitalism, because all economic theories, eventually, assign monetary value to invaluable commodities. Even Marxism, which pooh-poohs ownership, or Chestertonian Distributism, which opposes all forms of bigness, necessarily assign weighted values to things you cannot buy. All systems seek rules and standards which monetize things you cannot buy, like family and community connections.

Consider a piano. We know the monetary value of a piano’s workmanship, the price of maintenance, the worth assigned to the space it occupies which we could, hypothetically, fill with other stuff. But what value do we assign the effort needed to learn to play? Because, lemme tell you, when my parents required me to spend thirty minutes every day practicing scales drills, that huge, pricy slab of mahogany sparked no joy in me whatsoever.

The list continues. Anybody who’s ever aspired to a writing career knows we don’t, generally, enjoy writing; we mostly enjoy having written. (There are exceptions.) The finished manuscript may “spark joy,” but the process of creating it seldom does, and the tools necessary to perform that creation often feel like a burden. This computer sits here, black and silent, mocking me for the four incomplete manuscripts which appear whenever I press the power button.

Seeking joy, as a tactile response, is innately anti-economic. To assign value based on my response to a thing reflects the care I’ve invested in it. I value my bodhran exactly in proportion to the time I’ve previously invested in practicing, though you might value my playing distinctly less. And the craftsperson who made my bodhran values it according to their skill investment, which distinctly doesn’t resemble my skill investment.

Let me try another approach. If I handed you the manuscript of my current work-in-progress, I’d be entrusting you with something that sparks profound joy in me. However, my manuscript is bulky, unbound, incomplete, and unedited; it probably would spark no joy in you, and indeed would feel like a burden. What economic value, then, does my manuscript have? Does it have any?

Marie Kondo essentially exposes the lie in assigning any dollar (pound, euro, yen) value to anything. Value derives from our relationship to a product or service, which is unique and intangible. Once we price that value, we’ve debased the human interaction. KonMari housekeeping doesn’t just eliminate our clutter; it rebalances our relationship to value itself.

The Great English-Speaking Flame-Out

Donald Trump

Early in his book Stamped From the Beginning, historian Ibram Kendi notes that early European colonists in America began looking around for cheap labor to populate the plantations. And that job was always taken by people who looked different. When Native Americans proved too vulnerable to European diseases, colonists switched to African slaves. This means, Kendi writes, that racism didn’t create economic inequality; economic inequality created racism.

I believe this. I’ve seen it play out, both in history and in our time. Five centuries ago, Bartolomé de las Casas wrote the first known justification of African slavery, because he couldn’t doubt the necessity of the plantation system. Today, the justifications used for family separation, gassing refugees, and more, frequently turn on claims that “they’re taking our jobs.” We need racism to make certain kinds of poverty acceptable in Earth’s richest country.

Except… what motivators are driving racism right now? I’m going to do something I generally avoid, and weigh into non-American politics. Because, just as America continues its longest-ever government shutdown over funding “The Wall,” Britain goes into the home stretch of Brexit with no plan. Parliament just voted down it’s own Prime Minister’s own plan by an over two-to-one margin, almost unheard-of in British parliamentary procedure.

The political leaders in two of the English-speaking world’s leading democracies age are getting their clocks cleaned in unprecedented fashion. Both “The Wall” and Brexit were foisted on their respective countries’ voters through explicitly racist language, claims that have been repeatedly debunked. Repeating the counterclaims would waste space. People who read my blog already realize my views, and are probably ready for me to make my real point.

Theresa May

And that point is: what economic interests are served by this current manifestation of racism? Mass migration justifies both The Wall and Brexit, yet mass migration provides the one thing both countries’ economic systems truly need, cheap labor. Whether Mexicans in America, or Poles in Britain, migrants are notoriously willing to do jobs native-born workers avoid, at wages natives would find insulting. Somebody needs to pick your strawberries.

At work every day, I witness the need for readily available Hispanic labor. As I’ve written before, construction is undoubtedly the most segregated workplace I’ve ever seen. Without a constant supply of Hispanic workers willing to string cable, lay brick, and pour concrete at absurdly low wages, the cost of new buildings in America would skyrocket. White Americans would never accept the wages we offer Mexican workers, which says everything.

Yet we’ve subverted the racist ideal. I know that sounds beneficial, but it puzzles me, because we haven’t done away with the demand for cheap, plantation-style labor. But White people have somehow started embracing, at least nominally, the labor conditions they formerly inveighed against. This appears to be happening internationally, as workers long for the “good ol’ days” of assembly-line manufacturing and resource extraction.

Half the early bluegrass music canon consists of songs about how awful coal-mining is, a thread that continues through current songs like Darrell Scott’s “You’ll Never Leave Harlan Alive.” Yet a huge fraction of Donald Trump’s voting coalition got behind him because he promised to keep coal mines open, coal companies solvent, and coal as America’s leading solid energy source. He promised to keep the blighted hellscape pumping. (How’s that working?)



Early American history isn’t one of self-reliance, despite what flag-waving patriots claim. The first English settlers at Jamestown, Virginia, were poor people England wanted to bury, according to historian Nancy Isenberg, and the first White settlers on land seized from Indians were generally chased off themselves when bureaucrats got involved. The one thing keeping poor Whites unified with rich Whites was the reassurance that at least they weren’t slaves.

Except, apparently, now they are. Poor White voters in America, and probably Britain too, are rushing to kick migrants off the land and rush into their poorly paid, no-hope jobs. Even as the policies that make such changes possible are historically unpopular, they nevertheless cling to such decisions. And the racist language I hear at work has become more heated, not less, as the Wall battle drags on interminably.

My one reassurance is that both governments are largely unsupported by their peoples. Donald Trump came second in 2016, and is unlikely to be reelected, while Theresa May lost her majority in 2017, and if she loses an expected no-confidence vote imminently, the Conservative coalition will shatter. Then maybe, just maybe, the race-baiters will have to leave office, and we can start rebuilding. Maybe.

Free Speech and its Discontents

This week has challenged much that I’ve long believed about my principles, starting with free speech. Like most free speech absolutists, I’ve never been doctrinaire in my views, and have embraced certain necessary limits. In the days following the racist rally in Charlottesville, Virginia, I wrote that a free society has an obligation to limit language that crosses the line into action, and the most prominent form of such language is the incitement to violence.

I needn’t restate the argument in full. The short version, long shared by everyone from small-L liberal philosophers to the Supreme Court, is that when you use “free speech” to encourage violence, that isn’t speech, that’s an action. Thus police have solid First Amendment grounds to break up neo-Nazi rallies and Klan gatherings. A free society cannot muzzle people from speaking even vile and offensive principles… until their words cross the line into action.

This otherwise noble principle comes a-cropper, though, on certain kinds of action. I draw the line between speech and violence, which tacitly assumes violence is bad. Yet we can all imagine times when violence is arguably the right choice. Reasonable people can dispute when those times might arise, because our choices are fueled by our respective values, which are personal rather than universal. Yet this week, something happened to trip my value switch.

The President openly floated the idea of declaring a state of national emergency, seizing power from the Legislature, and passing laws without the consent of the Constitution.

Holy shit.

Avid history readers like me see this and feel great alarm. Previous national leaders who declared national states of emergency, including Napoleon Bonaparte, Jean-Bédel Bokassa, and Adolf Hitler, have used the opportunity to dismiss the Legislature, impose one-party rule, and start wars. States of “emergency” in formerly democratic nations tend to end in a mix of territorial expansion and the suppression of internal dissent. Each led directly to their respective nations’ downfall.

Our President isn’t Hitler. Let’s dismiss that accusation immediately. But Robert O. Paxton, emeritus professor at Columbia University and historian of Vichy France, describes a pattern of Fascist history that situates our current state as incipiently small-F fascist. The parallels are inexact at best, and America currently enjoys a robust (if rudderless) opposition party. However, a declaration of emergency could disrupt the precarious balance.

If that happens, I’ve realized this week, any moral precept that silences violence in advance becomes an impediment. Because, let’s not kid ourselves here, violence is a reasonable response to such naked seizure of power.

If I’ve created an ethical code that makes all calls for violence morally wrong, a priori, and I encounter a situation where principled application violence becomes the only way to resist an unjust government, I’ve prevented myself from acting. I’ve immediately foreclosed from myself the only means of direct action against a power structure that believes itself separate from its citizens. I’ve rendered myself either powerless, or a hypocrite.

In the event, now painfully imaginable, that our President declares an emergency, arrogates to himself the powers of Congress, and passes laws without restraint, I’d actually advocate for direct action against him. I’d prefer the military to step in and restore democracy, as happened in Egypt in 2013. (I know that didn’t end well. I’m trusting that someone like James Mattis, a scholar and true American, would take point in such an activity, which is a huge leap of faith.)

Failing that, citizens would be justified in direct action like spiking the roads in front of troop transports, sabotaging public buildings, and smashing roads. I’d hope we wouldn’t have to to go full Michael Collins and begin assassinating collaborationists, but if this week has taught me anything, we can’t rule anything out preëmptively. We need to guard against overreach, but we also need to act against tyrrany.

Don’t misunderstand me. Violence, while sometimes necessary, must always be tempered by principle and reason. When violence becomes self-justifying, it frequently begets something worse: the revolution against Charles I, for instance, created Cromwell’s dictatorial Protectorate. Robespierre fell victim to the moral purges he once created. All appeals to violence contain the potential for abuse, which those within the resistance must consciously work to curb.

This puts me in an awkward position. I’ve erased the one line I drew previously, and if I erase it for me, I theoretically erase it for everybody. Where, then, do we draw the line at unacceptable speech and behavior? I can’t say. I’m venturing into the territory of ad hoc morality, which history shows doesn’t end well. But recent history proves we cannot, unilaterally, take anything off the table. America is headed into uncharted territory, and it’s taking my soul with it.

Who Is Worse: Louis CK or His Audience?

Louis CK

I couldn’t finish Louis CK’s leaked comeback set. He started with an extended rant about how much money he’s lost over the last year, which set the tone for everything after: rather than self-deprecating, his message was mainly self-pitying. He cast himself as hapless victim of an anonymous but massively powerful brigade bent on purging unwanted ideas. Then he drew the boundary wider to include his audience in the united front against the politeness police. I gave up, because I have a day job.

(On a side note: “leaked” by whom? The audio I heard popped so loudly, the recording obviously took place on or near the stage. Coupled with the sycophantic requests for support, I suspect the leaker was more than physically close to the artist.)

More interesting than the set itself, to me, was the fan comments written beneath the content. I couldn’t help noticing nobody quoted favorite jokes, which comedy fans often do. Nobody cited favorite moments that made them laugh. Instead, the “fans” praised CK’s “anti-PC” stance, called him a hero, and lauded his set’s political positions. The audiences who responded positively to him were mainly motivated by his stances, not his comedy.

These people didn’t come to CK’s set because they wanted to laugh, apparently; they wanted to hear their prejudices ratified. They wanted to hear somebody tell them what they’d already been thinking, and their existing thoughts were apparently: how dare anybody tell me I shouldn’t mock the powerless? I have a god-given right to kick the weak! Punching down, for this crew, isn’t a poor choice; it’s a moral imperative.

I recall Roger Ebert’s review of an Andrew Dice Clay performance movie. Ebert noted that audiences didn’t primarily laugh at Clay’s jokes, they hooted their approval of his underlying bias. Ebert compared Clay’s set to a fascist rally, inasmuch ashe didn’t surprise his audience, he mainly sold them back their pre-existing beliefs. The word “fascist” gets thrown around heedlessly anymore, but sometimes it applies: Louis CK and the Diceman focus on displays of strength, and on creating a designated outgroup.

British psychologist Edward de Bono, who coined the term “lateral thinking,” dedicates a chapter to the causes of laughter. We know people laugh at wordplay, slapstick, and weird juxtapositions. But, de Bono notes, many people also respond with laughter when presented with clever arguments, sudden insights, and the solution to difficult puzzles. Laughter, de Bono posits, is a response to having our minds widened. Humans laugh when we become deeper people.

Listening to CK’s set, I noticed the audience didn’t laugh. Not in the sense, anyway, of a deep, rocking sound originating from the diaphragm and radiating through the chest, shoulders, and larynx. Instead, I heard two principal sounds: throaty cackling and applause. People make these sounds when they feel vindicated: when they watch their football team score at home, for instance, or when someone on the opposite team trips over their shoelaces.

At last. Someone has finally gone after the two dominant groups in society: kids who survived gun massacres and people who identify as gender neutral. That lot have had it too easy for too long.

— Nish Kumar (@MrNishKumar) December 31, 2018

Applause in particular is a sign of approval. As a sometime theatre participant, I know the desire many performers share to hear the audience applaud. But many classic shows, like Death of a Salesman and The Diary of Anne Frank, didn’t cause audiences to applaud; crowds left the performances in shocked silence. Because they knew these shows exposed a layer of social rot in which they themselves had participated.

They didn’t applaud, because the shows left them feeling convicted, rather than vindicated.

Louis CK clearly wants the opposite response from his crowds. He doesn’t want audiences to laugh, because laughter means they’re growing; he wants them to applaud, because applause means they’re unified. And that, I posit, is the motivation of the anti-PC squadron: to build an impregnable fortress of moral rectitude where they can feel good about their shared power.

When Louis CK fell from popular grace eighteen months ago, I urged caution. Unlike others whose sexual misconduct was exposed, like Bill Cosby or Harvey Weinstein, he admitted his transgressions and didn’t make excuses. I thought, if there’s a situation where forgiveness applies, it might be here--though I conceded that depended on how he comported himself going forward.

Sadly, given the opportunity to repent and learn from his misdeeds, CK has chosen to dig down and show no repentance. Worse, he’s chosen to ally himself with the existing, dying power structure, plant himself on a platform, and punch downward. To judge by the comments section, there’s an audience eager to join him in the effort.

What a missed opportunity.