Aging Capriciously

This past Thursday I attended a meeting for a new Veterans group that had recently formed in our town.  There were three people at a table in front of the group (two men and a woman) and about 20 or so people in chairs facing the table.  The two men whom I assumed were leaders mentioned that the key-note speakers, someone from the Arizona Posse and someone from the Pinal Country Sheriffs department may or may not make the meeting.  Apparently there had been a few recent killings in area and both groups were lending support to the Casa Grande Police department.  The woman in front was the spouse of one of the men leading the group.  She was also the club secretary.

One of the leaders outlined the various apparel that was for sale to raise funds for the group as well as sell some tickets for a fifty-fifty raffle.  Eventually, we all stood for the Pledge of Allegiance and then an invocation from one of the two male leaders who was apparently a pastor at a local church.

After this the group leader on the right started a spiel about how “THEY” were not allowing history to be taught anymore in the schools.  He had brought a bunch of old books that looked like they came from an antique store, and he went on about how these books had the “real” history in them.  But THEY had removed the true history from current textbooks so that THEY could hide the truth from us about what had really happened.  He ended with two pleas.

1. Those of us who wanted the truth most not be afraid to stand up and speak out.
2. We must heal the divide in the country and reduce partisanship.

I could not agree more with his first plea but the second one struck me as strongly hypocritical since all of his speech was a right-wing polemic against what he perceived as a liberal bias in schools and the media.

Now I have to tell you, it was all I could do not to walk out of this meeting.  Retired Arizona veterans are not known for their liberal orientation.  I looked around to see if anyone was as disgusted with the speech just given as I was but no one seemed overly concerned.  I kept my mouth shut and decided to see what the next speaker, the leader who was also a pastor had to say.

He was even more right-wing than the first speaker.  He went on and on about Political Correctness ruining America and again the ambiguous “THEY” who are out to destroy freedom and democracy.  I was getting more and more annoyed.  I looked around to see if I would have any support in the group if things escalated and decided that I would not.  I thought about speaking out.  Fear governed my emotions.  I kept reminding myself that “The test of tolerance comes when we are in the majority and the test of courage comes when we are in the minority.”  I was no doubt in the minority.  Would I be a craven coward?

The pastor started to quote Nietzsche with “Those who forget the past will continue to make mistakes.”  I lost it right there.  Wrong person and butchered quote.  Courage did not play a role in what happened next.  I stood up and said “You are wrong.  Nietzsche did not say this.  George Santayana said it and it should go “Those who cannot remember the past are condemned to repeat it.”  Other people have of course said a similar thought, but I do not remember Nietzsche having said this.  Furthermore, my bias against Nietzsche raised my ire even higher than with the first speaker.

I then gave the following diatribe to the assembled group.  I said “First of all there are two things wrong with your speeches.  The first is your belief that some absolute truth to history exists and that all schools must do is teach this truth.”  The one guy waving the Bible earlier led me to think that he must believe that all truth came from the Bible.

Silence reigned in the room, and I plowed on.  “History is full of perspectives and some facts.  Think of the five blind men trying to describe an elephant.  Well history is a thousand times more complicated than an elephant and there are not just five perspectives on history but millions.  If you tried to put all these perspectives and a few facts in one large history book, it would probably weigh a million tons.”

“The second thing wrong is your idea about eliminating partisanship.  That idea itself would be a good thing, but you do not eliminate it by insisting that your view of reality is the only view or the right view.  You are causing partisanship when like one of the blind men insisting that he is right, you insist that your perspective is right and others who have a different perspective are stupid, wrong and unpatriotic.  You eliminate partisanship by respecting the perspectives of all people.”  Thus ended my rant.

I sat down to thunderous applause and a standing ovation.

I wished.

The room was dead silent.  I felt like a fish out of water and soon to be gutted and fried.  I sat down and the meeting went on.  We discussed other ideas for the group to support to have a more social group for veterans.  The meeting ended with the group secretary calling out the winners for the fifty-fifty tickets and a few winners for some free tickets that we had all been given. The meeting lasted for about 1 hour and fifteen minutes and then people dispersed.

Now in America today, we have five political perspectives arranged along a continuum.  On the extreme right, we have the “extreme conservatives” as they may think of themselves.  However, they are fascists and anti-democratic in symbols, outlook and beliefs.  On the extreme left we have a smaller group who might think of themselves as progressives or socialists but in the minds of many on the right they are “card carrying communists.”  Indeed, some of the extreme left-wing do fit this perspective.  Slightly to the right of center we have the true conservatives and slightly to the left of center the true liberals.  In the middle we have people who support some social programs but are fiscally conservative.  We also have people in the middle who support some government but are against too much government.

One characteristic of both the extreme right and the extreme left is the inability to see perspectives different than their own.   To the extremists, the world is black and white.  Good and bad.  Each extreme entirely rejects the perspectives of the other extreme.  Each extreme feels that they are not allowed to speak but that the other extreme is.  Newspapers and zealots take sides with the extremists and promote narratives designed to appeal to the extreme views exposed by each side.  The ability to condone or support multiple perspectives becomes more and more difficult as a greater and greater polarization ensues.   People bemoan the death of compromise but each side ladens itself with oaths and pledges guaranteed to insure that they will not try to see the world from the other side.

The result is a form of warfare between each side.  The middle groups become more and more polarized as they find that they must take sides to survive.  Liberals talk about the importance of listening to understand what the other side says and thinks as though this will solve the problem.  It will not.  Unless someone listens with an OPEN MIND, no amount of listening will make a difference.  I was once approached by an employee who asked me to speak to his boss on his behalf.  I asked him why he did not do it himself.  I pointed out that his boss had “an open door policy.”  The employee looked at me and replied: “Open door but closed mind.”

Our schools have failed us because they teach right answers and not right questions.  They teach closed minds and not open minds.  We have a generation who are now increasingly anti-education.  We have a war against our schools by people who do not believe that schools exist to teach right thinking but only right answers.  Liberal schools are boycotting right-wing fanatics and not allowing them to speak.  Fox News prints daily rants against schools portraying the worst aspects of what once was a liberal education.  The right wing increasingly wants a technocratic education which will result in a job that pays well.  Any focus on mindfulness, morality, ethics, and integrity plays little or no role in the education system desired by the right.  Those on the left believe that public education should be for the masses but ignore the needs of many rural and poor people to get a job that pays a living wage.

Meanwhile the rich liberals go to Harvard, Yale, Princeton, and other Ivy League colleges.  Colleges that people like me could never have afforded and that would never have let pass their shiny doors.  Many people have asked me why I did not go to college after high school.  This always brings a laugh to my throat.  Two months out of high school, I went to the only “college” that I could afford.  I joined the US Military from 1964 to 1968 as a E-1.  I left four years later as an E-4 and an Aircraft Control and Warning Radar technician.  I also earned a certificate for an Honorable Discharge.

“If liberty means anything at all, it means the right to tell people what they do not want to hear.”
― George Orwell