A reader's journal sharing the insights of various authors and my take on a variety of topics, most often philosophy, religion & spirituality, politics, history, economics, and works of literature. Come to think of it, diet and health, too!
Showing posts with label Lyndon B. Johnson. Show all posts
Showing posts with label Lyndon B. Johnson. Show all posts
Rather than joust with contemporary specialists in environmental affairs, I therefore decided from the outset to rely on the time-tested classical authors who have eloquently and cogently grappled with the core issues of politics. I found Plato, Jean-Jacques Rousseau, and the rest more illuminating and pertinent than other writers to achieving my aim—namely, encouraging readers to question our most basic social, economic, political, and even moral assumptions as the first step toward imagining a truly ecological future.
He [LBJ] would say to friends, talking about his dilemma, “If we get into this war [Vietnam] I know what’s going to happen. Those damn conservatives are going to sit in Congress and they’re going to use this war as a way of opposing my Great Society legislation. People like Stennis and Gross. They hate this stuff, they don’t want to help the poor and the Negroes but they’re afraid to be against it at a time like this when there’s been all this prosperity. But the war, oh, they’ll like the war. They’ll take the war as their weapon. They’ll be against my programs because of the war. I know what they’ll say, they’ll say they’re not against it, not against the poor, but we have this job to do, beating the Communists. We beat the Communists first, then we can look around and maybe give something to the poor.”
Evolution has gifted humans (and vertebrates in general) two immune systems: the innate immune system and the adaptive one. The innate immune system is the front line of defense and has a standard set of responses—fevers, inflammation, mucus generation, attack cells—to biological threats that are quick and easy to deploy. The innate immune system is a blunt instrument that has a pretty dramatic effect on how you feel. It alters your internal environment to make it hostile to invaders. The adaptive immune system is more selective (this is the Special Forces rather than the regular Army); it identifies the specific threat to the body, learns its weaknesses, then deploys a very targeted response.
We should all have learned this now in the time of COVID, but it bears repeating.
The “soul” or Circuit VII is constant, because it is, as the Chinese say, void or no-form. It plays all the roles you play — oral dependent, emotional tyrant, cool rationalist, romantic seducer, neurosomatic healer, neurogenetic Evolutionary Visionary — but it is none of them. It is plastic. It is no-form, because it is all forms. It is the “creative Void” of the Taoists.
Read Robert Anton Wilson & this book in particular for a wild (but nonetheless) convincing ride.
The problem was that this smaller, vertically positioned nose [that homo sapiens developed] was less efficient at filtering air, and it exposed us to more airborne pathogens and bacteria. The smaller sinuses and mouth also reduced space in our throats. The more we cooked, the more soft, calorie-rich food we consumed, the larger our brains grew and the tighter our airways became.
The French Revolution and the American Revolution are two of the most important and enduring legacies of the Enlightenment. As [Isaiah] Berlin says, they have almost nothing to do with Romanticism:
…the principles in the name of which the French Revolution was fought were principles of universal reason, of order, of justice, not at all connected with the sense of uniqueness, the profound emotional introspection, the sense of the differences of things, dissimilarities rather than similarities, with which the Romantic movement is usually associated.
(However, as I hope to show later, there is a track that leads direct from the Enlightenment to Romanticism – another case of there being a smooth transition from one hemisphere's agenda to the (in reality quite opposed) agenda of the other hemisphere, which I have argued for in the case of the Reformation.)
After the Revolution and the Napoleonic Wars, the first conservatives asked themselves whether the turmoil, suffering, and criminal excess had been due to liberty or to its perversion. Burke mildly and Maistre savagely had blamed modern liberty, that is, liberty understood in the wrong way.
In order that there should be chronicle, there must first be history: for chronicle is the body of history from which the spirit has gone; the corpse of history.
By 1969, the year Johnson left office, the poverty rate was down to 12.1 percent—a reduction of more than 12 million people and more than one-third of the impoverished population at the time Johnson had taken office.
Start by considering the end. Visualise both the road to personal fulfilment and the destination. Consider what behaviour would thwart that fulfilment and do the opposite. Thinking about the route to avoid helps reveal the more rewarding road.
Politics demands a great capacity for self-deception, which rescues the politician from hypocrisy. He can normally manage to believe what he is saying for the time it takes to say it. This gives him a certain sincerity even when he is saying opposite things to opposite people. Since he loves to be pleased, he tries to please people back. He genuinely dislikes disagreements with anyone. It interrupts the reciprocal laving of egos; it puts grit in the butter bath.
Garry Wills, Confessions of a Conservative (1979), p. 178
But in reality the best one can ever do with hypocrisy is take a stand for or against one kind or another, not for or against hypocrisy itself. We might regret the prevalence of hypocrisy, but if we want to do anything about it we have to get beyond generalised regret, and try instead to identify the different ways in which hypocrisy can be a problem.
Runciman, David Political Hypocrisy (2018) Princeton University Press. Kindle Edition.
. . . .
Hypocrisy turns on questions of character rather than simply coincidence with the truth. Likewise, though hypocrisy will involve some element of inconsistency, it is not true that inconsistency is itself evidence of hypocrisy. People often do, and often should, change their minds about how to act, or vary their principles depending on the situation they find themselves in. It is not hypocrisy to seek special treatment for one’s own children—to arrive, say, in a crowded emergency room with an ailing child and demand immediate attention—though it may be unrealistic or even counter-productive to behave in this way; it is only hypocrisy if one has some prior commitment not to do so. It is the prior commitment not to be inconsistent, rather than the fact of inconsistency, that generates the conditions of hypocrisy. That, of course, is one reason why hypocrisy is such a problem for politicians.
Id.
. . . .
From one perspective the act of concealment makes things worse—it simply piles vice on top of vice, which is why hypocrites are often seen as wickeder than people who are simply, and openly, bad. But from another perspective the concealment turns out to be a form of amelioration—it is, in Rochefoucauld’s timeless phrase, “the tribute that vice pays to virtue.” Hypocrites who pretend to be better than they really are could also be said to be better than they might be, because they are at least pretending to be good.
Id.
. . . . .
Once we acknowledge that some element of hypocrisy is inevitable in our political life, then it becomes self-defeating simply to try to guard against it. Instead, what we need to know is what sorts of hypocrites we want our politicians to be, and in what sorts of combinations. Do we want them to be hypocrites like us, so that they can understand us, or to be hypocrites of a different kind, so that they can manage our hypocrisy? Do we want them to be designing hypocrites, who at least know what they are doing, or do we want them to be more innocent than that? Do we want them to expose each other’s hypocrisy, or to ameliorate it?
Id.
. . . .
Clearly, a line needs to be drawn somewhere between the hypocrisies that are unavoidable in contemporary political life, and the hypocrisies that are intolerable. But it is hard to see where.
Id.
Son, in politics you've got to learn that overnight chicken shit can turn to chicken salad.
Lyndon B. Johnson (perhaps apocryphal)
I share all of the above quotes--and there must be thousands of more like them I could have cited--because I'm perplexed by the issue of hypocrisy and politics. Of course, on a basic level, the politician isn't always enamored of the colleague or voter or donator with whom she or he has to have a photo taken with, big beaming smile and all. They can't really think all of those babies are cute or all those chicken dinners really delicious. Of course not, and even those of us who aren't politicians engage in these venial hypocrisies on a regular basis. So, as David Runciman notes, it's not hypocrisy in general that we can rail against, it has to be certain type or level of hypocrisy--if this is the right word at all--that strongly disapprove of.
And I have to admit that within certain limits or situations, I appreciate a degree of hypocrisy. Runciman cites the well-worn adage of Rouchcufould that hypocrisy is “the tribute that vice pays to virtue.” And I have to admit on the basis of this adage I've praised Richard Nixon as a better type of crook than Donald Trump because Nixon was at least a hypocrite. He at least tried to cover-up his wrong-doing, and his campaign theme and rhetoric (as opposed to his actions in office) were "bring us together" and other nobler sentiments. (N.B. Nixon was also a great deal smarter than Trump as a politician, as a statesman, and as the head of a government, although the bar of comparison has now been set ridiculously low by Trump.) Nixon was at least a hypocrite. One suspects, even with all of the spiders in his mind, that there was some sense of propriety, perhaps even shame, in Nixon, while Trump seems utterly without a sense of shame and immune to the opinion of others. Of course, these dynamics also play out in the actions of those around these two law-breaking, norm-destroying presidents. In 1974, Republican senators led by Senate Minority Leader Hugh Scott and former presidential nominee Barry Goldwater went to Nixon and told him that he should resign because he would be removed from office if impeached. (Nixon resigned before he was impeached, as he certainly would have been had he decided not to resign.) It's hard to imagine from those who recall that time, but the public debate and the conduct of politics for the most part were in a better state under the hypocrite (and crook) Nixon than they are under Donald Trump, with his blatant scorn for law, norms, and principles. Chalk one up for hypocrisy.
Also, as Runciman also states, "though hypocrisy will involve some element of inconsistency, it is not true that inconsistency is itself evidence of hypocrisy. People often do, and often should, change their minds about how to act, or vary their principles depending on the situation they find themselves in. "
I don't think that this point can receive enough emphasis. We can and should and do change our minds--and so should politicians. Emerson--"A foolish consistency is the hobgoblin of small minds"--and economist Paul Samuelson--"Well when eve,nts change, I change my mind. What do you do?" (This quote is most often attributed to Keynes, but apparently this isn't correct.) That politicians should and do change their minds makes them better, not worse, if they have sound grounds. That is, if they act on grounds other than deception and sheer expediency. However, the public is not quick to pick-up on such distinctions, and you will find politicians pilloried by a bamboozled electorate over changes of mind that were no more than parliamentary maneuvers. (Remember the ridicule aimed at John Kerry for his supposed "he was for it before he was against it" opinion about the Iraq War?) The public, if wise, would want elected leaders, especially legislators, who change positions as events--such as negotiations and novel incentives--change. But ask any experienced politician if she or he would want to try to finesse this point or educate the public about it, and I don't believe you'd find any takers.
So now to the case in point, the most recent incident that has led to the concept and role of hypocrisy coming so loudly into my mind. I'm referring to the attitude of Republican senators on record stating that a Supreme Court vacancy shouldn't be filled in an election year. We have a large number of senators (all Republican) who've made statements to this effect. (The New York Times has conveniently cataloged their statements here.) And I've addressed this issue concerning my current Senator Cory Gardner (R-CO) and two senators from my native state of Iowa, Senators Charles Grassley and Joni Ernst. All of them have (as said of John Kerry) "flip-flopped" on this issue, to put in the kindest term possible. But because of the starkness of his statements, the brazenness of his reversal, and the convenience of Youtube, let's focus on Senator Lindsey Graham (R-SC). Below are two clips of him, one from 2016 (during the refusal of the Republican Senate to consider the nomination Merrick Garland by President Obama) and the second came in 2018, during the Trump administration.
(Staring at about the 21'30" mark for the second clip.)
Despite what he said in 2016 and in 2018, very soon after the death of Justice Ginsberg, Senator Graham announced that he would support Senate action on a replacement nomination by President Trump even though the nomination process is over and voting for president has begun in some jurisdictions. Graham stated:
"After Kavanaugh, the rules have changed as far as I'm concerned," he told reporters, referring to the contentious confirmation for Justice Brett Kavanaugh. "We'll see what the market will bear if that ever happens."
Graham also said in a tweet on Saturday he "fully understands" Mr. Trump's desire to move quickly on filling the vacancy.
"I fully understand where President @realDonaldTrump is coming from," Graham wrote, referring to a tweet where Mr. Trump said Republicans had an "obligation" to fill the seat with "no delay."
N.B. The second Youtube clip posted above from The Atlantic Festival in 2018 occurred after the Kavanaugh nomination and hearings. In fact, if you, Kavanaugh hearing process was discussed at length in the immediately preceding portion of the conversation that I embedded above.
So, is the change in position taken by Senator Graham (and representative of many of his Republican colleagues) hypocrisy or something else? Does anyone contend that this is a fully justified, principled change in position? If it's hypocrisy, is it the venial kind or is it a more deadly sin? If it's something more than hypocrisy, does it constitute a lie? Does it constitute an abuse of power? Or is it--or should it be--"just politics" where power (as control) is the entire game and the devil take the hindmost?
I'm going to adjourn my essay at the enod of the paragraph and ask any reader who would kindly do so to weight in on this topic. I have a tolerant attitude toward most hypocrisy, including that of politicians. (My understanding and appreciation of American politics is greatly influenced by the brilliant early works of Garry Wills, political reporter-classicist par excellence, especially his Confessions of a Conservative (1979) quoted above and Nixon Agonistes: The Crisis of the Self-Made Man (1970). Wills's arguments about elections, bureaucrats, do-gooders, good-doers, and politicians appreciate the political process, including the sometimes maddening foibles of politicians.) Thus, I need to determine how to characterize the actions of the Republican senators. Should I have believed Senators Grassley and Graham and the others? (Their excuses, disclaimers, and "events changed" arguments have all come post facto.) Should I--should all of us--become more cynical? How big a sucker was I to expect some principled consistency (assuming, as I do, that the excuses offered by the Senators are not principled but mere rhetorical figleaves). Do these actions help or hurt the democratic process? To what extent do these actions by these senators represent a degneration of the quality of the democratic process (or not)? Let me know your thoughts. How do we explain, justify, or condemn these positions?
C & I saw Selma
last night, and it was a fine film in many ways. It celebrates a break-through
in the quest for civil rights for all Americans. It celebrates the battles and sacrifices
that success required in the face of the deep racism of Alabama and across the Deep
South. (Attention to those problems in the North would come later.) David
Oyelowo's portrayal of Rev. Dr. Martin Luther King, Jr., the hero of the film
and true hero in American history, was very well performed.(I haven’t most of
the other best actor nominees this year, but it is hard to see how he could
have missed out. The Golden Globes were certainly right to nominate him.)
Playing a historical character of such charisma as Dr. King presents a terrific
challenge, and he met that challenge very well. Tom Wilkinson portrayed President
Lyndon Johnson, which, on a trivial note, raises the question of why two Brits
play the must play the roles of these two seminal American figures. (This is an
ongoing phenomenon. Wilkinson has portrayed Ben Franklin and former Secretary
of State James Baker, while Daniel Day Lewis portrays Lincoln. Meryl Streep as
Margaret Thatcher hardly seems even the balance of trade.) Wilkinson’s acting captured
LBJ only moderately well, but the portrayal of LBJ’s larger-than-life persona
was the least of the problems. The greatest problem with the film is betrayal
of truth in history.
I almost didn’t write this blog because Maureen
Dowd in the New York Times, David Kaiser in Time, and Elizabeth
Drew in the New York Review of Books
have all written appropriate criticisms of the misrepresentation of LBJ’s role
in these events. I was first alerted to the problem by this
NYT article. I recommend all of these for your consideration. LBJ worked
with King and the civil rights movement. These two leaders weren’t pals—each wary
of the other (and eventually a deep rift developed over King’s criticism of the
war in Vietnam). But in this cause, they were very much on the same team,
working from different perspectives, but the contribution of each was crucial.
LBJ was not an obstacle, but a player. And as the film portrays—and as any
sense of reality dictates—differences of opinions and clashes of personalities
and organizations (such as SCLC and SNCC) are inevitable and provide their own
drama within the movement. Some defend the decision to portray LBJ as an
impediment with the claim that a dramatic foil was needed, but the demagogue
George Wallace and Alabama racists provided more than enough in the way of
genuine bad guys to create the appropriate dramatic conflict. This libel (or
would a film be a slander?) of LBJ is unnecessary and disheartening. LBJ is a
figure of enormous complication and titanic flaws, but we don’t need to enhance
his flaws nor pass over his great accomplishments in civil rights. In addition
to making him an obstacle of civil rights, the film suggests that Johnson approved
the use of Hoover’s salacious material about King. False. This material—an audio
tape—was delivered to SCLC in December 1964 without Johnson’s knowledge or approval.
Johnson, like Kennedy before him and Nixon after him, feared J. Edgar Hoover. The extent that Hoover exercised such a free hand was based on the fear these
presidents felt about the material Hoover might have on them or their
associates with which he could harm them.
Does this distortion of history (the truth) matter? Isn’t
this just Hollywood? Yes, it does matter. And yes, Hollywood distorts history
on a regular and continuing basis. But here, as in many cases before, to
distort history not only does a disservice to unwary viewers (most viewers), it
diminishes the film by suggesting that the film has an agenda. In this instance,
the film, seems a reaction to Mississippi
Burning and others like it that over emphasized white leadership in civil
rights. In that light, this film seeks to portray the black actors as paramount
and the whites as resistant, from those whites passive like LBJ to those aggressive
like Wallace and the Alabama racists. To the extent that the distortion of
Johnson’s role diminishes the film—and it does—it diminishes our appreciation
of this crucial time and great accomplishment in American history. Hollywood
does teach (oh, heaven help us!), and when a film of this gravity and
significance fails in this regard—even partially, as the film gets a lot right—it
rends the garment of our shared history and national life. No film, no book,
can capture reality totally and with complete accuracy. But in the this film,
the deviation is all the more disheartening because of the importance of the
story told and the available historical record.
The Politician & the Prophet celebrate a collaboration that resulted in the signing of the Voting Rights Act into law on August 6, 1965.
Will filmmakers learn? Not as long as the money keeps
rolling in. In reading about Selma, I came upon discussions of another Oscar
nominee, The Imitation Game, the
biopic about the British genius and gay man, Alan Turing. As this
NYRB article demonstrates, Hollywood (which really messes with reality in biopics) couldn’t tell the
fascinating true story of this hero, either. This review,
by Alex von Tunzelmann in The Guardian,
points out that the film portrays Turing as committing treason (by failing to
reveal a Soviet spy at Bletchley Park), when he most certainly did not know the
man or of any such spying. As von Tunzelmann puts it: “Were the makers of The Imitation Game intending to accuse
Alan Turing, one of Britain’s greatest war heroes, of cowardice and treason?
Creative licence is one thing, but slandering a great man’s reputation – while
buying into the nasty 1950s prejudice that gay men automatically constituted a
security risk – is quite another.” Why these inventions? Apparently,
screenwriters believe themselves more capable and interesting than history.
The truth of history really is quite dramatic if you give it a try,
Hollywood.
