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| From "Madness on Capitol Hill" |
One should, I think, beware those who wear "I have no empathy" as a mark of pride. That is when people feel free to be at their worst with one another. I suspect that people are naturally adept at being able to place themselves in another's position. When that is seen as a mark of weakness or failure of character, I think that dehumanization is what takes its place. And from there, cycles of violence are born.
In the aftermath of the... events in Washington, D.C. (and a couple of our own here in Washington State), yesterday a lot has been made of the idea that Black protesters would have been met with a much more organized and heavy-handed response than the Trumpistas who swarmed the Capitol building.
For many, it was simply more proof that the Administration, if not the entire System, is deeply and irretrievably racist. (Although perhaps "Racist" might be more to people's thinking. But as I thought about it, and the ever-present fears of "Middle America," it occurred to me that perhaps the problem is one of distance. And I suppose there are a number of ways in which the term "distance" is applicable, so explanations are in order.
Some time ago, I was talking to an old acquaintance of mine, who happens to be a Trump supporter, about the dueling protest movements afoot in the modern United States, and came to an interesting realization. In his eyes, even if the Proud Boys faction of the Trump movement were to win the day, and be able to remake the nation to its liking, I would not be much, if any worse off than I am now, despite not being White myself. On the other hand, he reasoned, were the forces of Black Lives Matter or Antifascism to win, he would find himself much worse off. Of course, I saw it nearly the opposite way, but what I realized from yesterday's news coverage was that perhaps the "center" of America lies closer to him, than to me.
I don't normally look to critics of something (or someone) when I want an accurate description, but how the protest movements spawned by the Left and the Right are viewed by their critics is telling. While many Right-wing activists are considered dupes of anti-democratic or anti-American interests in Russia, a common criticism of Left-wing activists is that they are knowing, active agents of that old hobgoblin, the international socialist/communist conspiracy. Likewise, while violence from the Right criticized as people allowing their anger to get the better of them, violent protest on the left if seen as the work of people who simply enjoy being violent, even if they're understood as not really being part of the broad protests in question.
And in the case of Black Lives Matter, there is the general current of fear that's always run somewhat beneath the surface. I don't think of myself as being a particularly threatening person, but I've learned that it's not good for me to suddenly be somewhere that I'm not expected to be, or just show up suddenly in someone's field of view.
To the degree that the "average American" perceives distance between their interests, and those of a given protest movement, they also see the protestors as being less American, and less... civilized than they otherwise might. And I think this results in more people understanding that there is room for them (and by extension, those they approve of) in the Perfect World of the "Right-Wing Protester" but they don't see a place for themselves in the Perfect World of the "Left-Wing Protester." This disconnect results in the greater impression of dangerous foreign influences and the impression that this is something that is directed at them, personally. And thusly, support for a harsher response to otherwise outwardly similar actions.
And while racism might factor into it, I suspect that it's more the bigotry of the person who sees difference as destiny, and is blind to the role of greater social forces in determining who is, and who is not, allowed to enter the club. If everything is the result of the choices of an individual, then looking at those results becomes a useful proxy for understanding a person's otherwise unseen behavior and character. In the end, I think that the difference is that Right-wing protesters ask less of society at large than Left-wing protestors do. There's less apology demanded, less contrition expected. Less of a price to paid. And so they are seen as less of a threat.
I'd happened to swing by Slate again, to see if there was much of anything interesting there to read these days, and found this story about CUP Foods, the store where George Floyd had given the cashier what was suspected to be a counterfeit $20 bill. It turned out, that was a very ill-considered move on the part of the late Mr. Floyd, but the story was about the anger that local residents and activists harbored towards the store and the Palestinian family that owns the business.
Being the sort of person who is never content to simply read a news story and take it at face value, the whole thing came off to me as a tragic lesson in the effects of generational poverty on a community; in this case the Black community of South Minneapolis. I've written before about how I considered ethics to be something of a luxury, such that people who feel that they're in dire straits come to consider it something that's out of reach. I also think that a case could be made that many people consider following "the rules" (as a general principle) to be a luxury good; and again, something that can, and maybe should, be dispensed with if the cost goes too high. What Aymann Ismail's story communicated was that perhaps empathy and compassion should also be placed in the basket of expensive goods that many people feel are out of reach for them.
Stories of American decline are popular, and have been for some time, I think. Whether they are triumphalist or cautionary, however, I suspect that many of them miss the point. As the United States kludges its way into greater and greater inequality, the things that really hold a society marked by clear differences together, things like generally ethical behavior, commitment to the rules and a general understanding that everyone is on the same side, become luxuries. And when people feel that their survival is in danger, they jettison useless luxuries.
The promise of the United States, that it failed to live up to, was that it could be a place where people need not feel, for lack of a better word, needy. I suspect that it was an unrealistic promise from the outset. Because neediness isn't a objective state, but a personal one. The people that Mr. Ismail speaks to reveal the neediness of the South Minneapolis neighborhood. The worries that partisans have over the outcomes of today's elections for the United States Senate in Georgia reveal the neediness of Democrats and Republicans alike. The fighting over how the SARS-2 CoV outbreak, both here and in other countries, reveals the neediness of people, and governments, worldwide.
I don't know that it's possible to really remove neediness from the world. Perhaps that's the problem. People, in attempting to sate their own neediness, simply shift it onto other people. And at worst, they, well, infect other people with it, and neediness multiplies. And swamps luxuries in so doing.
Via an odd and winding road, I found myself at the New York Times website, reading what seems like yet another piece on the failure of President Trump to lead up to the standards of political leadership put forward by people whose relationship to the President is one of mutual hostility. I suspect that we'll see a lot of these, as people who have grievances with the President and his administration look for some time in the media spotlight.
In any event, the particular article I was reading is about the President's handling of the SARS-2 CoV outbreak, as it pertains to the United States. Or rather, about how the President's focus on his political fortunes and ambitions prevented him from effectively handling said outbreak. And so the piece overall is quite critical of the President. There are times when it seemed to become lost in that criticism.
For instance, the article is very clear that President Trump was not a fan of face masks as a non-pharmaceutical intervention. After the President is informed that his base of support wouldn't go for a "mask mandate" as they've come to be called, and that the President likely wouldn't have the legal authority to issue one, the story reports: "Aside from when he was sick, he was rarely seen in a mask again."
This is held up as one of many missed "opportunities to show leadership." And that prompted me to ask myself: What does it mean to "lead" in this situation?
The article dutifully makes the point that having the population cover their faces is "among the simplest and most effective ways to curb the spread of the disease." Okay, but the truth of that statement relies on a few other things being true, one of the big ones being that it's difficult to impossible to know who is and who is not infected. As a general rule, one wouldn't expect a doctor to say that someone who was clearly ill from a high-contagious respiratory infection that they could go hang out with people, so long as they wore a face mask. Rather, promoting masks comes across as the one tool that many public health authorities have in their kits, and so it's now the go-to intervention.
President of the United States is not a public health office. And, to the best of my knowledge, President Trump has no experience (or perhaps even interest) in public health. In that sense, he lacks the background required to lead in that sphere. So the criticism of him seems to be less about leadership than following. Someone else makes the recommendation to wear face masks, the President listens to this person and deems them credible, and then the President "sets an example" for other people by publicly obeying the recommendation. That strikes me less as taking leadership then surrendering it.
And so I wonder if, perhaps, the problem is the way we understand leaders and leadership. The term has always struck me as nebulously virtuous; it's good to be a leader, because leadership is semi-defined as having some kind of positive influence over other people. But leadership can also be the simple state of being in charge.
There are a lot of assumptions and counterfactuals that go into making decisions when it's not possible to formally determine which of several courses of action are best to take. For many people, the problem wasn't the President's lack of leadership, it's that he declined to direct people (namely his supporters) to a place where his critics felt those people should go. I don't know that there is a way of resolving that conflict.
