Matt Zemek's Archives

The Race We Are Still Running

2011-12-30T16:02:00.000-08:00

Today, two tweeps I regularly derive enjoyment from - Bomani Jones and John Stansberry - showed how far we have to go in America on the matter of... no, not "race relations" (that's too limited a point of focus), but on the matter of understanding the larger reality of race as it affects attitudes, perceptions, and the whole of society. The point of this brief commentary is not to weigh in on what both men think about Cameron Newton. Read their linked articles above. It's similarly pointless to render a verdict on their assessments of the extent to which the "black quarterback" label is limiting social progress - you need to wrestle with what Mr. Jones said in his piece.

What I'm here to talk about is the long-distance race we are still running in America on issues pertaining to race. As Bomani Jones would tell you, for all the progress we've made on race in 50 years, racism is still quite prevalent in this country, anything but a fringe reality or a merely marginal presence on the national landscape. While gains have been made here and there in the course of time, they haven't brought us to a point where Americans enjoy both harmony and true understanding in relationship to "The Other," to people with identities different from our own. The Obama presidency and the issue of immigration have shown how uncomfortable Americans remain when dealing with a subject that cuts very deep and owns a central place in our young nation's history. The reality of our nation's prison system offers powerful testimony to the fact that race remains a source and manifestation of profound injustice, proving that we are hardly a "post-racial" society. No matter what you might think or believe about race, it shouldn't be hard to accept the claim that we - as Americans - have not "solved" questions of racial and ethnic identity. This stuff gets under our skin (and our skin color, as it were). One must keep that point firmly in mind before going forward here...

John Stansberry (@LonelyTailgater on Twitter) made two basically correct points in his piece above: 1) Things are better for black quarterbacks today than they were in 1978; 2) It is very tricky for racial minorities to talk about their own groups or members of their own groups in ways that are less than flattering. Those are two correct-enough assessments, and there's nothing to lament in Stansberry's ability to make those identifications.

The question becomes, what should be taken from those identifications?

One conclusion I certainly would NOT reach is that Jones - @bomani_jones on Twitter - is being a race-baiter or someone who is casually overstating the extent to which Cam Newton has been besieged by racist attitudes.

One can be a No. 1 NFL Draft pick and still encounter racist sentiments. Social progress on race can advance over the course of 33 years (a third of a century) and still fall far short of where it needs to be... even to the extent that racial matters stir the blood so easily in public forums. Stansberry was speaking on a very immediate level in his analysis, but he then chose to see Jones's piece in a similarly confined context. Jones was speaking on a much broader social level, targeting the persistence of prevalent racist attitudes in the football world and trying to point out - correctly - that we haven't figured out. He wasn't zeroing in on Newton's draft status but was instead trying to do what a good citizen does: Point the way to the larger truth instead of allowing society to settle for the simpler answer in a more limited context.

People might find flaws in the way Jones executed his argument or supported it (I personally think it was structurally sound), but the point I seek to stress is that Jones's intent was and is to bring society to a healthier understanding and awareness of what's really going on. As is the case in politics, one should be able to grow in respect for someone you disagree with if that person is acting on convictions with sincerity and a desire for a larger social good. Disagreement should not be seen as due cause for a parting of ways; misunderstandings should not be viewed as grounds for attacking other people or assigning negative motives to them. Disagreements, in short, are best handled when they're left as merely disagreements, differences meant to be talked about and fleshed out in the fullness of time. When disagreements are seen as unacceptable positions, opposing sides - on one issue, on a whole host of issues, or in various sectors of life (sports, church, government, medicine, etc.) - are pulled far apart, thereby maintaining a fractured environment in which social divisions only deepen and various communities have little incentive to see life through the prism of "The Other."

It is this social division - the perpetuation of an us-against-them mentality - which limits the ability of men and women to make even greater strides in our dealings. Bomani Jones's attempt to speak to a larger truth and John Stansberry's misreading of Jones's motives show us that it is so incredibly difficult to get any two Americans to arrive at a shared place of understanding on race. When I use the phrase "shared place of understanding," I'm not saying that we should all see issues the same way. I'm saying that we should allow a critique of racial issues or attitudes to be seen as an honest attempt to bring about social improvement and call people to be better... not as "race-baiting" or the self-interested pushing of buttons to elicit strong responses and gain heavy internet traffic (and hence, more money or publicity).

No matter what you think about Cam Newton, I think it's fair to say that the young man is not an easy figure to analyze without generating a strong response. Newton was immersed in a controversy at Auburn which gained sustained national attention (the controversy didn't involve wrongdoing by Newton himself; the point is that it touched a national nerve). Newton's "When the devil be messin', God be blessin'" comment also captured the attention of many Americans. He won the Heisman Trophy and has maintained a place in the spotlight, most recently for his stellar play on the field. If anyone with the national profile of Bomani Jones were to tackle Cam Newton, plenty of people would react. It's unfortunate that anyone would view Jones's article as an attempt to stir the pot and create trouble. Viewing the piece as an attempt to challenge the national conscience - especially within the innards of the football community - offers a far healthier and more productive way to view Jones's essay. Being able to engage him in thoughtful dialogue would then offer anyone - including Stansberry - a chance to understand Jones's views in greater detail. The assignation of motives without (and removed from) a process of questioning makes the storm of criticism against Jones counterproductive. Being open to the merits of what Jones has to say is the attitude which can enable healthy conversations about race to unfold in this country.

There's one other way in which to cultivate a climate that's conducive to the continuation of healthy conversations about race: Not calling a disagreer or opponent "racist" unless the reality is blindingly apparent beyond all reasonable doubt.

I do think that Jones's fiercest critics - those who assign the race-baiter label to him - are demonstrating a very impoverished view of race and racial tensions; accordingly, Jones's detractors reveal how hard it is to establish a nourishing, illuminating conversation about race free from suspicions about ulterior motives. However, having a poor understanding of racism doesn't make a person a racist. In fact, the very point of writing with such studied intelligence and precision on race - as Jones does - is to call the larger society to a greater awareness of racial tensions. Racism - like other sins - can be fully considered "sinful" to the extent that the person manifesting it understands larger truths and can make important distinctions as a citizen. Without broad and expansive knowledge, a person can't quite "own" his or her sins because that person can't be seen as a purposeful, intentional actor, someone guided by his/her own initiative. The fully knowing person - the person who SHOULD know between right and wrong - is the person guilty of racism. If one were to have this Cam Newton conversation face-to-face for 60 minutes and not break new ground, perhaps one could then be in a position to view an opponent through a dimmer lens. A few tweets and linked articles, however, do not provide enough basis for being able to say that another person is genuinely racist (and all that the R-word implies).

Many Americans are fatigued by conversations about race. They are tired of running. Yes, we still need to have conversations; yes, our society still isn't close to where it needs to be; yes, we can't think we've arrived at a post-racial paradise; however, in order to reach those who disagree with us, we have to understand where they live. We have to understand that fatigue exists, which means that it has to be dealt with and accounted for. Calling someone a racist merely tells that person, "I have no faith in your views and no respect for your place in this national conversation." The critique might perhaps be true, but in the absence of a face-to-face conversation or (at the very least) a genuinely extended dialogue which transcends six or eight tweets on one afternoon, it's not going to bring more people to the conversation table.

There are problems which need to be talked about in the wake of today's writings by Bomani Jones. I don't think John Stansberry understood very well what Jones had to say, and I am confident in saying that Stansberry should not have assigned motives to Jones; he should have instead asked questions before deciding to write what he wrote. Moreover, if he was still upset at Jones, he should have held his tongue instead of getting into a Twitter fight.

However, I don't think that the above paragraph makes John Stansberry a racist, and Stansberry shouldn't be hit with that label. Can this larger episode be seen as a teaching tool and a timely reminder - at the end of 2011 - that we need to work very hard to generate meaningful, productive dialogue about race? Yes. Does it need to be seen as a defining indictment of anyone? No - not at all.

How do we improve our society? By confronting tough problems. Bomani Jones is trying to do that, even if you might think he's not doing it the right way.

How can we confront tough problems? By talking about them in ways that foster greater understanding and awareness. Therefore, let's view Jones as the public thinker and conscience-raiser he is, instead of tarring him as an opportunist. Jones's critics, in turn, should be allowed to grow - as we all must grow in our lives, which unfold at different speeds - instead of being labeled as racist. Fatigue is part of the American story on race at this point in time; let's then catch a breath, rest our weary minds (fatigue does make us cranky and ornery, after all...), and be charitable in the way we talk to each other.

Let's also use essays instead of tweets to explain ourselves a little more. That would be a nice development to see in 2012, and just to back up my talk, I'll offer this blog site as a public space for anyone who wants to write an essay/extended commentary to unpack important viewpoints.

An Idea Whose Time Should Have Come Long Ago

2011-08-25T06:44:00.000-07:00

So, Mark Cuban is envisioning a Bracket Busters-like event for college football, adding marquee regular-season games to the slate in December. I don't know if the sport needs to add games, but it does need to have TV-friendly regular-season games in December. Such a route is precisely how one can avoid the thorniness of a playoff yet enhance the value of the regular season and promote an ACTUAL "national" champion (as opposed to a merely regional one).

Is this idea new? Not if you've read the Weekly Affirmation at College Football News.

Sherman, the Wayback Machine, please...

Week Ten: November 5, 2007

Short-Form Weekly Affirmation: Fast Track Gold Club
We begin this week's column with a creative idea that, due to its eminently sensible nature, won't ever be adopted by the powers that be in college football. Nevertheless, it's worth considering.

At a time in our sport's evolution when arguments (BCS or no BCS? Plus-one or playoff system? Four, eight, or 16 teams in a playoff?) are becoming calcified and stale, we need to inject some fresh thinking into the discussion. After spending the past few seasons without an original thought on this subject--due to the need to bash the BCS into the ground--I've emerged from something of a cave and can offer a new proposal that should satisfy college football's various warring factions.

Let's call this the "College Football Flex Plan."

If you follow pro football, you almost surely know that last year witnessed the beginning of the NFL's thoughtful and market-friendly decision to provide a "flex plan" in terms of Sunday Night game selection for NBC's season-long package. The concept is simple and smart: if a given matchup is a stinker, relegate it from Sunday night to Sunday afternoon, where FOX or CBS can pick up the game and assign it to the No. 5 broadcast crew. Since NBC pays big bucks for its primetime-only package, the Peacock is able to select a showcase game for late-season inclusion into its broadcast schedule. This kind of creative and nimble thinking illustrates why the NFL can be so incredibly profitable even while possessing a generally unwatchable product. (Side note: have you ever stopped to consider why an early November regular-season game, Patriots-Colts, was so thoroughly hyped? Could it be because every other NFL team suffers so substantially by comparison?) College football--in terms of satisfying its fans while also adding more integrity to the (still-mythical) national championship selection process--should learn from the NFL and adopt its own kind of flex plan.

Instead of explaining the plan and then laying it out, let's just describe the plan and then explain it.

The "College Football Flex Plan" (CFFP) would involve the playing of ten regular-season games from Labor Day weekend through the second weekend of November, with one bye included for every team. Conference games and established non-conference rivalries would comprise these ten contests. On the third weekend of November, everyone would get a week off. On the fourth weekend of November--usually Thanksgiving weekend--the teams in conferences that play a championship game (ACC, Big XII, SEC) could play their eleventh game. On the first weekend of December, the Big Ten, Big East, and Pac-10 could play their eleventh game, while the SEC, ACC and Big XII stage their title tilts.

Why the vague, cryptic and murky reference to the "eleventh game"? Glad you asked. The eleventh game forms the core of the CFFP, and it addresses the kinds of tensions that are emerging in the 2007 college football season (not to mention most seasons).

If you're a college football fan, you obviously want the two best teams to play for the national title. But in order to get to that point, you also want the deadwood to be cleared away first. You want the best teams in each conference to knock heads before the bowl selection show (or perhaps, in future years, a Final Four and/or plus one system). In other words, you would love for Kansas to play Oregon. You would love for Connecticut to play Oklahoma. The bowl games usually provide the sexy matchups, but in order to determine college football's best teams, you first need to identify--and, if at all possible, succeed in creating--the not-so-sexy matchups that emerge in a given season. The rise of previously unheralded schools such as Kansas, UConn, Virginia, Arizona State, Illinois, Kentucky, Boston College, Hawaii and Missouri (last year, the list included Rutgers, Wake Forest, Arkansas and BYU, but not as many upper-tier schools as is the case in 2007) demands that these teams play each other to separate the pretenders from the contenders. More specifically, these teams need to meet late in the season, when identities have been formed and early-season rust (think of Appalachian State over Michigan, South Florida over Auburn, and Washington over Boise State) is not an issue.

These kinds of games--a college football equivalent of college basketball's "Bracket Buster Saturday"--would occur in late November and early December under the CFFP. The mechanism used to decide the home team in these games could be arrived at in a number of different ways. Perhaps there would be an open drawing; perhaps certain conference matchups would be decided in advance; perhaps TV would carry most of the weight in creating these matchups. At any rate, you'd have late-season matchups involving teams coming off bye weeks. You'd have non-conference games that would be part of the 11-game regular season, but they'd acquire a playoff-like feel. The arrangement would be friendly to television, but it would also be friendly to the fans of the participating schools because they wouldn't be staged at neutral locations. All in all, the CFFP would settle a whole round of arguments at the end of the regular season, which would then make the conference title games and bowl games that much more interesting as well. Moreover, the CFFP--by providing relevant, freshly-arranged matchups at the end of the regular season, would almost certainly create a scenario in which remaining unbeatens would either fall or rise to the top. With this kind of a plan in place, the bowl system could be retained but still produce a more deserving national champion if a plus-one was inserted.

Let's summarize the "College Football Flex Plan" in a simple way: the CFFP shortens the regular season but adds playoff-style excitement; it provides compelling non-conference matchups, but within the regular season and, moreover, at the season's end; it's friendly to TV and fans; it enables teams to compete after a bye week, but not with a ridiculously long (51-day, Ohio State-style) layoff; it keeps the bowl system in place, but it also requires a plus one at the end. All in all, the CFFP provides something for everyone. It's worth looking at... even if the workings of the world suggest that sensible things just don't happen very often in life.

Somber Is The Price We Pay: Christianity, Ethics, And The Response To All Things Bin Laden

2011-05-05T13:38:00.000-07:00

The first thing that must be said in this essay is simple: I'm a coward.

I'm a coward because I don't have the guts to be as good as Jesus of Nazareth. I'm a coward because I don't have the moral courage of Martin Luther King, Gandhi, or Dorothy Day, my main role models as a person of faith and as someone who knows that human beings are not meant to kill each other. I'm a coward for not going as far as the best souls who have ever guided us when they were robed in human flesh and feelings.

I'm a coward. Let that reality - and it is a reality - frame the rest of this essay and how it is processed on moral and ethical levels.

It's been quite a week for Americans, as we wrestle with the reality and aftermath of Osama Bin Laden's death. Everything about this seminal moment in world history - and it is a seminal moment, even if you believe that Bin Laden was no longer the same threat he was in 2001 - has generated necessary discussions about the human condition.

Questions of how we conduct policy, how we deal with mass-murderers, how we treat inconvenient kinds of lives in manifestly threatening situations are daunting enough. The Bin Laden death has forced us to go even deeper, though: How should we react to the death of a person who committed supremely evil and vile acts? How should we speak of a person who didn't just end roughly 3,000 lives in horrifying fashion, but shattered the hundreds of thousands of lives connected to the unfortunate souls who worked in the upper reaches of the Twin Towers on that September 11 morning?

Nearly 10 full years after 9/11, how should we react - it's a necessary question because it's a matter of heart and soul, the stuff of life at its deepest, truest core, the stuff by which people of faith align their lives and - for the nonbeliever - the internal energy that shapes the society we live in. Maybe the first 24 hours after Osama's death painted a picture in which emotions were too raw and the catharsis was too fresh. Now, though, a full four days after Sunday's "where-were-you-when-you-heard?" moment, we should be able to wrestle with these tensions in earnest so that we can be our best selves and show as much to the world when our inner fiber is tested on a grand scale.

The most basic thing to say about the nation's response to Bin Laden's death - and your own response, whatever it was - is that we all draw a line somewhere. As we swim through life, millions of little experiences over many decades come together to form a larger moral canvas, a fully-laid-out, whole-cloth expression of everything we believe to be good, true, necessary, and paramount in our lives. Decades of encounters, perceived in our own unique way and weighed against the stories we hear from others around us, create a larger flow of life and frame the way we've come to understand the great truths of existence.

There is a finite point I wish to make about all of this, but before getting to that point, one must ask questions on the path to deeper understanding of oneself as a person. We all draw lines in different places, but before talking about those lines, let's at least make sure we're considering all the angles when we start drawing:

Where do you draw the line on war, on special ops, on drones, and on aiding rebel groups or ruling governments in foreign countries? What are the criteria that should (or do, or must) guide these actions?

What is a reasonable cost of war or select missions to take out specific individuals such as Osama Bin Laden? What's the cost in lives that's reasonable? The cost in money? The cost in emotional strain, the divorces of military families, the mental health of soldiers, the spiritual consequence of being given a professional/military assignment to kill another human being?

These questions are not asked in a partisan manner, but in a coldly dispassionate and analytical way. Costs are not just monetary; some things in life ARE worth the great holistic cost. The point is to make sure that we account for the full cost of actions; that's the only way in which we can confidently say that some things are worth doing in any circumstance.

Continuing the questions that must be asked this week: How many other people are there like Bin Laden who should be taken out? What guides that specific kind of decision?

Should these kinds of missions ever be undertaken at all (i.e., should we consider pacifism or not)?

Can torture or extreme methods of attempted coercion (i.e., waterboarding) ever be condoned in an attempt to gain information?

When something like the killing of Osama Bin Laden is successfully carried out, how should it then be seen - as an achievement, a grim but necessary duty, a satisfying triumph over evil, or as another distinct reality not expressed in the three previous options?

Should photos of the dead person (Bin Laden) be posted? What criteria should guide the posting of the photos? How should we view the photos themselves and the decision of whether to post them or not?

These questions are not meant to steer you to one way of being or one course of action, but to merely get all of us to make sure that we all draw our own lines based on highly-developed and fully fleshed-out criteria.

Whether you're a liberal or a conservative or a libertarian; an anti-war advocate or a strong believer in the need for an interventionist foreign policy; a supporter of soft power or hard power; or, lastly, a supporter of defense spending or defense cuts, these are the kinds of questions that have to be wrestled with. Human beings can, do and always will possess different ways of viewing a given issue, but what's unallowable is to arrive at views without a clear, coherent and layered ethical architecture, a finely-developed framework created by decades of living, decades of wrestling with life's most difficult challenges on a soul level or - for the nonbeliever - a deeply internal level of heart and mind. Arriving at a viewpoint through careful work doesn't guarantee correctness or accuracy, but views gained without much forethought do indeed guarantee chaos before too long.

It should be clear that the process of asking so many questions (and they're just a few of the many queries that could be presented to anyone grappling with the moral and ethical dilemmas posed by "Osama Week") is designed to achieve one simple thing: The formation of well-developed criteria for the moral and ethical lines we draw in our lives, lines that - when taken to the policy level and adopted by leaders - form the stance of the United States Government in front of its people and the larger world beyond its borders.

With that having been established, this essay now moves to the person whose life and teachings are supposed to hold primacy for a great many Americans: Jesus of Nazareth.

Cast aside the longstanding debates about whether America is a “Christian nation” by charter and, in a different vein, if America is Christian or secular on a cultural level. What is still beyond dispute is that of religious adherents in America, most profess to be Christian by a wide margin. Moreover, it’s also beyond dispute that some general adherence to Christian religious faith is seen as a general asset in presidential and national American politics. Of course, Jeremiah Wright proved to be thorny for Barack Obama, but that drama from the 2008 campaign was more a matter of casting a cloud over the perceived legitimacy of Obama’s Christianity. It was not an instance in which perceived authentic Christianity was suddenly a weakness.

The point is plain: Being Christian is seen as important in America’s political arena, even though there are large blocks of voters on the Left who are passionately, enduringly atheist, agnostic, secularist, or a combination thereof. Because Christian identity owns such centrality and primacy in our nation’s national life (not necessarily its culture at large, but certainly in politics writ large), it is therefore relevant and necessary to constantly keep the life, example and teachings of Jesus in prominent public view.

Theology is its own sticky wicket, and there are many debates about the divinity of Jesus that will never die (the word choice is not intentional, by the way). However, what’s great about the life of Jesus is that – while immensely layered, paradoxical and mysterious on some levels – he left behind some decidedly unambiguous statements and examples on matters of life and death.

“Those who live by the sword shall also perish by it” – this, mind you, just hours before he would die at the hands of Roman imperial power.

“Turn the other cheek” – no, not a statement of completely passive submission to violence at the hands of another person, but a very intentional and genuinely nonviolent way of aggressively resisting oppression and mistreatment.

“Love your enemies; pray for those who persecute you” – this is Jesus’s most difficult teaching by far, but it is a core part of the human Jesus’s message and therefore something every Christian person has to grapple with. It certainly can’t be exempted from the Christian call.

To be clear, “loving one’s enemies” does not mean approving of their actions. Similarly, forgiveness does not mean immediately, reflexively extending absolution or consolation to an evildoer. The repentance of the evildoer and a mutual acknowledgment of the hurt caused by one party to the other are parts of necessary forgiveness. Nevertheless, the call does remain to love the other person, no matter how unattractive or evil that person might in fact be. Jesus sets the bar very high; it’s why he’s Jesus, the only sinless person who ever lived, despite inhabiting the same human flesh and the same biological impulses all of us have.

Realizing the clarity and completeness of Jesus’s identity as an exemplar of vigorous and aggressive nonviolent resistance to the oppression he endured on Good Friday, we – especially those of us who claim the mantle of Christian faith but also those who view Jesus as a great teacher or role model on a solely human level – must at least attempt to square our lives with the life of Jesus. This is when an event such as the killing of Osama Bin Laden brings us in touch with very difficult and messy realities of human life in a context of mass civilization, not the primitive hunter-gatherer societies of prehistoric times when finely-crafted systems of governance had not yet emerged.

Once human beings developed and grew to their present levels of cognitive and moral awareness, we – as a species - generated moral codes, laws, and various standards for the regulation of peaceable behavior on a massive scale. What Jesus did and taught offers an imposing challenge to the fragile balance of human life in cities and clustered communities. What is under discussion in “Osama Week” is nothing less than a revisiting of all that it means to exist as a global community of almost (now) seven billion persons, on our way to 8, 9, and 10 billion in the very near future. Just how are we to act – and think, and feel, and outwardly emote – on a planet with multiple hundreds of countries, dozens of different races, and an accordingly vast range of languages and lifestyles? This is what it means to be human, and on these bewildering questions, Jesus established his own clear standard.

Because Jesus sets the bar so high, we must then realize – and this is part of why I am indeed a profound moral coward – that almost all of us fall short when comparing ourselves to the carpenter’s son from Nazareth.

The difficult thing to realize about the Jesus Standard and the human standard – including Matt Zemek’s standard – is that on a planet with billions of people and many bad actors, the ideal of complete nonviolence is almost impossible to realistically uphold. Let’s play along with this hypothetical: If an attacker broke into Jesus’s home today, Jesus would aggressively pursue active nonviolent resistance. He would project complete serenity in bearing and appearance but demonstrate moral authority and emotional control of the entire situation. He would express empathy with his attacker yet shed light on the smallness and weakness of what the attacker was doing. The man who exposed Pontius Pilate’s doublespeak and moral cowardice while not insulting the Roman governor would take a similar tack with a would-be assailant. The exact words would be unique to the situation, but the fundamental approach would not waver… not from the one who was supremely righteous (righteous in a human sense; believers would add a divine layer of spiritual truth to Jesus, but again, even for the nonbeliever, Jesus offers the ultimate standard of human conduct) but yet did not resist his death with a show of physical force.

In response to the example and teachings of Jesus, I can only say that I fall short of them. I can only say that any attempt to do violence against another human being falls short of the Jesus Standard. Yet, I do intellectually embrace a way of being that falls short of the Jesus Standard; it’s the gap between pure teaching and realpolitik, between the vision Jesus had for humanity and the realism of living in the midst of a complicated world.

I cannot deny or run away from this: When defending oneself in a house or defending one’s country against a mass-murderer who constantly loomed as a terrorist threat, I can’t say that I’m a full-on pacifist. I can’t. That’s what makes me a moral coward. It’s where I choose to draw the line in my outlook on the world and how to conduct myself as an individual citizen. It’s also where I draw the line in my view of what the United States can and can’t do. Nevertheless, it puts me below the Jesus Standard; it leaves me short of Jesus’s teachings in full.

Where do I draw the line on the questions raised above? Jesus would want me to view every single killing of another person as deficient; at least, that’s true if I take the passion and crucifixion narratives at face value (which, as a Christian, I darn well should). However, I fall short of the Jesus Standard when I say that there are a few people who should be killed. Hitler was one, Bin Laden another, Joe Stalin another, Saddam Hussein another, Pol Pot another. Unrepentant mass murderers who – moreover – are not likely to be replaced by anything or anyone worse than them are the people on this planet (there are only a select few of them) whose deaths would generally benefit their local populations and/or people in other lands who live under the threat of terrorism or death by violent means.

On a matter that’s somewhat (but not completely) related to the killing of terrorists, I oppose the death penalty but believe, as an example, that Jeffery Dahmer was an exception, a person who – without repentance – needed to be put to death because of his…. uhhh… his choice in meats. I hold that there are a few occasions in which it is necessary to do something that fails to meet the Jesus Standard of moral and ethical conduct. These kinds of actions – and the realities attached to them – are called “necessary evils.” They are, in short, the kinds of actions that reflect the gap between the ideal Jesus Standard and, on the other hand, Life In A Complicated, Messy, Violent And Difficult Mass Society On Planet Earth. A helpful way of illustrating this concept is that conservatives are much more pronounced in making divisions between the Jesus Standard and Life In A Complicated World – that’s not wrong or immoral or unethical or anything of the sort; I’m merely saying that’s where conservatives generally draw their lines. My line – like the lines of other generally antiwar liberals – is drawn with a much greater internal insistence on the primacy of nonviolence, even if I know that 100 percent nonviolence is not quite attainable.

I realize there are many other questions and standards to be raised on these issues: For instance, just how does one assess a “mass murderer unlikely to be replaced by anyone worse?” Does the number of people murdered matter, or does the savagery of the deaths caused hold a greater degree of primacy? How does one determine that a person is “unlikely to be replaced by anyone worse?” That’s the detail work we all must do in surveying various situations and making tough ethical and moral choices. The point is that we should wrestle with these things far more deeply than we do; another core point is that Jesus, fully human (whether or not you believe that he is divine), has left us with his own clear way of handling these kinds of problems.

We now arrive at the final portion of this essay, in which – having presented the questions we must wrestle with and then laying down the Jesus Standard – I will attempt to establish the one point I want all of you to retain in some form or fashion: When necessary evils are involved – and Osama Week is nothing if not an extended drama in which we are all forced to confront necessary evils – what we feel is as important as what we do (and what we approve of doing).

Here’s the basic explanation/unpacking of that statement:

When choosing between a clear moral good and a clear moral evil, it is only the act that matters, at least in an immediate sense. Jesus, in fact, taught the Apostles about the person who said he would not do the right thing but then went out and did it, balanced against the person who said he would do the right thing but then failed to actually do it. When a given moral or ethical choice is clear and not that difficult, we can feel torn-up and conflicted inside, battered and buffeted by desires to have an affair or punch an irritating stranger in the face. We can feel hurt, horny or restless. That’s okay, because on that level, feelings are undeniable and unavoidable. We all feel the surge of blood in our veins at times, the desire to gain revenge or satisfy a bodily craving. As long as we don’t act on those urges, we’re morally and ethically fine.

When necessary evils enter the picture, that’s when things get very complicated very quickly.

When killing someone with a weapon… or having an abortion for anything less than the threat to your own life as a biological mother… or divorcing a spouse… or telling a bald-faced lie on a matter of appreciable significance, or something of like nature, one is participating in a necessary evil. The person doing so is not evil as a result, but the person is part of a larger reality of evil. It’s not an evil act for a scared young woman to have an abortion out of fear that she can’t support her child (conservatives might disagree, and I would understand why; however, that’s another discussion for another day…), but the reality of a nascent womb-held life being ended? That’s an evil reality. (Would that we could distinguish between evilness inside human persons and evil realities; evil is a reality or condition more than a characteristic of individuals. People who sincerely try to do good often contribute to evil; this doesn’t make the person evil, but it magnifies the presence of evil in the world.)

Accordingly, when pondering what to do – and what official U.S. Government policy should be – on the matters of extrajudicial killings, torture (waterboarding in particular), the waging of war, and the posting of photos (among many other things), we need to realize that one of our core responsibilities is to make sure that while participating in a necessarily evil reality, we do not become the evil we claim to oppose and despise. Osama Bin Laden was an evil man, not just a person who sincerely tried to do good but wound up adding to the evil of (and in) the world as it is. That’s precisely why I felt he needed to be killed. However, the fact that I supported his killing puts a profound moral weight at my feet, and this is what connects feelings with actions.

Why does it matter how we Americans felt – and how we emoted – in the aftermath of the announcement of Osama’s death? It matters because we participated in a necessary evil. We, the United States, participated in an act that would be unquestionably immoral if done to a 9-year-old girl on a street corner, but which attained a certain measure of morality because the person was instead Osama Bin Laden, mastermind/funder of the 9/11 attacks. That mixture of situational morality and underlying immorality (at least relative to the Jesus Standard) defines a classically necessary evil.

Tough stuff, yes? Here’s the kicker: Because it’s difficult, and because it falls short of the Jesus Standard, such an action needs to complemented by a very specific emotional and spiritual response in order for its most moral dimensions to be magnified while allowing its least moral dimensions to recede in size and influence.

To illustrate this point, I bring you Dietrich Bonhoeffer. As you might know, Bonhoeffer was a Christian minister who actively resisted Hitler. There is still debate about the specific details of his involvements in anti-Hitler activity, but Bonhoeffer’s words – presented here – illustrate the proper, honorable, noble, moral, and ethical way to handle the realm of necessary evils, actions that are deemed to be necessary for the planet while falling short of the Jesus Standard. Read the above link for a fuller unpacking of Bonhoeffer’s views, but they boil down to this: When performing or participating in a necessary evil, one should not be exultant or regard one’s actions as the height of morality. The words of the just-beatified Pope John Paul II give ballast to Bonhoeffer’s position and stance: “War is always a defeat for humanity.”

War might be necessary – it helped Karol Wojtyla’s native Poland for a time, and World War II, though not supported by everyone (Dorothy Day, one of my spiritual heroes, protested it), did stop the spread of Nazism. However, war's death-bearing reality in itself is never a positive for humanity. World War II’s undeniable success on a fundamental level does not obscure - and must not be allowed to obscure - the fact that a broken world is what gave rise to it. The failure for humanity is not that a bloody war stopped Hitler; it’s that Hitler was able to gain enough of a global foothold in 1938 and 1939 that he and Mussolini (and Hirohito) became such large-scale threats to other nations and continents.

The point is plain: War, even when necessary, is part of the evil of reality. Participating in war or doing war-like things is not the summit of Christian virtue – Jesus submitted to death rather than lash out at his oppressors with physical force and violence. Therefore, when Dietrich Bonhoeffer talked about killing Hitler, he did not ascribe supreme morality to his intentions. We might not match the Jesus Standard, so the price we pay – the price which Bonhoeffer insisted on paying – was, at the very least, not being joyful in the process of participating in a necessary evil.

We don’t get to gloat. We don’t get to cheer. Not when falling short of the Jesus Standard as we make the necessary calculation that We Live In A Complicated, Messy And Broken World.

We can kill a select few people, yes, but we don’t get to regard such actions as the height of morality or virtue. Not when a necessary evil is involved.

We can say that Osama Bin Laden’s death is a net-plus for the planet, as President Barack Obama basically did in his Sunday night address, but no, we don’t get to regard the event as an achievement, a sign of something to be PROUD of, as Obama then did with these words:

Yet today’s achievement is a testament to the greatness of our country and the determination of the American people.

The cause of securing our country is not complete. But tonight, we are once again reminded that America can do whatever we set our mind to.

Those words strongly suggest – if not outrightly indicate - the kind of occasion that is worth celebrating, like a space shuttle launch or the attainment of some new frontier, some higher vista, of human accomplishment. No, when one participates in a necessary evil, that kind of language is not allowed. Falling short of the Jesus Standard – in the best of the moral tradition affirmed by Bonhoeffer – can be viewed as necessary when life becomes wrenchingly complicated and messy, but it cannot be viewed as party-time or an occasion for joy.

You might think that we should kill even more people than Osama or just a literal handful of people; I can respect that view even though I would disagree with it.

You might think that torture should be allowed if it can deliver high-value targets or information. I understand that view, even though I would even more vigorously disagree with it.

You might – heck, you almost certainly do – draw your line of morality and ethics in a place different from mine. There’s nothing wrong or problematic about that. We’re different, each and every one of us, and while we strive for consistency in the application of our principles, we will always make certain exceptions here and there. The disagreements between conservatives and liberals or (as has been shown during Osama Week on matters of national security) between pro-Obama and anti-Obama factions are nothing other than a product of the fact that people draw lines and locate points of emphasis in different places. That’s fine, and that will always be the case. However, regardless of where you stand on these and any other issues (foreign or domestic) that involve necessary evils, it is incumbent upon you – upon all of us – to realize that we must be somber, sober and distinctly non-celebratory as we participate in, support, or react to such actions.

Somber is the price we pay for doing necessary things that are part of the evil of reality. That’s what it means to be a human person who wrestles with matters of morality and ethics, especially from a Christian standpoint and especially as a citizen who has to think through the implications of his actions, positions, AND personal emotional responses to events. That’s the one thing I want to leave you with.

Now, a brief postscript on the above point as I conclude this essay:

Why does this matter, beyond any reasons that have already been stated?

If a nation – a larger community of people represented by its government and, most centrally, President Obama - is truly sober and somber in response to the killing of Osama Bin Laden or another person with a similarly blood-stained record, the rest of the world takes notice. Not the fervent anti-Americans, but most of the world. That stuff matters in terms of national security and creating a better balance of life on this planet.

It matters for this reason too: If our leaders – who do have to participate in necessary evils – regarded their actions with the moral temperance and seriousness of Dietrich Bonhoeffer, they would, first of all, commit far fewer atrocities because of a dogged insistence on not creating any more evil-in-reality than absolutely necessary. If one claims to view war as something that should only be used as a last resort, or if one similarly claims that torture is allowable only in a few select circumstances, one is accordingly forced to create standards for the use of each of those necessary evils and, as a result, ensure that they are viewed as tactics/measures that need to be carefully limited so as to not produce any more evil than necessary.

Therefore, if one displays happiness or overt satisfaction in the aftermath of sanctioning war or torture (which, solely for the sake of argument, MIGHT be deemed acceptable under certain circumstances in the eyes of some persons), one is thereby expressing – not just within one’s being but to the outside world as well – an enjoyment of such actions that is not consistent with a desire to limit their use/frequency/prevalence to the fullest possible extent. There’s a reason we get upset when we see other people in other nations cheering a given death. There’s a reason why select targeted killings aren’t viewed as moral progress by other antiwar advocates: The killings for which the U.S. Government is responsible are more than select; they’re more than just the three or five or seven people (no more than 10 on the planet if we applied a strict standard) who might deserve “mass-murderer-take-him-out-now” status.

If our society – and the leaders our society produces – possessed a Bonhoeffer-based acknowledgment of the impoverished nature of necessary evils in comparison with the Jesus Standard, we would not allow necessary evils to spill into unnecessary (and therefore morally unacceptable) evils. If we, like Bonhoeffer, acknowledged that even necessary actions will fall short of the Jesus Standard and therefore should not be viewed as the summit of virtue, we – as a collective society – could release the photo of a dead Osama Bin Laden knowing that said release was not an act of “spiking the football” or “holding up a trophy” but, in complete contrast, an act of owning our necessary evil and grimly accepting the cost of our action: the killing – necessary, but unfortunate – of another human being.

Somber is the price we pay. Sober is the response to the human cost when necessary evils are involved. No, this is not concern-trollism or thought-policing or emotional nannying. This is the stuff of life at its deepest core, of human grappling at its most complicated spiritual and emotional centers.

As a Christian, I end by wishing that the peace of the Crucified And Nonviolent Christ be with you all.

Sincerely,
Matt Zemek

Verily and Undeniably A Moral Coward Who Falls Short Of The Jesus Standard By Miles

The Bracket As I Think The Selection Committee, Not Matt Zemek, Will Shape It

2011-03-13T14:38:00.000-07:00

Pretty simple - this is not the Zemek-endorsed bracket, but the bracket I think the Committee will create.

I think Harvard and USC should be allowed into this year's field at the expense of Penn State and Clemson. I also think Notre Dame, not Duke, should get a No. 1 seed. At any rate, I don't do this the way Joe Lunardi and Andy Glockner do, so my opinions really aren't worth a dime (or anything beyond). I do this because I love it and because it's a part of my life. I can't spend Selection Sunday without putting out one projected bracket.

The envelope, please (without the sites of specific subregional pods - that's Glockner territory! :-)

EAST

1 Ohio St
16 Play-in: UNC Asheville/Alabama State

8 Washington
9 George Mason

5 Temple
12 Virginia Tech

4 Syracuse
13 Princeton

6 Vanderbilt
11 Colorado

3 Louisville
14 Bucknell

7 UNLV
10 Villanova

2 North Carolina
15 Akron

WEST (Plays East in Final Four National Semifinals - One Half Of Bracket)

1 Duke
16 Hampton

8 Missouri
9 Richmond

5 W Virginia
12 Illinois

4 Kentucky
13 Belmont

6 Georgetown
11 Mich State

3 San Diego State
14 Indiana State

7 Old Dominion
10 Tennessee

2 Notre Dame
15 Boston U

SOUTHEAST

1 Pitt
16 Play-in: UTSA/UALR

8 Utah State
9 UCLA

5 Texas A&M
12 FIRST FOUR: Georgia/Clemson

4 Wisconsin
13 Morehead St

6 Xavier
11 Memphis

3 Purdue
14 Long Island

7 Cincy
10 Gonzaga

2 Texas
15 Northern Colorado

SOUTHWEST

1 Kansas
16 Santa Barbara

8 Florida State
9 Marquette

5 St. John's
12 FIRST FOUR: Penn State/VCU

4 BYU
13 Wofford

6 Arizona
11 Butler

3 Florida
14 Oakland

7 Kansas State
10 Michigan

2 Connecticut
15 St. Peter's

Politics Is Local, Sex Is Personal… But The Implications Are Profound

2011-03-03T11:58:00.000-08:00

An Essay On Everything, Not Just Brandon Davies and BYU

It’s quite ironic that in my double-life on Twitter, the account ostensibly devoted solely to college sports (and nothing else) became the account that has forced me to “out” myself to a readership I wanted to shield from my political and religious views. When I comment on sports at @MattZemek_CFN, I have always wanted to make my comments solely about sports, leaving politics out of the equation. Yes, in my columns for College Football News, I have injected (and will continue to inject) politics into the equation at times, but I’ve done so only when I’ve felt it absolutely necessary to make an important point with a maximum amount of impact. Now, however, it seems that it’s pointless to maintain the division between Twitter accounts. The Brandon Davies-BYU story has made such segregation virtually impossible.

Please pull up a chair, then, and make sure you have a good 30 minutes of free time before you read this essay. If the Davies/BYU story and its myriad implications are to be discussed in an adult manner, a few 140-character tweets certainly won’t suffice. Moreover, confining this issue to premarital sex or out-of-wedlock births would also fail to do justice to the real center of this conversation: life, and more specifically, how it can be lived in full.

If you are pressed for time, or if you’ve been moved to think about BYU’s honor code (as it pertains to premarital sex, not caffeine or other matters of lesser import) in a deeper way and want outside reading to inform your evolving perspective, may I suggest that you read about the life of Dorothy Day, the co-founder of the Catholic Worker movement in depression-era New York on May 1, 1933. The Long Loneliness is Day’s powerful autobiography. Love is the Measure, by Jim Forest, is regarded as the definitive biography. In 2003, Rosalie Riegel collected remembrances of Day in the book Dorothy Day: Portraits By Those Who Knew Her. It would satisfy my curiosity to know how many of you have even heard of Dorothy Day, because in many ways, she forms an important root of this larger conversation about sex, the healthy society, and the flourishing of the human person.

Let’s give the (very) short story about Dorothy Day for those not interested in further study: She grew up as a radical journalist, a communist and anarchist. She drank and partied wildly with other writers in big-city environments during the heady times that marked the first quarter of America’s 20th century. She had an abortion and would not have lived very long on the BYU campus – let’s put it that way. However, the birth of her first child in many ways shocked her and created a wellspring of powerful feeling that led her toward Roman Catholicism, away from the beliefs of friends and – over the course of the following decades – her foremost lover, Forster Batterham. (This is a clue to the title of her autobiography, The Long Loneliness.) Day’s life encompassed quite radical and seemingly counterintuitive positions; she acquired the appearance of a liberal protestor on economic and foreign-policy issues, but she grew into a quite orthodox Catholic whose style and manner of worship cuts against so much of the prevailing liberal sentiment against organized religion. Day, as a Catholic, was an immensely complicated person, and that’s the jumping-off point to my story and the deeper layers of context behind L’Affaire (or affair?) Davies.

No, Catholics don’t have a monopoly on truth… or evil… or complexity. It’s the same for any group (Muslims, Jews, Buddhists, anyone). However, what I can say as a Catholic myself is that Catholicism doesn’t fit neatly into one political or ideological framework. The same Church that is staunchly opposed to abortion is just as adamant in its support of illegal immigrants. The same Church that presided over decades of abuse of minors in multiple continents is supportive of labor unions. The same Church that has undeniably presided over profound persecutions in its long and tortured history is also the same church that inspired Mother Teresa, Henri Nouwen, Thomas Merton, and prophetic modern-day voices such as Richard Rohr and Ronald Rolheiser, my foremost spiritual guides and a pair of men who would (I dare say) make a lot of secular lefties think that maybe religion can still be done well after all. Catholicism is a complicated realm, and it’s because I inhabit it that the Brandon Davies story absolutely requires a delicate, multi-layered unpacking.

Let’s now step back on a number of levels and see this story in its fullness: In many ways, the overarching theme of this piece – for people of all faiths and viewpoints, all races and creeds and ways of life, all ideological and political worldviews, and all forms of intellectual architectures – is that one act/statement/effort in one realm of human activity cannot be so easily equated with a larger opinion/verdict/attitude toward other realms of life. Last night’s Twitter rant – like the productive discussions that followed it – was still necessarily limited by time and space, not to mention Twitter’s snack-size method of content delivery. Here is an extended attempt to do justice to all the responses I received last night… responses that transcend the narrow context of Brandon Davies with one woman in one relationship.

The first thing to appreciate about the BYU honor code (and the strong reactions it has generated) is that it needs to be separated from the Mormon Church at large. Similarly, the behavior of Brandon Davies needs to be separated from BYU’s larger purpose in instilling the honor code in the first place. This is where last night’s discussion became fragmented and ran far afield. Let’s now try to arrive at a better understanding of each other and – more importantly – progress as human persons who have different life stories and – hence – unavoidably different perspectives on what it means to live a full and well-ordered life.

The individual act of having sex outside of or before marriage can be done well, faithfully, and honorably. Was Brandon Davies’s behavior inherently or objectively wrong? No, it wasn’t and isn’t. I don’t get (or have) the right to make that call. Similarly, I don’t get to say that premarital sex is objectively or inherently wrong. It could very well be that Davies and his girlfriend have established a relationship built on solid ground. None of us – critics or supporters – truly knows, but if indeed a young man and woman express their sexuality with care and delicacy, surely no wrong or harm is being committed.

The foremost tension point in this particular discussion is that a truly flourishing society should involve the free choice of the best and most ideal behavior, behavior conducive to social goods. As you can see, there are two components to that sentence: free choice and ideal behavior. The Brandon Davies story is understandably (even rightly) sensitive and contentious – we all saw how much critical mass the story acquired on Twitter last night, and how quickly it surged to the forefront of the nation’s consciousness – because it so powerfully exposed deeply-rooted tension points in American society. Without assigning views or outlooks to any one political or religious group, it can be said that there are considerable strains of thought in America that are fighting for centrality and primacy. One such strain is the libertarian strain, in which the individual person, unfettered and fully autonomous, should choose for his/her own life course. Another strain holds that the common good is the foremost goal of society and that, given our dependent nature as human persons, our institutions and laws should facilitate communal flourishing.

Are you beginning to sense the larger reasons why the BYU honor code has all of us talking and has formed such a profound outpouring of necessarily emotional (but thoughtful and soulful) commentary?

Just wait – the landscape of immense social and cultural fragmentation is only beginning to be outlined.

All of the above tensions get multiplied by a factor of 1,000 when one then realizes that the foremost competing strains of America’s three spheres of life – the cultural, the spiritual, and the political – get turned in different directions depending on the relevant institutions involved. When the center of a public debate is a religious institution, the American Left and the American Right, by and large (not every lefty or every righty, but a predominance thereof), acquire one very distinct set of views. When the center of public debate shifts to a governmental institution or outlet, a very different set of views emerges. It is something of a generalization, I admit, but generalizations – like clichés – do indeed possess a certain amount of truth at their core. So it is in politics, culture and spirituality.

Liberals and conservatives in America see institutionalized churches and governments in very different ways when said churches and governments exist and/or agitate beyond an intimately local level. Just a little bit of reflection and observation should lead anyone – Left, Right, or Center (or beyond those frames of political labeling or understanding) – to the not-very-controversial conclusion that liberals (secular or religious) will generally view the Catholic Church and the Mormon Church with the same levels of antipathy that American conservatives will generally reserve for the Federal Government. Whereas liberals will (again, it’s a generalization, but one with a fundamental amount of truth) angrily tell Church and Government to “get out of my bedroom,” the conservative will tell Government to “get out of my wallet and my workplace.” Whereas liberals have a deep distrust of institutionalized religion, conservatives – especially religious ones – worry that Christianity (in particular) is losing a foothold in this country. On a number of fronts, liberals and conservatives might share the same distrust of Church or Government on a national (even global) scope and scale, but the roots and reasons for such suspicion will often be diametrically different.

I, for instance, think Barack Obama’s a horrible president because his use of predator drones makes him a war criminal, a man guilty of excessive force in violation of international law and the specific prohibition of disproportionate force. (His courting of and obedience to the likes of Wall Street power brokers and life-destroyers Larry Summers and Robert Rubin also damns him in my eyes.) Conservatives intensely dislike and disapprove of Obama with just as much vigor as I do… for reasons that are 180 degrees different. Same disapproval; entirely different reasons. This dynamic quite definitely exists with Americans’ attitudes toward churches and governments. What we reserve our anger for; what elicits our strongest responses; what commands our moral center differs markedly from person to person, and the Church-Government split illustrates this most profoundly.

Having established this broadly-outlined parameter, let’s appreciate why the Brandon Davies story is so unavoidably tangled and messy. Let’s now try to sift one argument from another, and one verdict here from one verdict over there.

The BYU honor code fails in that it restricts free choice on a certain level. That point is not in dispute. Then again, when a person such as Brandon Davies freely chooses to submit to that code knowing full well the consequences of premarital sex if he were to engage in it, it’s not as though free choice is being completely eroded.

The BYU honor code was stringently enforced in this case, eliciting the reasonable and heartfelt response from some quarters that there’s no room for forgiveness, mercy or redemption. That’s a valid point. BYU is aiming to promote ideal behavior, but those of a certain libertarian viewpoint (not all forms of libertarianism, mind you, but some) are making the understandable claim that Brandon Davies – like any young person – needs to be allowed to learn and grow from his own sexual choices. It’s not as though sexual behavior and expression can be uniformly enforced and regulated in mass society. It is indeed true that good theology – Christian or any other religion – demands that choices be free. Without the free choosing of virtue, virtue doesn’t really exist. “Conscripted or forced virtue” is an oxymoronic statement. That point is not only reasonable; it’s valid and weighted with real-world truth. Jesus did not force people to act in certain ways; he strongly challenged and encouraged the people of his time, but he didn’t hold people at theological gunpoint. If you are a critic of the BYU honor code, the stringent nature of its enforcement, and of my defense of BYU for this subset of reasons, you’re making the right response. You’re offering the best and most salient criticisms under the sun.

Now, with that having been said, let’s balance the discussion. Rightly noting the deficiencies of squelching human agency and autonomy – especially in the realm of something so powerfully personal and intimate as sexuality – should not lead one to then say that BYU’s honor code and its enforcement are creating a net-negative effect in the larger stream of culture. Hundreds of thousands of abortions (if not millions; I’m using very conservative numbers as a starting point) take place in America each year. No, I’m not trying to start an abortion debate here; I’m merely noting that more than a few abortions occur in America. Whether you support abortion rights or not, it should be nearly unanimous (I know one Twitter follower who disagrees with the following statement…) that the reality of an abortion’s occurrence is a sad event… no, not (universally) in the sense that a woman had access to the abortion procedure, but sad in the sense that, at some point, a pregnancy acquired the dimensions of a crisis or burden and not the dimensions of a joyful reality, of a life about to be brought into the fullness of existence and with a good chance of flourishing. (Remember, human flourishing should be kept in mind as the ultimate goal of all of this…)

In some cases, an abortion occurs because of rape. In some cases, biology interferes and causes a threat to the life of the mother, as was the situation in that noted Phoenix incident at St. Joseph’s Hospital (the place where I was born in 1975) which caused Phoenix Bishop Thomas Olmsted (the kind of bishop that gives Catholicism a very bad name and justifies all the secular-liberal gripes with the Church) to severely overreact and paint the Church as the raging hypocritical monster it often is on matters of sexuality.

In some cases, an abortion occurs because a woman just doesn’t think she can provide for her child. In some cases, an abortion occurs because the biological father runs away. Whatever the reason, something sad, something lamentable – not cause for moral judgment, but something simply to weep about (as John’s Gospel 11:35 reminds us) – takes place. Very simply, then, BYU – for all the ways in which its honor code militates against the free choice of a life course and of the behaviors that give shape to it – is trying to promote that other part of the well-lived life and the well-ordered society. The free choice part might be lacking, but BYU is aiming to enshrine and establish ideal behaviors in our society.

Please, secular liberals reading this essay, can we agree on this much? Can we agree that hard sociological data and empirical statistical evidence point to better life outcomes for two-parent households (not straight two-parent households; different issue!!!!!), in-wedlock births, and stable marriages? Can we agree with Christian conservatives (and former basketball star A.C. Green, who was laughed at and scorned more than admired for his public pronouncements on this subject) that abstinence is a generally good thing?

Look – as a liberal Catholic (a self-described “Vatican 3” Catholic who is very much in favor of a substantial overhaul of Church procedures and practices, and whose favorite pope is John XXIII, aka Angelo Giuseppe Roncalli; look him up), I’m not only aware of institutional Church hypocrisies, outrages and sins committed against (and in the name of) sexual morality; I condemn them in the strongest terms possible, to the extent that I am fully in favor of substantial reforms in the Church. (Women priests? Yes. Allow birth control at the immediate/night-of/morning-after level? Yes. Those are highly unorthodox positions for a Catholic to take.)

Moreover, beyond specific issue positions – and this may surprise those of you who engaged me in discussion last night – I would not argue with anyone who claims that the institutional Catholic Church no longer deserves to be taken seriously on matters of sexual morality. Given that the Mormon Church – which, at its highest institutional levels, shares a fundamental conservatism with the Vatican – worked very hard to enact Proposition 8 (the anti-gay marriage measure) in California, I don’t regard the Mormon Church as a foremost authority on sexuality, either. (Polygamy is a separate issue that’s beyond the ability of this discussion to either contain or meaningfully address. Just note that I’m aware of its presence as a complicating factor here for a lot of readers.)

However, as the pendulum keeps swinging back and forth, to say that institutional churches and church structures should not be taken seriously DOES NOT MEAN (yes, it needs to be in caps because of the degree of emphasis I’m injecting into this point) that the core principle pushed by a belief system is wrong or deficient.

Catholics who are aware of the Church’s recent history (in Church terms, “recent” means the past three or four centuries) know that the intense and polarizing disagreements about sexuality in the Church stem from Pope Paul VI’s 1968 birth-control encyclical Humanae Vitae (this is another thing to look up if you really want to learn about the tension points at work in the Brandon Davies/BYU honor code story). Talk to priests about this (I have), and you’ll get lots of different reactions, but the consensus is that the papal letter beautifully expresses the highest ideals of what human sexuality should be and can potentially become, all while failing to allow for the messy parts of human sexuality that demand common-sense measures, measures which can prevent out-of-wedlock births, crisis pregnancies, and all the truly worrisome outcomes that either lead to abortions or to lives brought up in disadvantageous positions (poverty, single-parent households, undereducated households, divorced/fragmented households, etc.). The failure of Humanae Vitae is in many ways the failure of organized religion over an extended period of time: It espouses a truly noble, good and beautiful set of beliefs and ideals on paper but fails to supplement that vision with an accordingly appropriate dose of realism about human behavior on a mass scale; the result of such a gap between theory and reality, between theology and real-world policy, is in so many ways the gap that’s being exposed in the BYU-Davies episode.

Yes, large-scale church structures have a great deal to answer for (and repent for, and apologize for, and make amends for). Yes, to briefly detour from sexuality and broaden the critique even more, religion – through its extremist manifestations across multiple faiths – has caused a great deal of harm throughout the centuries. (One should add that since religion is ostensibly supposed to be dedicated to the project of bringing humanity closer to God in relationship, the sins committed by religion carry a sting worse than the sins of governments; this is a source of legitimate liberal angst and fury that conservatives need to be aware of. The woundedness of liberals who either grow up atheist/agnostic/secular or become ex-Catholic/ex-Christian/ex-mainline-churched individuals is one of the core reasons for our immense politico-ideological divide in America. If this unavoidably painful reality was ever addressed in cross-boundary conversations over a sustained period of time, our nation would heal. I guarantee it. Alas, this is a different discussion for a different day… gotta wind this puppy up.)

HOWEVER… all the sins of organized, institutionalized religion do not mean that the reality or necessity of institutionalized religion should be lowered in the public’s estimation. Much as the debate between “big government” and “limited government” is a false one, so too is the debate between “institutionalized/organized religion” and its absence. We don’t need a certain size of government; we need good governance from leaders who are competent, skilled, ethical, moral and virtuous. We don’t need to sustain the current structure and the attendant moral rot (with all its latent hypocrisy) of Pope Benedict and all the other enablers of sexual abuse over the past 40 years of Vatican machinations, but to argue for sweeping reform in institutional Catholicism should not be seen as tantamount to saying that the Church’s sexual teachings are completely baseless and without merit. Critics of the Mormon Church should keep that same distinction in mind. These and other churches are trying to promote wise, sober, responsible behaviors that lead to life in full, life that has a maximum chance of flourishing, life that is birthed in contexts where two people have arrived at a firmness and strength of commitment; a place of appreciable financial security (not total, but appreciable); a mutual sharing of enduring values; and a fully considered, ripened, multi-textured love that will enflesh the Scripture which says, “where two or three are gathered in my name, there am I (Jesus, God incarnate) in the midst of them.”

There are clear value-negative actions and realities to decry in this world: Violence, abuse, thievery, fraud, hypocrisy, and so forth. Churches – including Catholic and Mormon institutions – have plenty to repent for, but while the institutions and the organized structures suffer (because they’re led by imperfect beings, just like you and I), the need for coherent religious teachings doesn’t cease to exist. Nor does the need for good leadership in these churches, and for good people of faith to model their creeds in the best and most life-affirming ways possible.

The Mormon Church does a number of things that I, as a Catholic and (separately) as a liberal – disagree with. This doesn’t mean the promotion of abstinence from premarital sex is wrong. The Catholic Church does a number of things – including, even especially, in the realms of sexuality and gender – that I strongly disagree with. This doesn’t mean that the promotion of abstinence from premarital sex is wrong, a net-negative or even value-neutral policy/aim/goal. (And no, in case you’re wondering, the U.S. Federal Government has no business using money to promote abstinence…)

I’ll wrap this up with, ironically enough, a sports reference that will hopefully provide a proper parallel through which to frame this larger discussion as you carry it with you in your own circles. In American culture, fans often reserve their worst critiques and their most vigorous outpourings of both intellectual and emotional energy for teams that lose championship games. The 1990s Buffalo Bills are a punching bag and have been as much for 20 years. The 1980s Denver Broncos and 1970s Minnesota Vikings acquired similar reputations to the point that their fans preferred to lose in the conference championship round so that they wouldn’t have to endure another Super Bowl loss. This dynamic holds true in many other sports; I dare say, virtually every sport. “Second place is the first loser” and its cousin statement, “(Player/Coach X) can’t win the big game – he’s pathetic!”, have acquired enormous centrality and primacy in our sporting discussions over the past few decades. Being second-best – which, in the narrow confines of on-field sports performance, is undeniably positive in almost every instance – is viewed by a preponderance of public sentiment as negative.

As I tell readers of my college football columns who bash coaches that lose in BCS bowl games or BCS championship games (Frank Beamer and Bob Stoops come to mind), “If you really want to rip someone; if you really want to identify a lack of quality in on-field results, rip the teams that truly underachieve. Rip the UCLAs, Clemsons, Pittsburghs, Ole Misses, Texas A&Ms (post-R.C. Slocum and Jackie Sherrill, of course) and Arizona States of the world. Put Virginia Tech and Oklahoma 70th or 80th in your queue of criticisms.”

In other words, don’t view what is (narrowly and locally) virtue as sin instead; don’t reserve the balance of your anger for a policy that - in its own small context - is virtuous, even if there’s a large and undeniable backdrop of hypocrisy, sanctimoniousness and intolerance on the part of the (corrupt/rotten/wayward) institution promoting said policy. You don’t have to take institutions seriously when they betray the public trust (Catholicism) or fight for things (anti-gay marriage) you intensely disagree with (Mormonism). You should respect an individual effort/aim when it does indeed try to bring about what is – as any credible sociologist would tell you – a good social outcome: the (never guaranteed but certainly likely) stability of the American family and of children born within it. That’s what BYU’s honor code is about. That’s why the school suspended Brandon Davies, in a larger attempt to educate its students about the philosophy it wants them to buy into and apply to their own lives.

By all means, regard organized religion as guilty of many sins and as unworthy of being taken seriously. Please, though, don’t regard all acts/pronouncements/exhortations of a deeply flawed ecclesial superstructure as flawed (inherently or situationally) just because said ecclesial superstructure IS flawed.

Jesus lived a great and noble life. Do the failings of Catholics and Mormons (and various Protestant/evangelical pastors, many of whom are closet gays and have reinforced the reality of sexual hypocrisy from the pulpit) mean that Jesus’s teachings are less worthy of being followed? Does this point – the center of the Left-Right divide in America on most, if not all, issues – begin to sink in? Maybe it can’t just yet, but I hope that your act of wrestling with this essay (and your attempt to look up the names mentioned periodically within it) will eventually lead you to that place.

*******

POSTSCRIPT: As I arrive at the conclusion of this impromptu essay, generated by the fires of an endlessly layered issue with so many tentacles and offshoots that extend into so many aspects of human life, I realize how little ground I’ve covered. I realize that as much as I’ve written today, there are only so many things one can talk about. You are not only welcome, but encouraged, to continue this conversation. My e-mail is mzemek@hotmail.com. I will be especially free to engage you in further dialogue on Wednesday, April 6, when NCAA basketball (men and women) finally comes to an end. -MZ

NPR, The Left-Right War, and The American Project

2010-10-22T09:11:00.000-07:00

It seems that every 4.5 weeks or so, a major media war breaks out in America because someone said something ill-chosen about a certain group of people, whether the remark contained a core truth or not. The point of this essay will not be to determine whether NPR was right to can Juan Williams; the fact that a public-broadcasting entity (not a cable network or a newspaper) occupied the center of a firestorm is what makes this issue worth blogging on at appreciable length. In this blogsite's ongoing attempt (albeit very occasional during college football season, when carpal-tunnel syndrome is a very real threat for me...) to foster Left-Right dialogue in the service of America, it's important to take the Juan Williams incident and use it to unpack macro-level concepts about a good society, and how Americans of all political leanings can participate in the struggle.

First off, let's clear the air about some misconceptions that might exist in the immediate aftermath of L'Affaire Williams. (If I was talking only to NPR listeners, I would have said, "Let me be clear," because, as we all know, that's Obama-speak and a coded attempt to rally the liberal base... *pause*... okay, did you think I was being serious there? That was a joke, just in case you were wondering. I'm wanting to defuse tensions here.)

I do not think that Williams deserved to be fired for the remarks he made. I do not think that NPR is terribly ethical, or that its national political coverage is particularly distinguished. I don't think the current reality of public broadcasting in relationship to public affairs programming - on television or radio - reflects a healthy or ideal situation. The work that C-SPAN does, and the coverage C-SPAN provides, should be provided by public television. The irony is that it actually once was, when the MacNeil-Lehrer NewsHour grew out of Robert MacNeil's and Jim Lehrer's coverage of the Watergate hearings.

PBS and NPR are at their best when covering all the bookish, cultural, artsy, science-rich discussions, talks, lectures, Q-and-As, and like events that, taken together, offer a rich font of public education outside a classroom setting. I owe much of my educational enrichment not just to St. Thomas the Apostle grade school and Brophy College Preparatory (located in Phoenix), plus Seattle University as well; I also owe my education to my two parents, who were both college linguistics professors (mom taught English, my late father taught Spanish), and to public television.

I learned about the history of the Kennedys on the American Experience in 1994.

I learned about the history of the city of New York in a Ric Burns documentary in 1999.

Bill Moyers' interviews with Joseph Campbell in the late 1980s have been repeated on public television pledge drives over the years, and I was able to catch several sessions in 2004, to my great spiritual enrichment and edification. (I recently tucked a Joseph Campbell reference into a review of a college football weekend, as a matter of fact.)

Bill Moyers' roundtable with various religious scholars on the Book of Genesis provided a stimulating, multi-layered exploration of Scripture in all its nuance, lending insights on the Christian, Jewish and Muslim monotheistic traditions.

I've watched several different documentaries on United States presidents, on Lucretia Mott and Elizabeth Cady Stanton; I've watched documentaries on baseball, jazz, and the Civil War; I've watched documentaries on World War II and profiles of countless figures in the world of American culture, from Buster Keaton to Charlie Chaplin and from Marvin Gaye to Carol Burnett; I watched Sesame Street at my grandparents' house and 3-2-1 Contact at home; I've watched many dozens of Masterpiece Theater series on the great books from the canon of English literature, enabling the dense writing of Charles Dickens - hard to grasp as a sixth-grader - to come alive in pictures and spoken words.

So much of what I've learned in a narrowly educational sense has come not just from textbooks and teachers, but from PBS programs. In the realm of expressly non-political, non-editorial content, PBS has made information - on culture, the great ideas, and fields of study - available to the masses. The realm of what Juan Williams stepped into - and which political bloggers of all stripes are arguing about - is a different matter, and one that the term "train wreck" would adequately describe. While C-SPAN provides the coverage model PBS and NPR should be using, the non-political realms of public broadcasting have largely fulfilled their mission of making vital information more accessible to the common person.

With all this having been said, here's where the discussion becomes necessarily political:

Other people I come across on Twitter with varying degrees of consistency - Brendan Loy, Cari Gervin, Amanda Carpenter, and Dan Collins, to name a few - could give you four nuanced and distinctly different takes on the particulars of public broadcasting, government funding, and what money goes where in what proportion. My task here is to not get caught up in those molecular or granular details and take the discussion to a more expansive place. What we should be asking ourselves in the wake of the Juan Williams/NPR incident is this: Is there a place for public broadcasting in a healthy democratic society?

The answer doesn't have to be "yes" - conservative friends might be surprised to hear that, but of course, I'm not going to let my friends on the Right get off that easily. Regardless of your answer to the question "Is public broadcasting necessary?", there is certainly a moral dimension to the ways in which a society makes information available.

In order to get at this question about the (lack of a) need for public broadcasting, let's realize that we are not just biological animals, but cognitive and emotive beings, linguistic beings, sexual beings, spiritual beings. We are not the hunter-gatherers our biological predecessors were. We are domesticated organisms immersed in cultures and belief systems and ways of life.

Differentiations in cultures are most profoundly felt from country to country and from continent to continent, but in America, the diversity of regions offers, ironically enough, a fairly substantial set of alternate universes in its own right. From Mississippi to Maine and from Ohio to Oregon, where you grow up (and, of course, how you grow up, but that's a different matter for another day...) determines a lot of the things you're exposed to at various stages of life - certainly not everything, but a fair amount to be sure. Variations will, of course, apply to specific individuals, but on a larger level, it's fair to say that the American South and the coastal/non-inland areas of the Pacific Northwest are very different places. The same dynamic applies to densely-populated urban centers and small towns throughout the Rocky Mountain, Central Plains, and Upper Midwest regions.

The point of outlining these basic facts of human life (within a specifically American prism) is to show that there are many highly conditional and culturally unique aspects of our lived-out existence as Americans. Growing up in one city or state never guarantees an outcome for each and every individual on a whole host of levels, but viewed collectively and taken on a wider scale, these things do matter and they will carry more than a little weight in shaping the futures of persons and, by extension, America at large.

From this diversity, this reality of geographical and cultural differentiation, one must be able to reasonably access - with minimal cost and effort - different perspectives if one so chooses. For the person who grows up in a liberal household but feels stifled and needs to break free (Andrew Breitbart felt this tension in his younger years), there needs to be a well of information and perspective that will provide an alternative viewpoint. For the person who grows up in a conservative household but feels the tug of competing views and needs to know what life is like on the other side of the divide (my mother would qualify here, although I hasten to say that my late maternal grandfather was a principled and honorable conservative; we simply had some VERY contentious Sunday lunch arguments over hamburgers and potato salad in my childhood), a good society should offer a portal to the expansion of the mind.

This is not a question of what kind of punditry or analysis a person receives. This is not a dissection of the Sunday talk shows or the way a moderator performs at a given debate. What IS being discussed here is the notion of having information that is not shoehorned or ostensibly linked to a given viewpoint. This is indeed about having a public font of information - on science, on the arts, on culture, on religion - in which ideas are not so much validated or pronounced to be good (or bad), but are instead merely presented and explored. The viewer of the PBS program, the listener of the NPR broadcast, should make the judgment about the content being provided.

Hopefully, you can see at this point that a sufficiently diverse amount of information should be there for people who grow up in contexts - both hyper-liberal and hyper-conservative - where cultural winds and market forces plus family dynamics can do and limit one's exposure to certain views. And in the expressly political/public affairs realm, American citizens should simply be able to see government as it operates and for what it does, i.e., as C-SPAN shows it.

Here's the real heart of this essay: I could perhaps be loud wrong on this, but it's my sense that we, as human beings (not Americans, but as human beings in general), most instinctively and reflexively think of food, water, clothing and shelter as basic needs, the things every society must attempt to provide for each and every person, at least as a starting point. (If people want to forfeit those provisions through autonomously-made dysfunctional choices that are unaffected by outside factors, that's a different discussion.) However, information - or more precisely, easy access to it - really should be considered just as essential.

For instance, how can you eat if you're an unemployed homeless person who doesn't know how to access food stamps? Educating single moms from high-risk demographics has been a big problem here in Washington State; getting single moms and other people to public seminars on those kinds of topics - at community centers and other public kinds of facilities - represents a non-TV, non-radio form of the value of what can be called public education in a more expansive sense of the term. Private corporations should be able to make a buck, and private broadcast entities - i.e., private cable or radio networks - should be able to broadcast what they want. All this essay seeks to ensure is that there are at least a few outlets - national, accessible, low-cost, and non-partisan - which can disseminate not speech, but information; not ideology, but vital statistics and advisories; not indoctrination, but details about basic services; not expected behaviors, but opportunities for cultural and holistic enrichment.

As I have said before on this very blog, my Catholic background leads me to embrace the concept of subsidiarity, which is one of the pillars of Catholic social teaching. Subsidiarity is the principle that something should be done at the most localized level possible, with responsibility and action going up the food chain only if absolutely necessary. The desire of conservatives to localize and de-centralize government is noble, valuable and laudable. A good society should aim to dispense services and information in more localized ways. If liberals do militate against this goal, those liberals are wayward and misguided.

Now, with that having been said, here's the counterbalancing point: The desire to bring about more subsidiarity - more localized delivery methods for services - does not inherently or automatically mean that every situation or problem can indeed be addressed at a very localized level. Subsidiarity points to the most localized solution possible; sometimes, it is simply the case that the most localized solution simply isn't able to be terrifically local.

Maybe, if you're a conservative, you think that there's absolutely no place for public broadcasting. Given that NPR has been manifestly unethical in many different ways for quite some time - in ways that have upset liberals as well as conservatives - that's a perfectly understandable point of view. The actual reality of public broadcasting's performance in the coverage of current affairs certainly has not matched the standard set by C-SPAN, a private entity that has carried public television's water in the political world. Point conceded.

However, if you do think that there's no place for public broadcasting in a good society, a healthy democratic commons, here's the larger principle that must still be upheld: If government is to be de-centralized and if freedom of speech is to be truly honored - which it wasn't in the most granular aspects of the Juan Williams case (but was in a larger context beyond the immediate incident itself) - the flow of information, while justifiably privatized for most broadcasters, must find some kind of home that is not subject to the profit motive.

Before cable arrived in 1979 thanks to Ted Turner and CNN, there were five basic television options for the American television viewer: A local independent/unaffiliated station in your own market, along with ABC, CBS, NBC, and PBS. The first four options were privately owned, meaning that a combination of personal preference and market forces determined the kind of content a viewer would get on that given channel. For many years, the three broadcast networks (ABC, CBS, NBC) sustained a high level of journalism because they maintained a commitment to doing journalism as the public service that it is and was always supposed to be.

Today, however, things are different. It's true that even Edward R. Murrow fought market forces at CBS, but the folks at Black Rock under Bill Paley still produced and broadcast a lot of public-affairs programming at their own expense. Today, there is no genuine attempt on the part of the three broadcast networks to perform journalism as a public service. Journalism today is a profit engine - that's what it's set up to be, and that's what moves the needle in boardrooms and programming departments.

Therefore, if you are a person whose household stands on the edge of financial ruin, and if you can't afford anything more than the most basic, bare-bones cable package possible (in other words, getting an HD converter and nothing else), where are you going to turn for objective, spin-free information in various aspects of life and culture? If ABC, CBS and NBC are market-driven, and if your local unaffiliated television station has an owner who fills the days with Judge Judy or Rachel Ray, where are you going to learn about history or find appropriate viewing content for your children during the afternoon hours? There should at least be one outlet for this kind of person, and public broadcasting was always meant to fill such a need. In non-political realms, it has done so with great distinction and consistency, and that's why I will go to the mat for public broadcasting in expressly non-political forms of programming.

Here's what I want to get across to my conservative friends: As I mentioned earlier, the free flow of information - and more particularly, its liberation from the profit motive - serves to promote a more localized and subsidiarity-based society because it reaches past culturally and demographically specific situations pertaining to various cities, states and regions. To amplify my point - in relationship to the above paragraphs on the shift at the broadcast networks from public-service journalistic outlets to profit-driven outlets - it simply needs to be said that the quality of journalism today is awful. You surely agree with that; otherwise, mainstream media criticism wouldn't be honest. (I also think mainstream media is horrible, and I dare say most liberals would agree. The Left and the Right are surely in agreement on this larger point, just for very different sets of reasons.)

So, given our shared disapproval of the performance of mainstream media, it bears mentioning that mainstream media - while including PBS and NPR - is predominantly privately owned and operated. The irony of this week's NPR-created firestorm is that NPR is associated, and understandably so, with the rest of privately-owned mainstream media, whereas privately-owned C-SPAN performs the true function of a non-partisan public broadcaster.

Indeed, one of the great ironies of contemporary American broadcast media is that NPR has its own political identity and branding, which is exactly what public broadcasting, writ large and viewed on a conceptual level, was never intended to have. Public broadcasting should be cleaned up; PBS and NPR should be cleansed of expressly political taints in both directions - surely from its real and pervasive cultural liberalism, but also from its Establishment-friendly opposition to the use of the word "torture" to describe American military policy. NPR should not be in the business of providing news opinion or commentary - as Jay Rosen tweeted last night - but NPR should also ensure that its employees, left or right, are not associated in any way with expressly ideological organizations. (See "Mara Liasson" and "Barbara Bradley Hagerty" for examples of this.) There is much that needs to be reformed about the way public broadcasting is structured, and to not acknowledge this is to do a great disservice to the conservative viewpoint and its proper advocacy for both subsidiarity and the need for governmental restraint as a default position.

What we are left with is - surprise, surprise - a very difficult tension point, which is frankly what all political disagreements are all about: There is a definite need to localize government and make it more responsive to the workings of subsidiarity. Yet, there's also the equally powerful need to make information both accessible and free from the constraining forces of the profit motive. When activists stormed the mandated Federal Communications Commission hearings - held in several U.S. cities including Seattle (I was there) - in the fall of 2007, they might have felt they were sticking up for independent and alternative journalists from their own political/ideological camp, but they were in fact standing up for bloggers and local outlets with different views as well.

The debate about NPR in the wake of L'Affaire Williams (such as it is; it hasn't been much of a debate on either side of the aisle) has acquired the dimensions of a debate about government control versus a lack thereof. What we should be focusing on is the need to have at least one non-cable broadcast outlet be reserved for the sharing of educational material without expressly political or partisan components, so that economically limited parents and households can access information. When our poorest and most under-resourced citizens can access information without excessive or unreasonable hardship, and know that the broadcaster's content is not predicated on a desire to gain ratings points or market share, the public commons is enhanced. If America ensures that every single television in every market - on the most minimal cable package offered by any provider - has at least one channel that provides what PBS has provided in non-political realms (Sesame Street, Nova, Nature, American Experience) plus public-access-type content that simply points out the availability/eligibility updates for basic services, we can develop a country in which people are more empowered to make choices and exercise their democratic franchise at localized levels, without worrying that the information they receive is compromised by a private agenda or a profit motive (or both).

You don't have to be a conservative to realize that NPR is highly unethical, identifiably political (to its detriment), and actually quite capitalist in much of what it does, all of which undercut the whole point of public broadcasting itself.

You don't have to be a liberal to realize that the free flow of ideas and easy access to information are cornerstones of a society in which the populace can be more informed at localized levels, thereby creating a country in which a more de-centralized government can exist and, in turn, offer local community solutions to problems within a climate of subsidiarity.

If the Left and Right want to use the NPR/Juan Williams kerfuffle as a reason to only deepen animosities and reaffirm the worst stereotypes about their views of Muslims or Jews, well, we can continue that corrosive, soul-hardening, spirit-stifling, life-squelching, progress-inhibiting drama of mortal combat and mutually-shared hatred that will only lead our country into a deeper ditch and a darker place.

Or, perhaps, we can turn in another more constructive direction. Maybe we can use the NPR-Williams dust-up as a chance to reassess current weaknesses in the public broadcasting architecture so that we can revive long-dormant notions of giving all citizens the access to information, which is as basic a need as food, water and shelter.

It's your choice, America. It's your choice, lefties and righties. It's your choice: Are we going to have worthy public debates about the tension points raised by the very existence of NPR and PBS, or are we going to stand pat and not move one inch off our respective dimes?

The American Project, whatever we might think or feel about it, certainly won't be advanced if the Left-Right firing squad continues its crossfire without cessation.

Moreover, I think Juan Williams would agree.

Sending Rain On The Just And The Unjust

2010-09-11T21:06:00.000-07:00

Scripture, that source of ancient wisdom and literary richness, reminds us that "God sends rain upon the just and the unjust." (Gospel according to Matthew, 5:45) We all live on this planet and share its land. People of every race, language, and way of life are thrown into this crazy, mixed-up world and are forced to make sense of the particular path they've been given. We all face circumstances that are unique to our corners of the world and the families to which we're born. We come at life from 6.4 billion (and growing) different angles. Our stories - while sharing the same fundamental tensions - manifest those tensions in different forms and fashions.

This is at once the beauty and the sadness of life, its sweet poignancy and its aching incompleteness. Hope and despair are bound up in the yawning differences between and among various groups of people. In our best moments as human beings, we feel a shared unity which stretches across the gaps; in our most difficult moments, we feel we will never be able to make common cause with large segments of our fellow-travelers on this planet.

These fascinating yet wrenching aspects of the human condition were very much on display today, September 11, 2010. They surfaced most powerfully in America's remembrance of the day nine years ago when our sense of life was permanently altered; they emerged most personally for me when a riveting high-stakes tennis match broke the way I hoped it wouldn't.

It is one of life's great ironies that the ultimately important and the fundamentally trivial can both teach the same lesson, with the trivial entity often being the more effective teacher because the space in which it conveys its lessons is safer and happier. Tough truths aren't as threatening to the soul or the ego when they surround a little yellow pill that's being whacked, as opposed to an atrocity in which roughly 3,000 people lost their lives, and in which hundreds of thousands more were wrenched from a peaceful internal life for the rest of their sojourns on earth.

It was so strange to contemplate, as I discharged my duties at work on Saturday yet monitored my Twitter feed, the multiple cross-currents of a very emotional day. Keeping up with tennis tweets from the Roger Federer-Novak Djokovic U.S. Open men's semifinal was exhausting enough, but as the day wore on, I also noticed some comments about the ways in which various people around the world respond to acts of violence in their own land.

Americans remember 9/11/2001. Other peoples from other nations with different ethnicities and cultures recall other dates from their past. All of us - depending on where we were born and how we grew up - assign different levels of meaning to the course of human events. Depending on our circumstances and our parents, plus other factors not our choosing, we latch onto particular moments and points of passage as central to our identity and the values we seek to promote. The great majority of human beings all sincerely want the same things, but the points of emphasis we place on certain groups, methods, aims, and ideals are always creating friction in our common attempt to come together. The perplexing yet undeniable truth of the matter is that this friction is at once necessary and painful. We aren't all the same and were not meant to be the same. Yet, from our differences, a respect for our commonality is supposed to be fostered. Scripture once again offers us a glimpse of this, the peaceable kingdom, in which "the wolf will dwell with the lamb, and the leopard will lie down with the young goat." Just and unjust - those whom we like, and those whom we've never cared for; those who turn us on and those who turn us off - are all under the same sky and made part of the fullness of creation.

No life is more important (or less) depending on its ethnicity or any of its other circumstances. This is not to say that there aren't moral dilemmas or questions in human life, as messy situations arise. The act of stressing the equality of all lives is not meant to ignore certain moral questions; rather, it is intended to be a fundamental statement of value... value which is not contingent upon isolated scenarios or precise, multifaceted hypotheticals. All life is valuable, and so it becomes important to see the plight of a victim when you are free. Conversely but no less necessarily, it is essential to embrace the joy of a flourishing human person while you live in chains. The joy of a just-married couple should not produce resentment in the still-single person with few prospects for a life partner. Yet, the attainment of prosperity for a household should not lead it to forget and neglect tending to the difficulties of people in need.

When life stretches in certain directions, the place in which we emotionally reside should be acutely connected to life on the other side of the spectrum, the other end of the pole. Moments of fullness should give rise to an awareness of the many who are empty; moments of emptiness should - for the spiritually mature - make us grateful that others are filled with nourishment. This is the wisdom of the ages. This is the teaching of Jesus, the one who taught that "the first shall be last and the last shall be first," and that "the one who exalts himself will be humbled, but the one who humbles himself will be exalted."

Plainly put, these thoughts and the values which underlie them are very much at the core of what it means to remember 9/11 prayerfully as a citizen of the world. These values are also at the heart of what it means for a fan of Roger Federer to be gracious in acknowledging the beauty and transcendence of Novak Djokovic's achievement on Saturday afternoon in Flushing Meadows, New York.

For me, the knowledge of how blessed and prosperous a life I've had in America has made me mindful of the dire poverty so many people face around the world. The horror of 9/11 made me realize what it must be like to live in fear of terrorism all the time, such as an Israeli citizen in Tel Aviv or a resident of Baghdad who can't know where the next suicide bombing will come from. 9/11 showed me what I lost (a sense of innocence and comfort), but it also showed me what I must never lose (a core integrity and a way of nonviolence in dealing with all manner of human problems). 9/11 felt so personal because America was brought in touch with an evil that had previously visited other shores. Yet, that personal wound only magnified the hurts other peoples and nations have been absorbing much longer than America has in its (relatively brief) 234-year (post-Declaration of Independence) history.

Such is the paradoxical nature of life in its weightiest dimensions.

And then there is the not-so-consequential realm of tennis.

For so long, Roger Federer - my favorite professional athlete of all time - has won the kinds of matches he played on Saturday (a match I didn't get to see, but a match that has played out before). He pulled out five-setters at the 2004 and 2008 U.S. Opens en route to championships. He won a five-setter over Juan Martin del Potro en route to his history-making win at the 2009 French Open, just days after escaping Tommy Haas in another five-setter. Federer danced out of five-set trouble against Haas and Nikolay Davydenko in the 2006 Australian Open and versus Tomas Berdych at the 2009 Australian. True, it's technically more accurate to say that Federer has excelled in grinding four-setters rather than five-setters at majors, but the bottom-line point is that, yes, Federer has usually wriggled free from trouble on so many occasions, setting a standard of high and entrenched expectations.

Saturday, Federer did not escape the clutches of a man who allowed the Swiss to pull multiple Houdinis over the years, especially that the very U.S. Open being contested in the Big Apple. In each of the last three years, Federer outlasted Novak Djokovic in a late-stage Open match, but this time, the Serbian stalwart didn't blink in the heat of battle. Two saved match points - one of them on an 11-stroke rally - carried Djokovic to 5-all in the fifth set, an eventual break of Federer's serve, and a 7-5-in-the-fifth triumph which defied recent U.S. Open history. This time, Djokovic didn't wilt after falling behind Federer. This time, the level of belief which wavered in the Serb's past was sustained from start to finish. It was - though I never saw it live - an evidently glorious moment in which a young person of 23 years grew up before the world's eyes... and in the eyes of a peer who used to look down on him, but now respects him as a man in full.

We don't see odd displays of behavior from Novak Djokovic anymore. He used to think - much like an aggrieved party in an international dispute - that everyone was against him and that he needed to maintain a bunker mentality. In the past 18 months or so, however, Djokovic has shed his family's more strident qualities and become a consistent gentleman who has nothing but warm smiles and genuine congratulations for Federer and the rest of his competitors on the ATP Tour. It is not an idle coincidence that Djokovic has become a more consistent player this year, and that he now finds himself in his second U.S. Open final after having played the most remarkable five-set match of his life (his most remarkable three-setter being the 2009 Madrid semifinal against Rafael Nadal).

Here I was, wanting Federer to reach his seventh U.S. Open final so badly. Here I was, wanting with uncommon intensity to see the Swiss meet Nadal in the final. I wanted Federer to be able to become the first man in human history to reach seven straight men's singles finals at two different majors (did any of you know that?). I wanted Federer to join Nadal as one of the only two men to contest all four major finals. I wanted these distinctions so badly for my favorite professional competitor.

And yet, walking into the midst of these hopes, Novak Djokovic played the kind of match that will make him smile with fondness - with a rich and lasting satisfaction emblazoned in the memory - for the rest of his life on earth.

Just when I wanted one form of beauty and enrichment for myself and for the man I so ardently support, another form of beauty emerged from a rival who had so rarely sipped from the nectar of ultimate joy against Roger Federer.

On 9/11, perhaps the task was made easier, but I am reminded that we should be at our best selves and maintain the best and noblest aspirations each and every day of our lives, not just some. On this 9/11 anniversary, it was somehow easier to not only concede, but celebrate, Novak Djokovic's day in the sun. The rain fell on Roger Federer, who had unjustly denied Djokovic (as he has so many others) a great many days in the bright sunlight of glory.

I began this day with the hurts of 9/11 and the still-visible divisions it has sewn in the human family across the continents and oceans. I ended the day deprived of Federer's "double-seven-final" achievement at majors plus his seminal linkage with Nadal in Grand Slam finals. Yet, I find myself moved to celebrate Novak Djokovic's breakthrough moment, a moment which doubles as a peak experience for his long-suffering fans who held out minimal hopes when this semifinal pairing was officially established.

Somehow, letting go of the unavoidable "what-ifs" of two match points lost... and of a dream moment denied when it was so close to fruition.... feels just right.

For once, the heavens kissed the just challenger who finally climbed the mountain, not on the heavy favorite I've cheered (the only heavy favorite I've ever rooted for in my adult life) since 2004.

I have learned to see life from the viewpoint on the other side of the table, the viewpoint of the nation/culture/athlete/fan base that has so often tasted bitterness more than joy.

That makes me sleep peacefully on 9/11 instead of lamenting Roger Federer's near-miss, a miss that - a few years ago - might have kept me up until 1 a.m. without any comfort in my heart.

Human beings are strange creatures. So is the sense of perspective which weaves its way through national memorials and tennis matches, and somehow knits them all together.

The same spirit which moves me to wish for peace in every land is the spirit which enables me to fully and wholeheartedly congratulate the devoted fans of Novak Djokovic, and to allow those sentiments to dominate this day instead of other, darker human impulses.

My wish for you is that you might find the spirit which looks at the unfortunate other when you're flying high, and which celebrates the fortunate other when you're brought low.

Peace and blessings to you all.

So, Why ARE Liberals So Miserable?

2010-07-28T19:18:00.000-07:00

We arrive at another Twitter-inspired blog post, tailored for one portion of the national population. Today, Dr. Melissa Clouthier, a conservative libertarian blogger, straightforwardly asked me: "Why aren't lefties happier?"

Indeed, why aren't we on the Left happier? I think Dr. Clouthier is right on a general level. Naturally, there are many happy liberals and some frustrated conservatives; moreover, our two-party system unavoidably masks the more complex politics of various individuals, making it hard to determine what kinds of liberals are especially grumpy (or, conversely, more cheerful). This question and the topic attached to it can easily devolve into broad stereotypes and bland generalizations. Neither items are helpful - the former fail to respect individuals, while the latter paper over differences and squelch the meaningfully revelatory dialogue we need in America. I know I won't speak for every single liberal or capture the entirety of what it's like to be a lefty, but I'll try to be as honest as possible. I want conservatives and right-libertarians to see lefties as we are, with our good motivations and reasoned thought processes but also with our manifold weaknesses, sins and failings.

So, on with the show, a brief essay that will only hit on some major points and not go too deep in any one direction (out of respect for everyone's time during the middle of the week). I do welcome comments, and would be perfectly happy to field a boatload of questions from members of the conservative blogosphere and conservative activists in general. If a follow-up essay is requested by any conservative readers, I'll write it and will sincerely try to address relevant questions/comments/tension points in a meaningful and transparent way.

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Why are lefties not happier? As with almost all complicated realities in life, there's no one answer which will fully satisfy, but there are a few factors that emerge more strongly and broadly than most. One factor is religion. It's not so much whether religion is good or bad - that's the clash between the secular Left and the religious Right - but more simply, how religion is interpreted and emphasized.

I consider myself a progressive Catholic. I've been in the middle of multiple sociocultural crossfires. The secular Left thinks I'm too religious, while the Right thinks I'm not religious enough (generalizations to a point, but again true for the most part). Speaking from a place of progressive Catholicism, I'm aware of the difference between much of liberal and conservative forms of Christianity. The issue of Biblical inerrancy (whether the Bible is literally true or not) has, matter of factly, carried enormous implications for the ways in which one receives the Christian faith as a young person and then carries it as an adult. Leaving opinions aside, it is simply a reality in American life that the question of Biblical inerrancy strongly affects the rest of a person's religious mindset (if one remains religious to begin with). Liberals and conservatives both have sex and raise families and want their children to do well, but they acquire different points of emphasis that, over time, branch out into still more differentiations that create different kinds of people.

To directly address why lefties aren't happier, "we" (broadly defined, at least within our Christian adherents) think that human beings, while indeed flawed, are basically good. We acknowledge that human nature is frail in the face of temptation and vulnerable in the face of manipulation, but we lefties feel that if a person grows up in good circumstances, with a good upbringing and solid social supports, s/he will ripen into a contributing member of society and a fundamentally decent person. This is why we are: A) very sad when a person doesn't have strong social and familial support systems in childhood; and B) fervently desirous of changes to laws and policies that do not remedy the problems disadvantaged youth face. Our (theological) belief in the goodness of the human person clearly makes us lefties more wounded than, for instance, a Southern Baptist or non-denominational evangelical who believes in Biblical inerrancy and views human nature with a more sin-centric framework emphasizing the fallen nature of the human person. There are so many finer points that could be fleshed out here, but (for the sake of time/length) won't be. I do think the basic outlines of the matter do help to establish why lefty Christians (and certainly some lefty secularists) are less happy than righties.

Another core factor - which flows from everything just said - is that because conservatives cast a more skeptical eye toward human nature, they are much more willing (from the interactions I've had with conservatives on blogs since 2003) to simply say, "Life isn't fair - deal with it." Conservatives get frustrated just like anyone else, but it's been my experience that they are, on balance, better able to vent their anger, let it go, and move forward. Their skepticism of human nature allows them to possess and sustain a cultivated awareness of life's difficulties, which then enables them to develop a tougher and more resilient attitude to life. It's not cold - surely not to conservatives themselves - but merely a steely defense mechanism, a necessary survival tool that liberals would do well to cultivate on a more consistent basis. Lefties aren't as ready to admit that life isn't fair; we want to make life fairer! Again, I won't flesh out the policy merits (or demerits) which issue from such a dynamic; merely understand that this is how we generally think, and why we are less happy than righties generally are.

One other major determinant of conservative happiness and liberal misery is also connected to (broadly outlined) religious experiences. The specific factor in play here is the difference in interpretations of salvation. The liberal Christian experience generally holds that people are saved communally, and lefty Christians will often stress the need for works to accompany faith. The conservative Christian will place more emphasis on individual salvation, a personal decision of faith, and the need to believe in Jesus as Lord and Savior. Obviously, lefty Christians don't discount pure faith and interior belief, just as righty Christians don't dismiss the need to do good works. Nevertheless, there are differences in emphasis, and because your typical lefty Christian will see salvation through a more communitarian lens, s/he will weep more when s/he sees social dislocation, cultural drift, war, economic injustice, and other things that - in a lefty's mind - most centrally tear at the fabric of humanity. The conservative Christian - understandably upset at many of the injustices s/he sees in the world - does manage to walk with far greater internal confidence and assurance of personal salvation, bolstered and given ballast by a less-shaken belief in Jesus. Mel Gibson's The Passion certainly tapped into this vein of feeling and revealed the consuming confidence and happiness of many evangelical Christians who reside well to the right of the political center.

Well, I said I don't want to take up too much of your time. That's it for now. Again, follow-up questions or even requests for follow-up essays on uncovered terrain would be quite welcome, even encouraged. My e-mail address: mzemek@hotmail.com.

In a closing postscript that should not be diminished by its place at the very end of this post, I want to add: Just in case you have never heard this before, dear conservatives, I want to say it clearly and publicly: You are not the enemy. You are not evil. You've simply had collections of experiences and contours of existence which are very different from mine. If you and I swapped life stories (as is true for any two people who come from different backgrounds and face different points of poignancy along life's road), we'd probably be on the other side of the aisle. I'd be the conservative libertarian in Houston, and you'd be the progressive Catholic and former soup kitchen director/Dorothy Day admirer in Seattle. Peace be with you!

Special Edition: Twitter Follow-Up on Shirley Sherrod

2010-07-23T19:23:00.000-07:00

Twitter's great limitation is that 140 characters cannot fully unpack conversations on matters as complex as race. Yet, the virtues of Twitter outstrip the limitations because we can at least initiate exchanges that - courtesy of blogs (and e-mail, and other media) - are able to be extended.

Here is one such attempt to take a brief Twitter dialogue and elaborate on it in the blogosphere. I appreciate the comments made on Twitter, and will attempt to address them concisely in a post of modest length. (Feel free to respond in the comments section. If you want a longer follow-up essay, I will honor your request and provide it, all while trying to answer the more specific questions you have.)

The first thing I must do is to perform the task of any newcomer in a conversation: Mention who I am and where I come from (geographically and, of course, in other senses as well).

I'm a white male, so immediately, I know that I cannot fully relate to the experience of Shirley Sherrod or other people of color. I grew up in Phoenix - which exposed me to hostile conservative speech - and moved to Seattle, a place which has exposed me to a hollow lip-service form of liberalism mouthed by whites who might talk a lot about diversity and pacifism, but who fail to walk the talk (by a wide margin) on both levels.

I consider myself a progressive, but definitely not a Democrat. (I'm fed up with that party, which does not stand by progressive values.) I disagree with conservatives on fundamental questions of policy, but because of my experiences of faux-liberalism - or liberalism that trips lightly off the lips but is not followed up with action - I think the Right has a point when it accuses the Left of failing to live up to its ideals.

Though progressive, another thing which puts me in the middle of many national debates is that I'm Catholic. For conservatives, I have not been Catholic enough; for Seattle liberals, I've been far too religious, too intolerant of secular viewpoints. I can't understand what it means to be discriminated against on the basis of race, but I have tasted discrimination based on religion (albeit less than severe).

So, that's my background in brief. I'll now share just a few thoughts about Friday afternoon's conversation with Professor Blair Kelley, whose force of conviction is admirable, substantial, and rooted in a very strong moral foundation.

My views of Shirley Sherrod are, on the whole, quite positive. This is an inspiring woman whose story is exactly what enlightens a nation and moves an issue forward into a more enriching space and context. Such a notion is easy to understand; one doesn't have to tell a predominantly liberal audience why Sherrod's journey rings with resonance and beauty.

What understandably got lost in my criticism of Sherrod is that I was only criticizing her for one action on one localized level. The entirety of her story, and her full body of work this week in the national spotlight, rate high marks. Naturally - rightly - you were puzzled at best, and very possibly miffed, that I would criticize her.

Well, there's this (admittedly) nagging part of me that, in a forum like Twitter, will cause misunderstandings if not unpacked in a more expansive setting: I often respond to generally positive pieces of work by mentioning the 1 or 2 ways in which they could have been better.

Thursday night, for instance, Joan Walsh of Salon wrote a terrific piece on Sherrod's husband, and on Twitter, I complimented her for the piece. However, I also threw in a modest criticism based on a few phrasings that seemed to be turn-offs for any conservative readers of her piece. Ms. Walsh felt I was giving conservatives too much leeway, and that - in many ways - approximates the sense I get from your responses on Friday afternoon.

For context on the Joan Walsh issue, you can read the blog post which immediately preceded this one. As for this issue pertaining to my exchange with Professor Kelley, let me simply say the following:

Shirley Sherrod did not make a mistake of morality or ethics or character. She made a mistake of political game-playing, in my one (and hardly definitive) lonely opinion. Sherrod is within her rights to sue Andrew Breitbart, and I hasten to reiterate that I cannot honestly know what it must be like to be in Sherrod's shoes tonight.

What I do feel, however - and this is why I would give Sherrod a B-plus for her full week of actions instead of a solid A - is that while Sherrod did nothing morally or ethically wrong, she did miss an opportunity to sustain and/or consolidate the gains she made in our national racial environment before she insisted that Breitbart's website, Big Journalism, should be shut down.

One thing to realize about race - and I'd like to think this statement holds up under scrutiny regardless of the racial identity of the person making it - is that the larger populace is edified by a lived-out example and deep testimonials more than quick sound bites in a hyper-accelerated (and partisan, and fragmented) media landscape. When Barack Obama made his Philadelphia speech in the spring of 2008, the country was edified because it gained a chance to read about and reflect on race in a much more textured fashion removed from the food-fight realm of flamethrowing, talking-point-spouting cable yakkers with no sense of nuance.

In other words, there's a way to teach the country about race, and there's a way to inflame problems even with the best of intentions. The jujitsu of politics - of winning the nation's hearts and minds the way Dr. King did in the 1960s - is different from the realm of morality. There was never a question about the rightness of Dr. King's beliefs and aspirations during the Civil Rights Movement; the lingering question was HOW to go about affirming those values and giving them ratification in the legislative sphere.

The record shows - at least from this student's perspective - that Dr. King suffered punches and body blows (as did the lunch-counter protesters and the people who experienced both the water cannons of Bull Connor and the clubs of Selma) in order to win the war for civil rights. The nonviolence King so faithfully adhered to was powerful precisely because it never struck back at wrongdoers and oppressors. Nonviolence, lived to its fullest, caused the doers of violence to be fully exposed before the nation's eyes. A tipping point was reached where the populace could no longer ignore the nonviolent fidelity and human goodness of civil rights protesters, cast in vivid relief against the harsh polar opposite of thuggish police and the bullies who upheld Jim Crow.

I don't want to take up more of your time, so I'll race to the immediate conclusion and see if you want me to elaborate more on on this issue in the future:

Shirley Sherrod is a hero; I simply think that she ran 97 percent of the race and, near the finish line, resorted to the kind of act that was not politically astute, the kind of act that Dr. King or Gandhi probably would not have resorted to. By going to a sound-bite realm (a CNN talk show) instead of giving a lengthy speech or perhaps asking Bill Moyers to come out of retirement for a one-shot 90-minute special conversation, Sherrod - for the only time this past week - played the political game on Andrew Breitbart's turf and terms. In so doing, she allowed a lot of conservatives who, on Wednesday, were largely in her corner to - on Thursday night - lose their newfound admiration and respect for her. The net result for the nation was still positive, but oh, a big chunk of political capital was squandered.

That's all for now. Thanks for taking the time to comment and raise questions. I'm happy to listen to further remarks and treat them with the sincerity and respect they most certainly deserve.

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POSTSCRIPT - Tackling a few of your itemized questions (without naming names or identifying Twitter handles)

** A Vatican 3 Catholic believes in ordaining women and implementing other Church reforms that the Second Vatican Council (Vatican 2) did not achieve. Basically, a Vatican 3 Catholic advocates a further modernization (and laicization) of the Church.

** To the poster who felt I was put in my place: I ask these questions with no rancor whatsoever, and purely in a spirit of honest curiosity:

1) What made you feel I was "put in my place"?

2) What made you feel satisfied about the progression of the conversation I had with Professor Kelley?

3) What did I say or suggest that was off-putting? Did I address it in the essay above? If not, how can I improve my speech and conduct with respect to racial issues in the future? I'm always looking to improve.

** To another poster who referenced ACORN: Does Breitbart's takedown of ACORN mean that he should be taken down with the same hardball tactics he used? Perhaps the best way to take down Breitbart - a figure worthy of being taken down - is to ignore him into irrelevance and not give him continued publicity, which translates into sustained (high) traffic and page views for his network of websites. Moreover, the specific place in which Sherrod erred was not so much the lawsuit as the claim that Big Journalism should be shut down. How is that protective of free speech? Focusing on the libelous actions of Breitbart - without casting a wider net - would have seemed more politically (and legally) astute. Just two cents....

** To another poster: No, Sherrod is not duplicitous. I hope the essay above addressed that. She merely made one tactical misstep during an otherwise heroic week of performance in the national spotlight.

Journalistic Jujitsu: Or, Why Lefties Must Be Better

2010-07-22T19:45:00.000-07:00

NOTE: This very occasional blog series, devoted to Left-Right dialogue, is taking a brief detour here to focus on what would ostensibly be viewed as liberal journalistic outlets. -M.Z.

I get paid a little bit to write about sports, but writing about politics and the affairs of nations is even more essential to my soul, because it is in that larger realm where I will be judged by my maker. Therefore, I feel compelled to write a brief essay about left-themed journalism... and begin it with a sports metaphor.

College basketball, with 347 schools playing at the Division I level, is divided into multiple tiers. The schools that aren't elite - and lack huge athletic budgets - are called "mid-majors." A devoted defender of these "have-nots" in college hoops says that when a mid-major plays a "power conference" school such as North Carolina or Kansas, "It's 5 against 8. The poor team has to be 10-15 points better than the rich team, because the rich team will get at least 8-10 points worth of favorable calls from the officials."

People on both (all) sides of the political divide feel that their group is playing 5-on-8, with the opposition having the three referees in their corner. Speaking as a lefty, it is not the place of this essay to debate the 5-on-8 issue, but to proceed in a manner that will render the officials irrelevant.

Let's say, for the sake of argument, that liberals are shorthanded in the national journalistic climate and the political tensions that accompany it. There's reason to think as much: The Iraq War, the September 2008 economic meltdown, and the torture debate all witnessed the Establishment decide that the serious and appropriate position was not the liberal one. Grassroots progressive values have a hard time working their way into the center of national debate, and especially the military-industrial complex.

What are liberal journalistic outlets to do in the face of this? The journalist certainly can be an advocate, but this form of advocacy - different from community organizing or nonprofit work - is constrained by a need to adhere to facts, which are certainly open to some degree of interpretation but ultimately transcend one viewpoint or ideology. One must ask the liberal journalist, especially at an editorial level, the following question: What journalistic change/reform, more than anything else, could transform the world for the better? Sure, more money would mean better coverage, but at the level of editorial policy, what new point of emphasis - if absorbed on a massive scale by liberal media outlets - would point ourselves in a much better direction... not only in America, but across the globe?

My answer (which has been developing in my head for the past few weeks): nonviolent public affairs coverage.

What does this mean? It means that anyone who calls him/herself progressive - and surely cherishes the example of figures like Jesus, King and Gandhi - needs to be more intentional about following the way of nonviolence in public journalism, not just private practice.

The 5-versus-8 metaphor is instructive because it portrays a situation in which the shorthanded team has no margin for error. That's really where liberals and liberal journalists are today in America. The JournoList incident was not an outrageous scandal, but it was worrisome and depressing because - say what you want about off-the-record technicalities - it still showed liberal journalists spending the balance of their time worrying about a political contest instead of talking about the issues affecting a broken nation with people in misery.

Jesus, King and Gandhi - the trinity of nonviolent teachers - demand far more words than this essay will give them, but they all share some core traits that can be briefly stated: They fought, but they did so spiritually, and not (primarily) with words; they didn't make conflicts personal; they all learned not to carry anger or resentment toward their chief oppressors, truly regarding the Oppositional Other as worthy of (and needing) forgiveness; and, most centrally to the notion of nonviolence, they all suffered torments while resisting the impulse to verbally or physically lash out at their tormentors.

The political theater of nonviolence - mastered by Jesus, King and Gandhi - basically involves this progression: Speak about the need for nonviolence and the supreme values you cherish. Live the nonviolence you promote as central to the improvement of human civilization and morals. Teach others exactly how to follow this difficult path (the way Branch Rickey taught Jackie Robinson). Keep living the value of nonviolence. NEVER, EVER GIVE IN TO THE TEMPTATION TO STRIKE BACK. When the other side keeps exposing itself as violent while you maintain your authentic and loving nonviolence, the public reaches a tipping point. The consistency of the faithful nonviolent example eventually does topple the doers of violence and the promoters of hatred. Minds and hearts then change.

The obvious difficulty here is that in 21st century America, with a vast proliferation of media outlets and - hence - individual journalists, just one loose cannon can derail any attempt by large groups of liberal journalists to - in their reportage and in their public appearances on talk shows - embody nonviolence. However, this difficulty should not dissuade liberal media outlets from trying to more consciously practice nonviolence in public communications and reportage.

Does this mean that a bully - like Andrew Breitbart - shouldn't be called a bully? No. (An ethos of nonviolence, though, would suggest that the best way to deal with a figure like Breitbart is to ignore him into irrelevance; he, like other tempters of professed nonviolence advocates, wants to provoke a violent reaction which will expose hypocrisy and thereby undercut the peace-seeking Left at large.)

Does this mean, of course, that the Left should roll over and play dead in the face of the Right? That's a rhetorical question - of course it shouldn't.

Do consider, though, the potential of a more consciously nonviolent community of American liberal journalists: Given eight years (two presidential election cycles) of faithful practice, combined with a consistent pattern of focusing on holding the Democratic Party accountable, the ranks of liberal journalists - unconcerned with combating the Republicans - might garner more wide-ranging respect from the entire population. Doing advocacy journalism in ways that help and lift up ordinary people, while withdrawing from the Beltway noise machine, could give liberal journalism credibility with the common person, enabling the Left to be seen - in a decade or so - as not the extension of MSNBC, but as nothing other than the responsible player in American journalism writ large.

Is there so much more to unpack here? Yes. However, we all have busy lives... especially the liberal journalists who - I hope - will read this essay. I do think the basic outlines of this vision have been drawn, to the extent that you can see what's going on. I welcome any and all questions or remarks in the comments section, and you're also welcome to e-mail me anytime.

Meanwhile, give a little consideration to - if not the entirety of this vision - the possibilities that can emerge whenever a Christian/Gandhian ethos of nonviolence gets infused into mainstream political debate. Lefties and lefty journalists simply have to be better in order to defeat the militarism, secrecy and poverty we progressives rightly detest.

Federer Fans, Nadal Fans, and a Window Into Political Discord

2010-07-04T05:54:00.000-07:00

There's room for one more blog post at the end of a cluttered and busy week, and it falls outside the realm of politics... well, not quite, now that you mention it.

This is a sports post and not inherently a political one, but even a brief stroll through the landscape of tennis fandom has something to say about the way people approach any contentious subject.

As Rafael Nadal tries today to win the Wimbledon crown his injury ceded to Roger Federer in 2009, it's worth making a few points about these two champions and the way they're perceived by the public. A number of things need to be said, and a number of questions need to be asked, about the roots of support and opposition that have penetrated deep into the conversational topsoil whenever Mr. Federer and Mr. Nadal occupy center stage.

We all have our preferences as sports fans. It's a free country. Some fans gravitate to Federer's ice, others to Rafa's vibrant fire. Some women will respond to Fed's Swiss polish, many others to Rafa's Mallorcan flair. A Fed fan might be touched by the way Federer relates to his wife, Mirka, while Nadal fans might be stirred by the deep bond Rafa enjoys with the family and the neighborhood that hold him so close. On the court, the precise flourishes of an in-form Federer are wondrous for some, while Nadal's unceasing determination and energy rouse many other tennis souls to flights of ecstasy. Fed fans love how Roger set a new standard for tennis excellence; Rafa fans thoroughly appreciate the fact that someone else is stepping up to the plate and leveling a stern challenge to that very standard.

All of this is good and healthy and human and, one should add, quite necessary. We need differences to complement each other and lend fullness to the human experience. To be a sports fan - like a connoisseur of art - is to be one person out of many, one carrier of a unique set of tastes and preferences that will differ from the next guy or gal. All of this is good.

It's the unnecessary collection of distractions and tangents and friction points which detracts from the majesty and marvelousness of what the Federer-Nadal era should be.

Why is it that Federer's press conference - following his quarterfinal loss to Tomas Berdych at Wimbledon on Wednesday - was somehow perceived by some as finally (or rarely) revealing Federer's humanity? Was this humanity not present before? When Federer failed to live up to (by a small margin, not the large margin I had originally perceived) the highest standards of conduct, why did that come across to some as being a welcome moment that somehow humanized Mr. Federer?

When Nadal asked for a medical time-out in his third-round win over Philipp Petzschner, why was that viewed as an act of dubious sportsmanship on Mr. Nadal's part, given that he missed Wimbledon in 2009 because of balky knees?

And here's the biggest question of all: Why is it that when an athlete receives either too much coverage or what is felt to be a misguided form of coverage in the press (coverage, it should be added, that he himself is not manipulating or orchestrating), the athlete becomes less attractive in the eyes of many fans?

Nadal suffers from this dynamic when his comments on injuries are referenced. The same thing applies to his five-set wins. It is true that there is at least some degree of a double standard in terms of the way Rafa's comments and on-court performances are treated in comparison with Federer. When the Swiss is pushed in a five-set escape, more alarm bells go off than is the case with Rafa. Mr. Nadal doesn't receive the "what's wrong?" chorus to the extent Federer does; I don't think that claim is tenuous.

You might be wondering: "How does NADAL suffer here?" He suffers in the realm of fan perception. Because of the media's double standard and because of the shadow (unnecessarily) cast by medical time-outs that have a legitimate basis in the reality of Rafa's frail knees, a number of fans come to like Rafa a bit less than they would otherwise.

Rest assured, though, Mr. Federer also gets scarred among tennis fans for similar reasons.

Whenever the media does a fawning piece on Fed, or brings an old classic Federer match into the discussion of a present-day battle unfolding live and in real time, a lot of groans are articulated on tennis message boards and blogs. Federer's pervasive media presence and frequent presence on a TV screen have created a (hyper-)saturation effect which makes Federer a turn-off for a number of tennis fans. Yet, I would dare to say that for both of these great champions and fine sportsmen (imperfect, but still very good over the long run of time), the media coverage - in its tone, tenor, content and quantity - substantially effect the extent to which the player is appreciated and admired by the tennis public.

Well, the Wimbledon final is four games underway. Time to shelve this post. I would simply like to get some in-depth feedback from a wide cross-section of tennis fans.

I leave you with this point: You can hate the media - often, you should - for what it does to try to bend perceptions of tennis stars and other athletes. Let's focus more on being critical of the media and not taking things out on the players themselves if they have nothing to do with the nature of the (wayward) media coverage being directed at them. On the other hand, if a great player and sportsman - no matter how sterling the reputation - does say something (or do something) to merit criticism, one shouldn't be afraid to acknowledge as much and, if need be, call that player (like Federer after his Wednesday press conference at Wimbledon) on the carpet.

Let the feedback flow once the Wimbledon final is over.

The Fourth of July: An Empty American Holiday

2010-07-03T18:58:00.001-07:00

America turns 234 years old on this latest observance of the Fourth of July. There is much that remains inspiring and remarkable about the United States and its origins. This country is in many ways a miracle and, even now, a lasting example of what human civilization can and should be.

However, the passage of time has also eroded much of the spirit which so thoroughly animated and motivated our Founders, the people who so bravely fought against overwhelming odds to give life and birth to a most amazing idea: That human beings are endowed by their Creator with certain unalienable rights - life, liberty, and the pursuit of happiness.

It's the final line of the Declaration of Independence which regularly stirs me. Contemplate the depth of sacrifice involved in the founding of America and the principles that made it great:

And for the support of this Declaration, with a firm reliance on the protection of divine Providence, we mutually pledge to each other our Lives, our Fortunes and our sacred Honor.

Gosh, that's nothing less than electrifying. This small band of citizens, seeing the flame of freedom snuffed out in their midst, didn't passively allow themselves to be consigned to such a fate. They acted - boldly, creatively, shrewdly, courageously, and with uncommon energy and scope - to establish the more perfect union that has benefited so many of us who call ourselves "American." It's really rather breathtaking.

So, the question begs to be asked: Are we, the American citizens of 2010, pledging to each other our (capital-L) Lives, our (capital-F) Fortunes, and our sacred (capital-H) Honor?

More to the point, what do we do as a nation on July 4 to show as much?

Seems to me the parades and the flags and the barbecues and the baseball and the fireworks and the John Philip Sousa are as far as we get... at least for 95 percent of us.

Without belaboring the point or going into a long stemwinder of a soliloquy, I propose two things:

1) In your own quiet moments and workings, find a simple way to help a fellow man or woman by giving a piece of your Life, Fortune or sacred Honor to a person in need of uplift.

2) Nationally, I propose that at 8 p.m. Eastern time on July 4, we spend one hour to simply mark the weight of the occasion in a plain manner the Founders would approve of. We should stop as a nation - much like Muslim societies do in their five-a-day calls to prayer - and gather around the television as all our networks (all of them!) broadcast one hour devoted to a commemoration of who and what we are as a Republic.

Have the Declaration of Independence be read out loud, followed by the Articles of the United States Constitution and their amendments. Have all our presidents' names vocalized (even the bad ones), have all our House speakers and Senate majority leaders named. Have all our Supreme Court chief justices named.

The exercise might seem small and minimalist to many, but it would be a way of educating our youth in a public manner and conveying the important, relevant idea that our history and heritage matter.

Why is this important to me? First of all, Americans are terrible at studying, let alone appreciating and cherishing, history in general. A populace more educated in history and civics is a population that is less prone to passively accept affronts to freedom and rights both communal and individual.

Secondly, though, I was inspired to conceive this idea because I live in Seattle. Several months ago, it was revealed that the city lacked the funds and sponsorships to stage its annual Fourth of July fireworks show over Lake Union. When this shortage of funds was announced, the people of Seattle reacted as though a profound human crisis had been encountered. The $500,000 needed to stage the show were quickly raised - in about 36 hours over the airwaves of the local talk radio station - and the city rejoiced.

Fireworks are all well and good - nothing wrong with a little holiday fun - but when they acquire such importance, centrality and urgency from the populace while far greater human needs go unmet in this city, it only affirms in Seattle what seems to be the case in America at large: We react more strongly in defense of our entertainments and comforts than in defense of the poor and of constitutional principles that sorely need our vigilant daily advocacy.

Please - do something meaningful for a neighbor on the Fourth of July. If you like the idea of a public reading outlined above, call your local congressional representative. I'll attempt to do these things myself.

I'll also not attend Seattle's fireworks show on the night of July 4, 2010.

It's time to make America - its values and the birthday which gave rise to them - more imbued with meaning. It's time to devote to America a little more of our Lives, our Fortunes, and our sacred Honor.

Respecting the Process, Serving the People: Key Components of the Left-Right Divide

2010-07-03T16:52:00.000-07:00

It's worth returning to this blog for a few posts. This isn't a high-maintenance everyday blog, but when issues emerge that demand attention, they ought to be written about.

We return to the marketplace of ideas, then, by exploring a key component of the Left-Right divide: the law.

The Elena Kagan hearings - like any hearings for a prospective Supreme Court justice in the United States - raises the familiar cry of "judicial activism!" This is otherwise known as the central source of Left-Right division, with all its attendant hypocrisies: "When you do it, it's an abuse of power; when I do it, it's inspired leadership." The same is true in the courts and the Judiciary Committee of the United States Senate: "When your side interprets laws, it's judicial activism. When we interpret law, we're faithful to the Constitution and the intent of the Founding Fathers."

Sadly but surely, every hearing for a Supreme Court nominee seems to turn into a Kabuki theater festival, even if - as is the case with Kagan - confirmation is almost guaranteed. These show hearings rarely if ever generate more light than heat, thereby dividing our Republic even more on this, the weekend celebrating its 234th birthday. Just how can we deal with matters of law in a more constructive manner? It's a topic worthy of extensive deliberation, but let's at least try to establish a few basic principles in a brief space.

A very good discussion starter comes from my conservative libertarian pal John Cary, who shared on Twitter a TownHall.com article from author Frank Turek on Ms. Kagan. The piece is an effective critique of Kagan from a conservative perspective and owns a lot of heft on a purely logical level removed from purely political considerations. Turek's best point emerges in his criticism that Kagan is way off base when she says that "Don't Ask, Don't Tell" is "a moral injustice of the first order." That is indeed a laughably inadequate assessment of what justice means, and Turek pounces in a manner befitting an appreciably sharp mind should.

Mr. Turek seizes the moment and uses Kagan's comments to illustrate the need to follow established guidelines and mechanisms for interpreting and enforcing laws. The law can't just be deemed good or bad; there needs to be a basis in the legal canon and its accepted tenets. Personal opinion and a deep-set worry that a given law (or ruling, or both) will lead to negative consequences doesn't satisfy legal standards.

All of this is an accurate enough commentary, a critique that conservatives generally lodge against liberals. The Right in America is of the firmly-held belief that the Left ignores structure and statute and - based on personal opinion and preference - foists its values and recommendations on the American public at large. The American Right thinks that the American Left injects opinion into law and bends interpretations of law to suit its own desires. Conservatives and Right-leaning libertarians feel that the Left is constantly trying to (extra-judicially and otherwise) re-engineer American society in accordance with its aims.

Now, that's a lot to digest. Is it true? Well, this blog really isn't about answering questions like that. The purpose of this blog is to get at the matter of HOW WE DEAL WITH DIVISIVE QUESTIONS SUCH AS THIS.

I'm of the personal opinion that Kagan's very much a centrist. John Cary is of the opinion she's hard Left. On the issue Mr. Turek talks about - DADT - Kagan is guilty, at least on a basic level, of operating in a manner consistent with the conservative critique of liberals. However, Mr. Turek - and this is where I have a difficult time with his still-valuable and thought-provoking column - advanced the view that "the military rightfully discriminates against numerous behaviors and conditions" in order to promote the highest possible level of performance.

My beef is not, of course, that the military discriminates against certain behaviors and conditions. It must indeed discriminate on certain levels. That's not where Turek goes astray. Where Turek errs is in his implicit assumption that homosexuality is one of the conditions which the military is right to discriminate against. To put a finer point on Turek's reasoning, as soon as he left the realm of structure and process in which conservatives are more naturally comfortable, he wandered into a more open-ended place in which - according to his own critique - liberals actually DO have just cause to recommend a better formulation or arrangement of policy. Turek provides an important public service to the country, and to the ranks of American lefties, by demanding of them an intellectual and structural rigor which is consistent with set-down components of recognized law. However, by that very same set of standards, once the realm of structure is left behind and the realm of interpretation is entered, liberals or progressives are no longer foisting their beliefs on everybody else.

In other words, Elena Kagan does need to recognize the military's role in shaping its own policy; by extension, liberals need to be cognizant of the proper domains and jurisdictions applicable to tenets of our constitution and its laws. That's the benefit of Turek's thoughtful piece. However, when one then gets to the debate surrounding what the military should in fact do, and how it should go about doing it, the terrain shifts to the content of policy itself, not the constitutionality of procedure.

What we have before us, then, is a dynamic where liberals need to give more weight to the proper place and position of process in the establishment of laws. The ruling on Citizens United - which established that corporations are people - is just such an instance. Like other American lefties, I do find the idea odious and noxious; however, as a matter of constitutional fidelity, I don't see how one can honesty rule otherwise under current conditions. Money - while not something people equally share - is indeed a form of free speech. If we're serious about protecting speech, well, we have to allow money to be spent by corporations, which are run by individual people. The result sucks and is detrimental to the fabric of our democracy, but that's what the constitution says, so for now, it has to be followed.

The thing the Left needs to do, though - and this is where I'd like to see the Right join in, too - is organize a movement to promote the public financing of campaigns and render the problem moot. If one is confronted by an unpleasant reality connected to the faithful application of the supreme law of the land, one should not persist in arguing that a court decision failed to apply the law. No, one should work around the law, or - to present another alternative - amend the law.

There is an amendment process to the constitution. Why won't (shouldn't?) leaders among the ranks of the American Left propose a 28th Amendment? That's where lefties have to possess more agility, acuity and passion. Unfortunately, they get wrapped up in fighting over the same piece of turf, usually to their detriment.

Now, on the other hand, when procedure and jurisdiction are not in question, I'd like to see conservative friends acknowledge the notion that liberals really aren't "re-engineering American society to suit their own whims." Liberals are guilty of this in some respects, I hasten to say ( Citizens United being one such prominent case ), but with respect to - for instance - the death penalty, the constitution sets forth a metric of "cruel and unusual punishment."

It would certainly seem to this lefty that if death doesn't represent cruel and unusual punishment, nothing does. Moreover, as a Christian who is all too aware that Jesus died at the hands of capital punishment, I remain even more baffled that any Christian - as is also the case with war - could be unbothered at best and sanguine at worst in the face of other people being killed by an extension of the state. If the Left is wrong to foist beliefs in an extra-judicial or extra-constitutional manner upon the populace, as it sometimes does, the Right needs to bear in mind that the Left's beliefs not only aren't always foisted, but that in many cases, they don't hold sway at all in the public arena. There are instances in which progressive, left-leaning values have something to add to the whole of society. Sure, they're subject to abuse and misapplication (just like the views of the Right or the views of any other political persuasion), but they deserve a place at the table and have a role to play in the evolution of our society.

Bottom line: If liberals don't like a law, they need to deal with it in creative ways or move to amend the constitution (conservatives can do the same on issues that cut against them). However, if procedural and jurisdictional issues are not in question, the liberal position - while perhaps meriting disagreement - doesn't need to be seen as an undue imposition on the people. The gaps between theory and reality, between definitional exactitude and the messiness of public practice, aren't easily resolved in real life. Liberals will tend to want to create the right result, while conservatives will insist on a process faithful to tenets of law.

I suggest that both sides be ready and willing to address the portions of the problem that they have historically and instinctively neglected.

Media Bias: Categories, Not Ideologies

2010-05-28T13:24:00.000-07:00

The subject of media bias is a stumbling block for all Americans. It is at once both supremely important and yet hopelessly politicized. More precisely, media bias is claimed by most people to cut in one direction (namely, against their political leanings) when in fact in cuts in all sorts of directions. Think tanks and stand-alone entities have been formed by both the Left (MediaMatters) and the Right (the Media Research Center) to identify and expose instances of media bias, all while we should be focusing on biases and shortcomings of a far more fundamental nature – biases that carry truly serious consequences.

Before going forward, I must hasten to say that if it seems I’m taking a middle-ground position just to be some sort of peacemaker or conciliatory presence, well, I can understand how or why you’d arrive at such a conclusion. Rest assured, though, that as with other issues talked about on this blog, I find myself sincerely convinced that there’s enough blame (and good will) to be shared by the Left and the Right in America. The whole point of pointing a (rare and quite lonely) path toward Left-Right reconciliation is that we cannot continue to demonize the other, especially when there is so much that is wrong about our own positions, a reality owing in large part to a two-party system which simply demands a considerable amount of self-contradictory stances and concessions to the game of political hardball. Life in the 21st century has become too vast, complex and contentious for one side to own all the blame (and conversely, all the credit) for the combination of successes and failures that emerge in our time. An honest focus on various problems will involve members of the Left and Right taking ownership of their failings first, and then (but only then) making a sincere and pure-hearted effort to call the other side to a higher, nobler way of operating.

So, with that having been established, let’s go deeper into the belly of this beast we call the media.

As someone who does work within the realm of journalism, but in the less consequential world of college football (I’ve been a columnist since 2001), I and my inbox have been deluged by charges of bias from readers across the United States. The only difference is that I’ve been accused of being biased toward teams and conferences, not to political ideologies. Being biased in favor of the University of Southern California is quite different – and much less alarming – than being biased in favor of a political candidate or a political way of being. I have written op-eds for seven years in the Seattle papers (that died in the past year, as one paper has ceased to publish a print version while the other has scaled its op-ed space down to 600 words from 750; no thanks…), but I have not worked as a political or public affairs journalist. I can only claim journalistic credits as a sportswriter, so I can’t claim that I have firsthand experience of being called a biased liberal or progressive. I want that to be clear.

However, I can rightfully say that I’ve been exposed to charges of bias by a national mass readership. I can say that I’ve engaged in a give-and-take with readers and have directly observed the motivations and mechanics and manipulations that surround media bias. Working for what is a largely independent news voice (somewhat constrained at times but generally unshackled), I can also say that I’ve seen media bias at work in the college football industry and in the media-industrial complex at large. The issue of media bias is not and has not been foreign to my work and to my evolution as a citizen. I might not be the ultimate authority, but I have spent enough time in the e-mail salt mines to merit a place at the table on this often-vexing issue.

My overall view of media bias is shaped by three overarching statements: First, there’s small-b “bias,” the unique combination of inflection/emphasis/interpretation any human being will unavoidably bring to his/her writing or public commentary simply as an extension of his/her life experiences.

Even an Associated Press writer will have to make some degree of analysis or interpretation on a news story which goes beyond something you’d see on the local news at 11. Such a detail will almost inevitably color or flavor the article in a way different from another news analyst whose slight variances in interpretation could lend a notably altered voice to the article. This is just a fact of being human in a complex world; Difficult issues demand interpretation, and our biographies – the flow and progression of our lives – will create small but real particularities in the way journalists emphasize and analyze the stories they must unpack for a wide readership. This is what small-b “bias” is; it’s nothing to be concerned about, nothing to fight or lament.

The second key point about media bias is that there are instances in which an entrenchedness, a systemic or patternistic attitude toward the news of the day, infects or encompasses an issue or a larger collection of issues. This is capital-B “Bias,” and this is the abdication of journalistic standards and professional responsibility which does indeed merit vigilance from any and all corners of American society.

I think it’s fair to say – this is an indictment of all our major media organizations in America – that there is no one mass-media entity in the country which is looked to as a fair and impartial arbiter for political disputes. CNN – which touts itself as being the straight shooter in the American media cosmos – is viewed to be lousy by both the Left and the Right. MSNBC and Fox basically exist to shout down each other, and PBS – which might have once claimed credibility on a larger level – has become quite Beltway-centric in recent years (where have you gone, Robert MacNeil?) and has seen its Friday night political lineup dashed to pieces by the death of Louis Rukeyser and the good-ole-boy (and girl) network known as Washington Week in Review, a forum in which D.C. pundits get to tell each other how acceptable they all are. The McLaughlin Group – a favorite of mine when I was a teenager and early 20-something – never did provide serious intellectual debate, and I look back on my embrace of that show with a superabundant quantity of embarrassment.

It is the country’s great loss that no one person or outlet is seen as being universally respected. Bill Moyers has the universal respect of the Left, and William F. Buckley (who, for all the areas in which I disagreed with him, commanded my respect) stood as the preeminent voice of the Right, but not since Walter Cronkite has one figure truly been able to be seen as the kind of man who could fit this memorable statement: “If you’ve lost Cronkite, you’ve lost the country.” We need our journalistic outlets as a whole to earn respect from all corners of the country; if they did, various outlets like FAIR (on the Left) and NewsBusters (on the Right) wouldn’t waste their time trying to track down every little slight and grievance and offense they perceive in the mass-media realm.

My third and unifying point about media bias is this: While there’s small-b (inevitable) bias and capital-B (systemic/professionally unacceptable) Bias, the biggest lesson to realize – in politics but also in sports and other smaller media ecosystems – is that biases, be they of the small-b or capital-B variety, should be seen not in a context of liberal versus conservative or Team A versus Team B, but in a context of money, advertising and economic leverage.

The media outlets that exist in the United States are – in proportion to their size and reach – more consolidated and ever more subject to corporate, market-based forces. Media consolidation, a product of the recent compositions of the Federal Communications Commission under chairmen Michael Powell and Kevin Martin (ask me about a November 9, 2007 FCC hearing Martin convened in Seattle, no more than 10 blocks from my apartment), has made our largest news-gathering behemoths ever more monolithic in terms of the masters they ultimately serve. Ad rates, production budgets, and shares of demographics drive management’s decision-making directives, with bad results for everyone in the country.

In sports, it’s not USC football or Duke basketball that media outlets are biased in favor of (or against). Highly successful brand-name athletic programs drive sales, and that’s why they get covered more (and for some, more harshly) than they otherwise should be. In politics, of course, the stakes are far higher and the subject matter is far more urgent, which makes it that much more acutely tragic when bias is displayed.

Someone like Bill Kristol, whose views of how the Iraq War would evolve were proven to be so thoroughly wrong, should not have a seat at a pundit’s table or be given a columnist’s chair, but he is still given a visible platform that’s hardly on the margins of the media realm. Thomas Friedman – a.k.a., “Mister Six More Months Will Determine If A Military Operation in Iraq Is Successful” – has also seen his views get discredited, but he’s built quite the lucrative career as a columnist and book author. James Carville and Karl Rove – as hardball political operators for the Clinton and Bush dynasties – have no place being given a readily available microphone, but they are readily accommodated because, talk-radio style, they move the needle and generate a response. Bob Shrum (this is my personal favorite!), a man who has lost every single general-election presidential campaign in which he’s had a central advisory role, is still trotted out before the masses on cable shows and public panels. (“Bob, what does it take to manage a winning presidential campaign? What is your expert opinion?” Sigh.)

These and other people are examples of how – in a cable news culture where putting on a bunch of yakkers creates ratings-based emotionalism for hardly any production costs – having a strong and emphatic voice matters more than having a thoughtful, accurate and wise voice. This is the bias that cuts in many different directions, but almost always against enlightenment, truth, and intellectual heft.

For a media edifice concerned with money and profits instead of telling meaningful, necessary and very inconvenient truths to the populace, it stands that bias will also cut in favor of the military and against religion. War – whether you are inclined to support or oppose it – does offer a gateway to big profits for various corporations, especially since the technology of both warmaking and war management has become so diversified and sophisticated in recent years. There are so many high-tech and logistically-oriented products and services which now surround the larger enterprise of war (and caring for soldiers both injured and uninjured) that a lot of industries stand to benefit from war. This is why the NBC Nightly News with Brian Williams had a deep bench of military generals who kept rotating through Mr. Williams’ nightly broadcasts more than a few years ago, in a damning and accurate story leveled by one of the New York Times’ fairer and more accomplished reporters, David Barstow (who gave the Tea Party movement a reasonably fair shake in an article published this past winter).

Mr. Williams – like the late Tim Russert and the still-present Tom Brokaw – has his NBC paycheck signed by Jack Welch of General Electric, a hubristic corporate icon who has made no secret about his ownership of his on-air talent in the past. Again, whether you approve or not of the enterprise of war, it’s a plain fact that a member of Dick Cheney’s staff spoke to the benefits of appearing on Meet the Press, with Russert as the host. The Cheney staffer said in a memo that the former Vice President could shape and manipulate the national narrative, making MTP a preferred venue for Mr. Cheney himself.

In the realm of religion, it would also make sense that the money question – tied to ratings and a desire for public viewership – would drive the tone, texture, tenor and content of mass media coverage. Naturally, the results are not good for the reputation of religion (even though there are ample reasons to view religion with sadness, dismay and disgust these days).

One of the central elements of good religion is that it is fundamentally countercultural – not in the sense that it hates the prevailing popular culture (that’s not quite right; good religion hates only sin and evil, not the human persons who participate in sin), but in the sense that it insists on a different way of being. Jesus was countercultural – and before my friends on the Right say it, I’ll say it for them: This does NOT mean Jesus and 1960s hippie radicals were and are one and the same thing. *Far* from it.

One thing that can certainly be said about Jesus as a political being – again, more clarification is needed here: this does not mean Jesus craved politics, only that he was subject to political realities like any other person – is that Jesus was very much an anti-establishment person. He spoke at appreciable length of how his kingdom was “not of this world,” that his power and authority came from God and was spiritual in nature, not of the linear political variety. This was then – and still is now – a stumbling block to human beings and how we organize various elements of our communities, our churches being one such element.

Because Jesus fought the establishment and did not play according to the rules of traditional political hardball, the powers that be looked upon him with fear and great uneasiness. If it was unsettling to the Jewish religious leaders (and Pontius Pilate) that Jesus won such an enormous following, it was just as disturbing for them – maybe more so – that the carpenter’s son from Nazareth did not play their linear political power games. He didn’t buy into commonly accepted ways of climbing to a position of muscular political power. No one should be surprised, when reading the Gospels, that Jesus met the earthly end he did in fact endure. This is what entrenched power does to people who resist it by using methods, words and actions that don’t fit the typical political power narrative.

Nothing has changed today in the realm of American media with respect to the subject of religion.

We should not be surprised that hardly anyone at a major metropolitan daily paper covers religion with maturity, nuance or layered depth. It is up to journals such as Commonweal, America, and First Things to probe the finer points of Catholic Christianity. (I’ll let Protestant brothers and sisters vouch for their own favorite journals of thought and cultural criticism.) Mainstream media coverage of religion displays hardly any ability to make sense of the religious struggle on a deeper level, precisely because mature religious investigation, scholarship and practice do not lend themselves to ratings bumps, polarizing conversations between pairs of cable yakkers, or any of the other visceral images or zingers that spice up a TV broadcast. If religion is involved in a mainstream media broadcast, it either involves sexual abuse by Catholic priests (SPICY!), affairs committed by evangelical preachers or so-called “family values” Republicans (SPICY!), or acts of terrorism committed by Muslims (DRAMATIC!).

My friends on the Right are right to decry the extensiveness with which the media has focused on affairs committed by Republican politicians who touted family values in their campaigns and made morality part of their political brand, their public political identity. Indeed, given the truly important (and terrible) things that are happening in the world, there’s little reason for a garden-variety affair to command a news cycle. Yet, because the media built up the Christian Coalition when it emerged in the 1990s under the (now discredited) Ralph Reed, the media – as it is wont to do – is overcompensating in the other direction by tearing down, with a certain bit of relish, the Mark Souders and David Vitters of the world. It was and is a disservice to the Right (not just the Left) that the mainstream press attached Ralph Reed, Pat Robertson and Jerry Falwell to the core of modern-day American conservative Protestant Christianity, when pastors such as Rick Warren or Bill Hybels, among others, were doing better and more substantive work.

Yes, the media eventually gave Warren a fair measure of attention, but one must just as readily say that the press was: 1) late to the dance; 2) motivated by the commercial success of Warren’s book, The Purpose-Driven Life; and 3) attracted to Warren for things said and done in political contexts, especially the role Warren played in the 2008 presidential campaign and the 2009 inaugural. Even when a not-so-political or not-so-institutional voice entered the conversation surrounding religion in America, that voice was brought into the establishment with a helping hand from the media. This does no favors to conservative Christians, and especially not to libertarian Christians.

Stepping back for a bit, one must also deal with how coverage of religion affects the Left.

Liberals get too wrapped up in gloating over these downfalls of Republican “family values” politicians and evangelical preachers – I can lament the development because I don’t join in that parade – but where the Left has a legitimate beef with the media is that the mainstream press once ceded so much ground in the first place to people who moralized their way to political prominence. Little was made of the fact that Karl Rove placed 11 anti-gay marriage initiatives on the ballots in different states for the 2004 November elections. The move was a politically brilliant way of rallying just enough of his base in a tough re-election fight, but political brilliance and moral integrity hardly go hand-in-hand. Rove and his mentor – the late Lee Atwater – would know. (Atwater, in a documentary film on his life – a film comprised substantially of his own words and the words of confidants – arrived at a deathbed conversion with respect to the political dirty tricks he played during his career. Rove, with a reputation in Republican circles which rivals that of Atwater, has yet to have his Saul-On-The-Road-To-Damascus moment.)

The 11 gay marriage ballot initiatives were something the mainstream media should have covered, but it was so wrapped up in a hollow and typically superficial treatment of “family values” that it missed a deeper and more significant story.

In its investigation of the Catholic Church (which does indeed have a lot to apologize for, don’t get me wrong; I’ve banged that drum for quite some time), the mainstream press has provided a great service within certain contexts. But now, eight years after the Boston Globe began to lift the veil from the Church’s dark past, it does seem that the New York Times is focusing on the Church with unusually striking singularity, and without pointing the way to better means of internal Catholic governance. The good things the Boston Globe did in 2002 cannot and should not obscure a long history of pronounced anti-Catholicism in American media over the centuries. Catholic-specific journals, Left and Right, are the only venues where an American citizen will receive a probing and appropriately layered beyond-the-sound-bite treatment of the issues tearing at the fabric of American Catholicism.

Then there’s the matter of Islam. There was a flurry of exploration of Islam in the immediate aftermath of 9/11, but in the years since, it’s been hard to find a mature treatment of the religion in the mainstream press, particularly on broadcast television. I wonder what Boston University’s Steven Prothro and other mainstream religious scholars would say about America’s overall religious literacy and the quality of the media coverage which reflects a nation’s religious literacy. It can’t be very high, and this is just as much a statement of the secular Left’s ignorance of religion as it is a commentary on how the Christian Right has not been served well in this realm. Media bias hurts everyone when it takes the sensationalist yet establishment-friendly tack it has most certainly acquired on the matter of religion.

There are so many more areas in which media bias doesn’t conveniently fit into anti-Left or Anti-Right. I’ll mention just one and try to wrap up this essay. The element in question is the use of polls and measures of public popularity or opinion.

Polls conducted during presidential campaigns were exposed as the limited and flawed measurements that they are in both 2000 and 2004, for one thing. Beyond that defect, presidential polls also typify the horse-race mentality which guides the mainstream media’s sadly inadequate coverage of presidential politics, dominated as it is by sound bites, the cult of personality, fake notions of “gravitas”, the fluffiness of one’s hair, and the extent to which a candidate is telegenic or “presidential” enough. This has served candidates of both parties over time, thereby hurting the opposing candidates in both parties.

Outside the realm of presidential politics, polls are also worthless because they reflect an American desire for instant reaction and instant measurement. This is an attempt to generate “fast-food history” and promote the value of a response – any response – over accuracy or the much harder journalistic work of giving people solid facts they can base their responses on in the first place.

How would John F. Kennedy’s popularity ratings have been different if the press didn’t hush up or hide his many extramarital affairs?

To the extent that Americans knew of his existence, how unpopular was Osama Bin Laden in this country, circa 1980?

To the extent that Americans knew of his existence, how unpopular was Saddam Hussein in this country, circa 1984?

How wise were Clinton Treasury Secretary Robert Rubin’s actions perceived to be in the mid-1990s? If insta-polling had been conducted then on Rubin’s activities, chances are the immensely powerful figure would have garnered stratospherically high ratings from the populace. Look at Rubin’s place in history now; ditto for Alan Greenspan. Polls are “junk food journalism,” much as – college football parallel alert! – the poll rankings in college football (especially among the nation’s coaches, who rarely if ever see other teams' games during each season) are hardly a true reflection of the quality of the nation’s football teams.

Polls are lazy, cheap and hollow. Moreover, they create – perhaps subconsciously, perhaps more overtly (in some manner for sure) – this distinctly impoverished notion that if a majority of Americans agree with or approve of an action, politicians should try to act in accordance with it. What would really help our nation and its political environment would be if news-gathering organizations provided the populace with relevant and copious information that could give citizens the same window into national and global problems that politicians have as a result of the internal briefings and memos they get on a daily basis.

Media bias: It’s so much more than liberal versus conservative. It’s about money, protecting the establishment, and serving power structures to keep people docile, in the dark, and – as the late, great media critic Neil Postman said – to perpetuate a cycle in which we are “amusing ourselves to death.”

Soldiers, Christianity and War: A Memorial Day Weekend Essay

2010-05-28T13:08:00.000-07:00

Let’s get to the heart of what we – as human beings – should be doing in this brief time we have on earth.

We should, if at all possible, avoid killing other people. (Just wait – this will naturally be explained in a deeper context. We’re starting with basic concepts and developing frameworks in due time…)

There are many sins in the Bible and in the realm of recorded history; Saint Paul mentioned the sin against the Holy Spirit, which might understandably occupy a prominent place for a good many Christians. However, it’s hard if not impossible to conclude that the worst thing human beings have done to each other since we first walked the earth is that we kill each other. A lot.

Whether it’s an all-out war, or just one-sided, blood-soaked repression of a people by a ruthless dictatorship, or localized gun violence by gangs or a criminal element, human lives are always being cut down by others. What’s instructive to note is that human societies, over time, show little to no sign of being able (or even willing) to stop cycles of violence and put a halt to patterns of endless antagonism and distrust. The Israelis and Palestinians, Pakistan and India, the Sunnis and Shiites, and various other groups engage in a punch-and-punch-back cycle which continues relatively unabated precisely because no one of stature insists on a different way of being.

In a better world, a world dominated by Christian principles and a Christian way of life, we will identify with the One who – in the hours before his very death – told Peter, “those who live by the sword shall also perish by it.” Peter thought he was doing the right thing by lopping off the ear of the corrupt and evil high priest’s servant, but Jesus told the always-overzealous and excitable Peter to put the sword away. It’s not a rewriting of history (or of Scripture) to identify the narrative of cross and crucifixion as a study in nonviolent resistance to power. That is in fact a portion of the way in which Jesus of Nazareth laid down his life for the world. It is only a portion, but a true and unvarnished one.

Jesus did say he came not to bring peace, but a sword; naturally, though, that sword was not a physical one, but a metaphorical one. Jesus’s words point to the piercingly difficult challenge offered by the Gospel, which – as Saint Peter showed in his “dive into an empty pool basin before bothering to look” kind of life – is not very easy to live out. No one ever said that following the true path of Jesus Christ – an innocent who did not complain about the cruel and wrongful death he endured - was ever going to be easy.

This is what brings us to the political tension that the United States Government – and we, as citizens of it – must confront.

One of the more vigorous anti-war voices in the blogosphere and Twitterverse is Steve Hynd of NewsHoggers.com. Steve regularly offers copious links, postings and analysis of events taking place in the world’s major national security and foreign policy theaters – the Middle East, Persia, and Af/Pak in particular. As America’s presence in Afghanistan becomes only more entrenched, it’s been revealed that secretive night raids – which I had previously understood to be very rare occasions – are actually conducted with an appreciable degree of regularity. The killing of civilians in a mistaken raid is something that, as Mr. Hynd points out – happens far more regularly than the global community seems to appreciate.

I realize that I’m engaging in a certain degree of both simplification and reductionism here, but it’s not a fundamental distortion to say that the frequency of mistaken raids is one reason Mr. Hynd has cast a critical eye toward the conduct of American soldiers in Afghanistan. I’m simplifying only because the purpose of this blog is not so much about policy specifics as it is about mending the deep wounds between Left and Right, which are perfectly illustrated in this issue, namely, the conduct of American soldiers in foreign war zones.

In my (now) 13 months on Twitter – and those who follow my Twitter feed know that since the turn of the year, I’ve truly begun to include a number of politically conservative voices in my retweets – one thing that strikes me is how deeply aggrieved a number of conservatives get whenever anything is said about the conduct of U.S. soldiers in a botched raid or a misunderstanding with a convoy at a checkpoint, two very common sources of civilian deaths. I think it’s fundamentally accurate – at least on an emotional level if not as a reflection of a fundamental posture or stance – to say that American conservatives view these citations of accidental killings by American soldiers as indictments of the soldiers themselves. There is an enormous amount of frustration, fatigue and – I’m groping for the right term here – “wounded-ness” on the part of the American Right in response to the reality that our nation’s soldiers, who are putting their lives on the line, could be criticized.

At least, that’s the way conservatives feel about such criticisms, on balance.

[SIDE NOTE: People on the Left, in my opinion, do need to go out of their way to be clear on this point: Criticisms of accidental killings are reflections on the nastiness and awfulness of war, not of the soldier... at least in 98 percent of cases (and even then, the soldier who snaps is a person who deserves and demands our prayers; having one's mind and heart ground down to the breaking point is a fate I wouldn't wish on anyone).]

What Steve Hynd has pointed out is that soldiers have the right and the ability to refuse to participate in night raids (the convoy checkpoints are a much more dicey matter; I don’t know his stance on that) on the basis of “law of war” or “rule of war” principles. Mr. Hynd – and this is where we get back to the word “should” again – raised the point with me on Twitter that soldiers “should” know exactly what they’re getting into when they sign up to fight in wars. Therefore, we “should not” be so quick to absolve soldiers of blame when one of these accidents happens. I understand why this point is made and where it comes from: a desire to see an absolute minimum of killing, particularly of innocent civilians in war zones.

In accordance with Christian principles, I agree with the bottom-line insistence on seeing a minimum of killing. However, I arrive at any and all opposition to killing from a slightly different vantage point, with important implications for how we process political criticism in the most wrenching situations on the most contentious issues of our time.

I wouldn’t exactly say I’m all for giving soldiers a blank check or a free pass with respect to their conduct in war zones, but I will readily admit that I’m strongly inclined to be lenient with individual soldiers on the ground, at the bottom of the military’s larger structure. One reason to be lenient toward soldiers is that – as Mr. Hynd himself pointed out to me a few weeks ago – American soldiers receive 1/4 of the “law of war” training that a German soldier receives, and that U.S. soldiers are getting less and less training on the rules of war, something which flows from the top levels of military and political authority.

With that said, I’d be inclined to spare a soldier withering criticism and disapproval for other reasons, even if I hadn’t known the shameful extent to which soldiers are deprived of a proper military education. There’s a political reason for this, and there’s a cultural reason for this as well.

Let’s begin with the political reason.

On all issues under the sun – not just foreign-policy considerations – the experiences of my life have led me toward the realization that leaders and all people in positions of pronounced authority bear the overwhelming weight of responsibility for actions taken and results (not) gained. The president of the United States, along with leaders of Congress and top military brass, live in a rarefied world different from us commoners. They breathe different air, but they’re also given briefings and insider reports which expose them to the levers of power and the geopolitical chessboard.

Phrased much more simply, leaders have access to information and decision-making capabilities/mechanisms that you and I don’t enjoy from our cramped apartments or our modest middle-class dwellings whose second mortgages might still be outstanding at this time. Leaders – through their proximity to situations and their access to both information and experts – are in a position to see and understand the implications of their actions. For this fundamental set of reasons, they are responsible for deciding whether or not the United States (or any other nation) wages war. Soldiers might sign up to go to war, but leaders sign up to make the decisions that shape and reshape our planet. The corridors of power are the places where accidental civilian killings can truly be averted.

Now, the cultural reason why I don’t centrally blame soldiers, on balance, for civilian deaths in war zones: American culture – perhaps not writ large but certainly in some parts of the country – has written a narrative which an 18- or 21-year-old soldier-to-be is not sophisticated enough to process or overcome.

First, consider all the violence-drenched video games and big-budget movies that fill our entertainment-industrial complex. Second, consider how little you really knew about the world when you were 20 years old and trying to make sense of college.
Third, take simple note of the fact – and it is a fact (perhaps not in the way 2 + 2 = 4 is a fact, but certainly on a real cultural level) – that a significant portion of Americans think that our troops are “fighting for our freedom.”

The purpose of mentioning that last phrase – “fighting for our freedom” – is not to agree with it or disagree with it. The point of invoking that phrase is to show that if a 20-year-old man views military service as a freedom-defending enterprise, he has already identified military service as a supreme calling, the noblest and most honorable thing he can possibly do with his life. Once that fundamental decision – with all its emotional attachments and cultural roots – has been made, it’s highly unlikely that a military signee’s attitudes will be reshaped in his first few years of military service. Only when the ugly, messy complexities of war, insurgency, counterinsurgency, guerrilla warfare, and the Islamic world emerge in full relief might a soldier (might, not definitely) begin to reconsider the implications of the decision he once made as an eager 20-year-old intent on making a positive difference in the world for the country he loves so much.

This is a problem, but it’s not a problem in which the moral blame, weight and scrutiny should fall first or most heavily on the soldier. To understand this point in a fuller context, it’s time to come full circle and return to the beginning of this essay.

What should we, as human beings, be doing with our lives? For any of us who call ourselves Christian, we should be dedicated to reducing killings of all kinds. Yet – and this also applies to issues such as how to treat violent 19-year-old sex offenders who were born to a crackhead mother and an absentee father and had little chance in a life dominated by the grittiness of the inner-city streets – we are constantly confronted with tensions between the Christian ideal and the need to inject some human realism into our policies and approaches.

I encounter this sentiment so often in any political debate I enter, and it is voiced by both the Left and the Right: “Well, it’s nice that you have such high standards, Matt, and are such a purist, but this is the real world. These decisions aren’t easy. We have to be tough. We have to make ourselves safe.” One of the reasons why so many people – including those in my own family – continue to defend Barack Obama on many fronts, including and especially in Afghanistan and the use of drones in the Af/Pak region, is that “change can’t happen overnight.” Another favorite phrase that people on the Right will knowingly and rightly snicker at is, “He (Obama) inherited a terrible situation.” As though that gives Obama license to make more terrible decisions and make the situation worse.

My question for everyone on the political spectrum is this: If Christian faith really is as life-saving, as salvific and terrific, as it is supposed to be – I am a Christian, after all – why does it seem that the pseudo-religion of American nationalism, as promoted by the National Security State under presidents both Democratic and Republican, seems to hold much more emotional weight in our culture and in our national narrative and mythology? If Christian ideals and principles truly hold sway in America, why are we not following the words of Jesus and laying down our swords, knowing that the one who lives by the sword shall also perish by it? If we are truly a people of cross and resurrection, of dying to our sinful human ways so that the mind and heart of Christ might be born again in our hearts and live anew so that God’s will – not ours – may be done on earth as it is in heaven, why do we persist in fighting wars?

Why do we persist in having the death penalty?

Why do we not transform and overhaul our prison system into places where repentance, forgiveness of sins, holistic restoration, and appreciation for life are cultivated?

The American soldier does not deserve to be heavily criticized for what happens in war zones. I want my friends on the Right to know and understand that whenever I cite an accidental killing, I am pointing out the futility and hopelessness of war, with its extraordinary complexity. Soldiers are not 100 percent immune from blame, but they’re certainly placed in virtually impossible positions… first, by a president who made the fundamental choice to pursue war as a solution to a problem; second, by military commanders whose bodies aren’t vulnerable the way a frontline grunt is; third, by a national or at least semi-national culture which promotes military service as a high calling. In the grand scheme of things, American soldiers are highly sympathetic figures who deserve superabundant amounts of compassion, understanding, care, concern, and prayer.

It’s our leadership and our nation which deserve withering scrutiny and a fair share of condemnation. The Right is right to feel fatigued, exhausted and overwhelmed when soldiers are criticized, and it’s up to people on the Left to make sure that citations of civilian killings are seen as indictments of the enterprise of war itself, not as judgments against the soldiers placed in impossible situations.
What all of us as Americans must do in response, however – and this applies to anyone, liberal or conservative, who carries the banner of faith in Jesus, the crucified Christ – is to hold Christian principles as having primary importance, over and above the siren song of American nationalism and the hypermuscularity of militarism which so often accompanies it.

For the Christian believer, it’s God – and the Christ who died to advance God’s glory – first, America second. American governmental and military leaders, Right and Left, might give the impression that being a soldier is the highest form of service (and that funding war is of absolute national importance), but the life and example of Jesus clearly and unambiguously point us to a higher and decidedly different standard. Jesus used spiritual violence to the very last breath of his life, but that very point underscores the extent to which his life was free of physical violence toward other human beings.

As we contemplate the meaning and value of war, treatment of prisoners, and so many other issues under the sun, we ought to reconsider what it is we really “should” be doing with our lives on earth as American Christians.

The Name of the Frame Is the Name of the Game

2010-05-20T14:58:00.000-07:00

Too many fascinating (albeit worrisome) things are happening in the realm of American politics right now. The pace of events easily outstrips our ability to process issues. Yet, process them we must, in a robust yet civil debate where we try to make sense of our world and hash out differences like adults. This is, as Twitter friend Andy Hutchins told me earlier today, “the lifeblood of progress… of life, really.”

I have too darn much sportswriting to tend to (which has been delayed long enough), but matters of war, peace, race, rights, prison, and due process are too important to leave unattended. I simply have to devote some time in this space to the American situation before the next six weeks, which are going to kick my butt. Yes, I’m going to talk about U.S. soldiers in Afghanistan, but I’m going to also talk about Rand Paul and prison terms for sex offenders as well. These are three distinctly different topics, but I hope the attempt to connect them will make sense within a specific context.

NOTE: Before going any further, please note the trajectory and parameters of today’s post: I’m not going to hash out the particulars of these topics so much as I will talk about them as manifestations of our challenge as we move forward. I won’t try to resolve these debates so much as I’ll identify their tension points and make light of our nation’s acute need to confront difficult questions with open-minded civility. When *this* blogsite – with its own missional foundation – hosts a political discussion, the main purpose is to facilitate meaningful and respectful conversation among people with distinctly different viewpoints. Once again, the purpose of this blog – when it talks about politics, not (necessarily) sports – is not to win or even advance an argument, but to promote a way of carrying ourselves in the midst of contentious debate.

On with the show, then…

* *

One of the macro-level realizations I’ve made in recent Twitter discussions – the sources of the essays I occasionally write – is that the Left and Right violently clash on so many occasions because they each fail to locate the center and source of the other side’s argument. Let’s be clear: I certainly have my own views of what’s right and wrong, but again, we must intellectually set that aside in this context, because the main point is to promote understanding, and not agreement or political conversion. (Spiritual and attitudinal conversion, yes, but not political or ideological conversion.)

Why do we fail to locate and identify the heart of the other side’s argument in a political debate? It’s because Left and Right both work from a different set of operating assumptions, a different ground of being. The Left will generally (not always, but for the most part) seek and promote the essence of what ought to happen in society; the Right will seek the doctrinally or structurally appropriate mechanism which will allow human beings to choose an ideal outcome for themselves. The Left more often stresses the human person’s unlimited ability and potential to develop, while the Right more often emphasizes the consequences of choices and actions when they prove to be harmful to society.

The Left is more optimistic or positive about human nature, the Right not nearly as much. The Left, though, views social forces as significant and substantial in their effects on the behavior of persons. The Right is generally more dismissive of social forces and promotes a culture of personal behavioral responsibility.

Read over those distinctions again. They are indeed generalizations (note the word “generally”), but is the core assessment fundamentally wrong in any of those cases? If you examine the above statements, there is at once both a consistency and a sense of contradiction about them.

First, let’s unpack the Left just a little bit: One could say that if a lefty promotes essence over doctrine, why does s/he not emphasize the substance of a person’s actions the way a conservative seems to do? With respect to the second set of distinctions, if a lefty has a more positive view of human nature, why wouldn’t s/he endorse a pure form of libertarianism on the order of what Rand and Ron Paul would advocate?

For the Right, you can basically flip those questions around: If a righty promotes doctrine over essence, why is there comparatively little allowance – at least on the surface (it’s surely more complicated when you get down to brass tacks) – for social forces that must be factored when doctrines/rules/laws are formulated? And if a righty takes a more negative/skeptical view of human nature, why such an insistence on allowing free will to run its course, given the sinful/fallen nature of human beings? Shouldn’t a skeptic of human nature be more inclined to restrain/check that nature in the defense of greater goods?

See how complex this stuff is? The scary part is that we’ve barely begun to scratch the surface.

When we – on opposite sides of the political divide – fail to locate the source and center of our opponent’s views, we will consistently fail to identify the motives we bring to the table. Information has its place in a debate, but the Left and Right constantly see that information in a different light. The attempt to do what is good and right is something we all share, but since our frameworks and first principles are different, we’ll regularly continue to assign different meanings and values to certain outcomes and actions.

In the realm of foreign policy, the Left’s first principle and animating idea is that people shouldn’t be killed unless there is absolutely no other choice and all options for diplomacy have been reasonably and comprehensively exhausted. The Right’s grounding and formative principle is that Islamic extremists already possess a mindset and intent that are beyond any and all possibility of redemption or negotiation, which means that human events have already carried America to a point where all other options have indeed been exhausted.

On the matter of Rand Paul, the Left sees, filters and frames the Kentucky Republican’s words through the prisms of the Civil Rights Movement, race, and the reality of the Jim Crow South, which then leads much of the mainstream Left to condemn Mr. Paul in the strongest possible terms and view him as a dangerous loon. The Right, in contrast, filters and frames Paul’s words through the prism of public-private domain, which touches on the rights of individuals to do what they please within private spheres of existence and influence. If everyone saw Rand Paul’s remarks through the prism of race, he’d be uniformly condemned and laughed off the political stage. If everyone saw Paul’s remarks through the prism of public-private tensions, he’d be widely seen as a misunderstood figure who needed more time and space in which to elaborate on a worthwhile set of viewpoints. Can we begin to understand why there is such a pronounced and extensive disconnect between the Left and Right in America?

On the matter of prison terms for sex offenders – brought to the public’s attention this week by a Supreme Court ruling – the Left will stress the need for rehabilitation and for every person to be given at least the chance of a new life IF s/he takes steps in the direction of self-reformation and transformation. The Right will emphasize the need to lock up a sex offender and throw away the key, given the truly awful, violent and violating nature of rape and sexual molestation. Predictably, it’s hardly surprising that – on a different but related issue – liberals oppose the death penalty while conservatives support it.

If we all saw prison/punishment issues through the need to decrease violence, we would all agree with a Left-based approach on the matter. If we all perceived incarceration issues from the standpoint of meting out justice in response to an act which forfeited individual rights and represented a declaration that a person is not fit to live in the midst of society, we would adhere to the Right and its fundamental position.

Can we see how the Left and Right – both sincerely intentioned – are ultimately identifying the heart of their causes and the core of their belief systems in different places and with divergent points of emphasis? Flowing from this, can we then take the step of beginning to realize what sets off our opponents and thereby represents a foremost obstacle to the development of meaningful and productive political conversation?

Language – any language – has code words. We might often use words we *think* are innocuous, but when a political or ideological opponent sees them, that opponent hears something different… and decidedly negative.

When a liberal invokes the Christianity of an American soldier who kills an Afghan citizen (even if it’s by mistake), a conservative’s antennae will immediately shoot up in a defensive posture, meaning that the value of a Leftist critique of war will be entirely lost on the ears of a Christian conservative reader whom the Leftist ought to want to convert.

The above principle applies very much in the other direction when the religion being discussed is Islam, and the topic is not soldiers in Afghanistan, but a terrorist incident in the United States or a violation of a young girl’s rights in Pakistan. The insistence of the Right on seeing Muslim extremists as the main problem, when a mere reference to “extremist religion” would suffice, gives liberals the impression that conservatives have it in for Muslims and for Islam in general.

We can think of so many other instances and issues in which two sides use code words to –at the very least – frame the issue in their own terms and, in particularly nasty situations, get a rise out of an opponent. There are certain themes and established narratives which so clearly irritate and inflame the other side, and any attempt to immediately invoke such narratives represents not a discussion starter, but a discussion ender.

The Left is tired of being told by the Right that it is going to go to hell. The Right is tired of being told by the Left that it’s a bunch of intolerant racists. The Left is tired of being told that it murders babies. The Right is tired of being told that it loves Wall Street. The Left flinches with profound discomfort whenever a conservative accuses it of being intolerant and hostile to free speech. The Right acquires a bunker mentality whenever American soldiers are accused of wrongdoing in war zones.

One could go on and on. The bottom line is that we have become so accustomed to political arguments and phrasings in America that the freshness and virtue of criticisms has been lost. We’re numb to the value of what an opponent has to say; we continue to absorb only the critical and harsh aspects of what our opponents tell us. We’re so fatigued and beaten-down by the other side’s criticisms that we can’t identify the merits of the ideas they’re actually trying to promote.

We don’t need to convert other people in America or anywhere else; that’s futile and unrealistic, for one thing. Moreover, a core part of being human is that we respect others’ differences, which are wrapped up in the realization that we have different journeys which shape our evolution. We have to get along with other people of good will and sincerity who see things differently. The well-being of our nation – and of the neighbor next door who disagrees with us – depends on it.

There’s more to say on this overall issue, especially in relationship to the topics I’ve briefly touched on – U.S. soldiers in war, Rand Paul, and sex offenders. Another post will follow in the next few days, and after that, a forced break from political writing will have to begin.

Classic Sports Debates, Part 1: Elite Tennis Players

2010-05-15T08:19:00.001-07:00

Politics has been the main centerpiece of this blog's recent revival, but if you poke around the archives (the title of this blogsite means something, after all), you'll find plenty of sports content. Moreover, since Twitter - in all its grand diversity - is almost always the inspiration for new posts here, it only makes sense that we not limit ourselves to political conversation. (Besides, religion sometimes finds its way into the mix, and we'll revisit that for our politico-religious crowd before too long).

Therefore, it's worth taking a timeout from Democrats and Republicans and progressives and libertarians to deal with two debates inspired by a tweet exchange with the regularly thought-provoking Juan Jose, a friend from the TennisWorld blog and one of the most compelling voices on Twitter. Sometimes hard-edged but faithfully thoughtful, J.J. brings a welcome soulfulness to sports, and he has a 100-percent success rate in terms of stretching my mind when we talk about the fascinating arena of athletic competition.

Let's cut to the chase.

Thursday night, we debated whether Nikolay Davydenko was an elite tennis player or not. Human beings will have different definitions of "elite," much as people at different places on the political spectrum will carry different definitions of various other terms which color not only their lexicon, but their understanding of the world. (In fact, the definition of the word "elite" - when used in a political or socioeconomic context - is actually something that the Left and the Right would both do well to re-examine. But I digress... this is about sports more than anything else.)

What this sports-based post can (and should!) do for us is to help us lay out the parameters of our views. What shapes our opinions? Do we hold them in proper balance and proportion in accordance with everything else in our lives? If we don't, is there a good reason for such a divergence, a reason we can clearly articulate and then integrate into the rest of our larger perspective? I will try to establish a basic framework for my views, and I would invite Juan Jose - either in the comments section here or on Twitter - to share the intellectual structure or foundation which undergirds his understanding of this issue.

So, the question before this sports debate panel is: Should Nikolay Davydenko be considered an elite tennis player?

J.J. will have his own definition of elite (which will naturally have a lot to say about his arguments and conclusions), but here's mine:

Being "elite" as a professional athlete [not a collegiate one; huge difference!] involves three basic characteristics (in my mind, of course):

1) Achievement at a consistently high level, relative to one's abilities but also in connection to the standards one sets over the course of a professional career.

2) Achievement at a level elevated enough to command the highest degree of respect from one's peers. Performances over the course of whole seasons, extended over time, should merit status not just as an overachiever, but as a competitor of the first order. A pro athlete should be able to say that s/he maximized the opportunities that were given to him/her. This doesn't (necessarily) mean winning a majority of huge matches, but it does mean that on the days when events and circumstances were favorably aligned, openings were seized to full effect.

3) A track record of results in big tournaments/situations that is at least somewhat similar to second-tier or "regular season" outcomes.

A short summary: 1) Consistency. 2) Not just any kind of consistency, but particularly high-quality consistency. 3) Bringing the A-game in an appreciable percentage of big tournaments.

For me, Davydenko did not pass the test. It's fair to say that he meets part one of the requirements of an elite professional athlete (in this case, a tennis player), but he fails by a small to modest margin in part two. Part three destroys him.

Davydenko, given his skill set, has gotten almost everything he can out of a less-than-imposing body. One of the worker bees of men's tennis, "Kolya" found a way to make constant effort his friend in much the same way that Ivan Lendl did. Lendl said during his career that if he ever stopped playing tennis for periods of time, his rhythm and feel would evaporate; that seems to be the mindset Davydenko has applied to a career which rarely took breaks. The Russian would play in tournaments such as Tashkent while the other big dogs on the ATP Tour chose to rest. Was this a smart strategy? Maybe not, in light of persistent injuries that have kept Davydenko sidelined for much of the past 18 months. However, Davydenko's tennis has continuously rounded into form after each of his injuries. He just needs the court time needed to consolidate his improvements.

I find Davydenko, on balance, to be an admirable figure with a positive story to tell. Players with 100 times as much talent have achieved little better than Kolya has. The Nikolay Narrative is a happy one in the bigger picture, much as one could say that being a top-10 regular qualifies a tennis player as "elite" in the bigger picture.

However, I'm not really speaking in the bigger picture, and this is where things can become confusing.

While I definitely treasure, cherish and promote the achievements, virtues and values of many professional athletes, I also carry rigorous standards to certain debates. If I feel that a tennis player does not rise to the level of an elite performer, that doesn't mean I lack admiration for the man (or woman) in the arena. Nikolay Davydenko represents a success story in the tennis community, but that doesn't earn him an automatic ticket to the pantheon of elites in the sport's history.

This is all another way of saying, "Being a bleeding heart liberal in one's view of athletes and teams is not the equivalent of going all soft and gooey on the matter of standards, and relaxing restrictions/qualifications for certain distinctions and honors."

Davydenko's recent (multiple) runs of Masters Series titles, plus his ability to defeat Rafael Nadal and Roger Federer in the same tournaments, have shown how well this upper-tier player can wield the stick inside a tennis rectangle. Davydenko's boatload of major-tournament quarterfinals certainly marks him as a man with more credentials and scalps than 98 percent of the rest of the men's tour. If you attached these metrics to the notion of what it means to be "elite," then you're right to view Kolya as such.

I simply think the bar needs to be set higher.

Precisely because he has reached so many quarterfinals (10), plus a number of major semifinals (4), Davydenko - while never the best player in any Big Four event he's entered - has had a fair amount of chances to find his magic moment and, at the very least, make a major final. Yet, this tremendous Masters Series player and weekly worker has never stood on court for the trophy presentation at a Grand Slam showcase... not even for the runner-up trophy.

Yes, he just wasn't good enough to beat Roger Federer in the 2006 U.S. Open semifinals, but he had Fed on the ropes in the first set of the 2007 semis, and let Federer get away in what was a sloppy match. (Andrew Burton would know. :-)

Yes, Davydenko tightened up against Federer in the 2007 French semis, so we can allow for some nerves there, but then why did Kolya not close the door on Mariano Puerta in 2005 at Roland Garros? It's fair to expect Kolya to make at least one major final, and ideally two, before we dare to accord him that laurel of laud and praise known as "elite men's tennis player." The man who works his tail off and squeezes so much success from his talents has to get past the fear of triumph in tennis's biggest and most man-making motivational moments.

Davydenko's absence of poise when in sight of prosperity and paradise is legitimately breathtaking. This sad yet undeniable reality was evinced most clearly when - in total control of that Federer fellow in the 2010 Australian Open quarters - Kolya allowed one bad shot at net to hijack his concentration, form, body language, and holistic well-being. He regrouped and briefly showed flashes of the fearsome form that carried him to the 2009 ATP World Tour Finals championship, but just when the possibility of a comeback seemed legitimate in the fourth set, Davydenko flinched one more time and faded into the background.

Overachiever? Yes.

Better on a career level than another non-elite player, David Nalbandian? Yes. (We could talk about Nalbandian's elite (non-)status in the comments section if we wanted to.)

Elite men's professional tennis player? No.

Not yet, anyway.

We have standards to uphold here, you know. Make a major final, Kolya, and then we can begin to revisit this discussion.

Claiming Our Identity

2010-05-04T17:39:00.001-07:00

My favorite contemporary spiritual teacher, Franciscan priest Richard Rohr, counsels people to "know your identity so you can let go of it." Rohr wants human beings to acknowledge their political, religious and ideological foundations so that they can let go of them as they grow older, and gain a state where all is surrendered to God in an act of radical and complete faith. Phrased differently, Rohr is saying that we have to know who and what we are before we can give that self to God with total trust.

In the realm of politics, we can definitely use many more "surrendered" people who give their identities to God, but for now, it would simply be good if we did indeed know who and what we are... as progressives, as conservatives, as libertarians, as radicals, as reactionaries, as socialists, and everywhere else on the political spectrum.

Having attempted to generate some dialogue between and among different political camps in America, I think it's time - at least for the next few days - to get us to think not about "the other," but our own selves and the people we naturally congregate with.

What are "we progressives" about? For my friends on the Right, what does it mean to be a conservative?

We are all aware of how our views, affiliations and identities are perceived and covered in the public realm. Yes, we have different interpretations of how these perceptions operate, and we all have very significant complaints about how the mainstream media represents our views, but in the end, there is a certain meta-narrative attached to the labels and banners we choose to wear as political creatures subject to governments, laws and electoral systems.

For ourselves and for the health of our country, we do need to reach across various barriers and differences as we try to at least engage each other in conversation; that's the long-term purpose of this blog, as you know well. However, one thing that gets lost in the attempt to reach out is that we can often forget what lies within. We can lose track of who we are internally - maybe not at a soul level, but in a political and communal sense among the members of our own camps, tribes and neighborhoods. We might think we know who "we" are as progressives or conservatives, but in sharing my own story - again, I'll let others speak for themselves - I feel that while progressivism is not given a fair shake in the media, I also feel that many people who march under a progressive banner are not really living up to the principles of their stated political affiliation.

A number of the people I admire most on Twitter - progressives like Glenn Greenwald, Steve Hynd, and Chris Hedges, plus independent journalist Charles Davis - are consistently resolute in pointing out the hypocrisies of the Left, especially on matters of warmaking, torture, civil liberties, military spending, and like matters. They and other in-house critics give integrity to - if not progressivism itself - an intellectual consistency that affirms core values I've always seen as belonging to progressivism.

[NOTE: To say that progressivism - at least as I see it - upholds certain values does not even suggest that the same values are not upheld within conservatism or libertarianism. Many noble traditions hold the same values as important, just in different ways.]

I hope you can appreciate the tension at work here: Forget what the media might do to distort your identity and its attendant worldview, which encompass so many specific principles and passions. If you don't even agree with other members of your own group, you are suddenly forced to weigh your own identity with the identity of those who have splintered from you. Moreover, the fractures you see within your political family must then be assessed in light of the way the media portrays your group. Self-knowledge, plus the knowledge of how your political intimates are responding to current events, will enable you to confront misperceptions and misrepresentations which - fair or not (usually not) - affect the way your own political affiliations are viewed regionally, nationally and - in some cases - globally.

I have a very strong set of ideas about progressivism and what it ought to be. Yet, a lot of people who claim to share the same identity differ markedly on interpretations and assessments of how well (or poorly) the Obama Administration is performing. On a few issues, policy positions differ, but for the most part, the differences are exposed in the way political leaders are evaluated. I, for instance, hold an extremely negative view - as a progressive - of Nancy Pelosi, Harry Reid, and President Obama. My perception of fellow progressives is that they are generally negative toward Reid, mildly supportive of Obama (as a whole), and generally even more supportive of Pelosi.

As for the media angle, I think Obama - as a non-white president - is appealing to demographics that are emergent in American culture (as opposed to demographics that are receding from the culture). Therefore, he is a marketable commodity and is seen as being desirable to media conglomerates' ratings points and balance sheets. Moreover, Obama - as someone who is hewing to establishment-friendly positions especially on matters of war (which is good for business, not morality) - is receiving ample support and leeway from non-Fox outlets.

My view of Pelosi's reputation in the eyes of the media is that she is - unsurprisingly - viewed as the picture of "San Francisco liberalism" when, in fact, she is the daughter of an old-style mayor from an Eastern city (Baltimore) and is therefore the child of a different sensibility. Her easy acquiescence to so-called free-trade agreements is anything but the kind of stance a true San Francisco liberal would take.

How does the media view Harry Reid? I don't have a good feel for that, but I do know that in 2006, I read a story in the Portland Oregonian which documented some very shady and dubious real-estate dealings on the part of the Senate Majority Leader. That the reports did not seem to gain much traction or hound Reid into a downward move are - for me - an indication that Reid is serving a pro-establishment function and is therefore seen as a net asset to the media-industrial complex.

Finally, I'll simply mention, in brief, what I think progressivism is about:

1) No war unless all other options have been reasonably and comprehensively exhausted, to the point that no other route possesses even the slightest possibility of success. No pre-emptive war. And if war is entered into, it should be done with a public posture of pronounced sorrow, regret, sobriety, and shame that humanity has even arrived at such a sorry state of affairs.

2) Free trade, but not unfettered free trade. Fairness needs to govern transactions, with an eye toward the rural Guatemalan farmer as well as the Chiquita banana magnate brokering the deal in a boardroom.

3) Doing the utmost to prevent or at least minimize unchosen suffering in society. This is meant to encourage a communal ethos and an appreciation for the needs of people at the bottom of the social ladder. Government should not be seen as a first responder to social problems, but it should definitely be involved if or when private citizens or local governments lack the resources needed to adequately confront those problems within a context of subsidiarity.

4) People of all races, creeds and ethnicities should be given wide latitude as long as they don't engage in - or at least demonstrate a propensity to commit - criminal activity or activity which infringes on the rights and well being of others.

Enough about my own assessments. Let's throw this open to the comment thread.

What is YOUR identity? What should YOUR group be about? What are YOUR group's core principles and values? What are the major splits within YOUR group? How is YOUR group unfairly painted by the media?

Let's flesh these things out over the next few days. I'd like to see a lot of comments, lists and follow-ups. Thanks!

GUEST POST - Conservatism: Morally Driven but Politically Fragmented

2010-04-30T16:01:00.000-07:00

By Jasmine Koehn - Guest Contributor

Through the course of American political history, two competing ideologies have emerged. These two ideologies form the bases of the two leading political parties. Most politically active members of American society self-designate as belonging to one of the two ideologies, conservatism (in the Republican Party) and progressivism (in the Democratic Party). The amount of party influence found in the differing ideologies leads to critiques of the two worldviews. In order to achieve a powerful critique it is imperative to simultaneously understand and destroy the opposing ideology. From the progressive viewpoint, this means recognizing conservative arguments and then intelligently deconstructing their logic. The basic approach is to determine the basic beliefs behind conservatism, acknowledge how these differ from progressive beliefs, and analyze why said beliefs are ultimately incongruent with reality.

Another way to describe conservatism is reactionary. The goal, therefore, is not growth but rather preservation. Modernity is often seen as the foe of conservatism, and the hope among conservatives becomes a fusion of the positives of modernity with the values of pre-modern beliefs (Bottum, 37). While social conservatives hold most strongly to this outlook, the more moderate sects tend to deviate and cause divisions within the ideology. Yet the overarching goal is to protect and preserve some element of society that is under unwarranted attack. Social conservatives see these attacks ripping apart the fabric of society, tearing into the basic family structure and leaving a morally depraved society. Libertarians fear attacks against social liberties and against the ability to act without government intervention. Neoconservatives and most other moderate conservatives sense attacks against the national integrity, specifically through terrorism. Although the different bastions of conservatism are all reactionary, their different foci have allowed inconsistencies and divisions to arise.

The overarching struggle within the conservative ideology is the attempt to gain consensus. The conservative coalition acts as an umbrella ideology for several different beliefs. Everyone from libertarians to the Christian Coalition claims the label of conservative. This level of discordance creates rifts within the ideology that lead to disillusion within the Republican Party that may serve to destroy the party’s ability to remain viable. Not only do different opinions exist, they define their conservatism in juxtaposition with the other beliefs. Joseph Bottum clarifies this by identifying a need within conservatism to not be the “most rightist” group (Varieties of Conservatism, 39). Such discordance does not encourage unity, nor does it allow for growth in the overall beliefs of conservatism.

A large cause of the disunity comes from the belief as Henrie argues that progressives lack a moral life, while the conservatives have not created a viable political life (Varieties of Conservatism, 14). It seems counterintuitive to follow a political ideology that is not based on politics but rather on morals. Moral foundations are important for ethicality, but they lack value in a political sense. This is especially true in an ideology as fragmented as conservatism, since one group of conservatives may hold different moral beliefs than those supported by another faction. This is most clearly explained in terms of abortion. The pro-life outlook has become almost synonymous with conservatism, yet members of the Republican Party and self-avowed conservatives have been known to hold the opposing position. A moral outlook has been applied to politics to the point that it defines conservatism in America.

Bottum takes the moral implications a step further by arguing that the founders based the Constitution on their Christian beliefs; therefore, conservatism is founded on Christianity. This argument led him to believe that the core of conservatism is an anti-abortion stand that also defines the differences between conservatives and progressives for all other “culture-war” issues (Varieties of Conservatism… 43). A belief in morals as the foundation for a political movement thus leads to further fragmentation and requires divisions both internally and between conservatism and progressivism.

Libertarians, who claim conservatism as their leading ideology, do not follow a moral prescriptive in their political approach. Randall Barnett makes this abundantly clear in his essay in which he argues for the protection of natural rights. The libertarian approach looks to allow individuals the liberties to live without continual government involvement. The goal is to create social order that protects against destructive actions but does not coerce constructive actions (Barnett, 70). This approach struggles to work in conjunction with the moral precepts of social conservatives. As a result, libertarians follow a separate political party, which only adds to the divisions within conservatism.

Neoconservatives act as another moderate wing of the conservative ideology. Unlike libertarians, neoconservatives do desire government involvement, but they do not base their views strictly on moral obligations. Their outlook tends to be foreign policy-orientated, and the actions taken by the Bush Administration fall under a neoconservative approach. That administration believed strongly in national security-motivated activities and disagreed with excessive social welfare programs as discussed by Jacob Heilbrunn. It was the Bush Administration’s desire for national security that created problems. Team Bush believed in exporting democracy, yet for fiscal conservatives this modus operandi comes at an enormous cost, and when foreign policy gains primacy, domestic issues including abortion tend to be overlooked. Another internal danger for conservatives generally accompanies an increase in government control, which alienates the libertarians.

Another danger in following morally-motivated political movements is the emergence of apparent hypocrisies. Conservatives believe in a pro-life approach and desire to maintain family values. Yet, they fail to care for people who struggle to survive from day to day. Conservatives of all approaches believe that by providing aid for negative life choices, these choices are reinforced and the result in a victim mentality. Richard Epstein argued extensively along these lines in his essay on libertarianism. Yet, morally speaking, it seems backwards to passionately care for the unborn but ignore the living. Conservative foreign policy decisions also appear hypocritical when compared to a moral standard. Conservatives willfully take part in interventionist strategies when it appears in the best interest of the nation but not when it involves a moral obligation to protect the oppressed and endangered. Heilbrunn addresses this irony when he looks at the changes in policy from the Cold War to the current War on Terrorism (122-124). Conservatives ran the gamut of interventionist to isolationist and back around based on the external threats involved, not on moral imperatives.

The large inconsistencies within conservatism beg the observer to search for other options. The opposing view of progressivism allows for growth in thought, adaptability and – ultimately - consensus. Progressives believe in tolerance and change, a posture which is most clearly illustrated in the base of the Democratic Party. The Democrats originally catered to middle-class workers, but over time, the intellectual elites gravitated towards the forward-looking approach. This swing in the base led to a change in the party outlook and increased the level of open-mindedness in response to the revolutions and upheavals of the 1960s (Thomas Byrne Edsall, 34).

The Democratic Party also enjoys large support from the lower classes and minority groups. This comes from the willingness of progressives to aid hurting people. Progressives champion the causes of the oppressed and suffering, from welfare to desegregation. Progressives openly support social freedoms such as the right to reproductive freedom and same-sex marriage. The current progressive attitude towards social and economic issues comes from the shift of the base to two sets of people actively campaigning for equality and policy changes (Edell, 343-44). Progressives deal strongly with domestic social and economic issues, and in terms of foreign policy, they agree to intervention based on moral imperatives. Progressivism embraces the changes that take place in society and adapts to best maintain viability and congruency with said changes.

Ultimately, conservatism’s largest struggle is the inability to create a powerful consensus amongst its own adherents. Although differing opinions lead to new thoughts and allow for change, conservatives fail to use their differences for development of the ideology and the Republican Party. There are constant arguments amongst conservatives about being too right wing or jumping party lines by appearing overly moderate (an ironic phrasing, to be sure). The level of inconsistency within the ideology has led to struggles to find acceptable leadership; such infighting has ultimately left the basic conservative confused and frustrated. The leading cause for all this disunity comes from the inability to create a political movement and instead to focus on morally justifiable causes. Conservatives cannot agree on the moral imperatives and thus splinter into different groups focused on differing moral issues.

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Bibliography:

Berkowitz, Peter. Varieties of Progressivism in America. Hoover Institution Press. Stanford University, Stanford CA. 2004
Berkowitz, Peter. Varieties of Conservatism in America. Hoover Institution Press. Stanford University, Stanford CA. 2004

Building Understanding, Part Three: Religion, Government, and the Top-Bottom Problem

2010-04-30T11:15:00.000-07:00

The other name for this post - if I didn't want to be formal about continuing the "Building Understanding" series - would have been: "Every Bottom Has A Top." That's because, in so many ways and on so many levels, we've arrived at a point that can be very illuminating in the attempt to achieve some sense of understanding between the Left and the Right in America (and maybe other places in the world, too).

Twitter poster Nathan Wurtzel made me stop and take notice this past Sunday when he tweeted that liberals think from the top down and never look at life starting from the position of the individual. Growing up in an anti-Reagan household and being raised by a parent who worked for George McGovern's campaign in 1972, I had only heard of top-down-ism as a Republican (not necessarily conservative, mind you - there's often a big difference!) flaw. But as I rolled the tweet around in my mind, the truth was really rather unassailable on a larger level.

Why did I not arrive at this precise and generally accurate realization earlier in life? Because I'm a Catholic progressive, not a secular one.

The Catholic tradition and the social teachings which flow from it promote a number of core values and principles. One such principle is subsidiarity, the idea that services should be given on the smallest and most localized level possible. The more direct the aid, the less of a chance for corruption or the distortion of the aid's intended purpose. That's a sound political and operational reason for subsidiarity, a reason that libertarians and conservatives have rightly and nobly championed. A specifically Christian teaching values direct aid because of the responsibility Christians have to help their neighbors in need, to feed the hungry and give drink to the thirsty. The Parable of the Sheep and the Goats - my favorite parable from the Gospels (Matthew 25:31-46) - makes this call quite clear.

In Catholicism, the emphasis on helping the poor, the least among us - the anawim of the Hebrew Scriptures - is encapsulated in what is called the "preferential option for the poor." That component of Catholic social teaching is often misconstrued as meaning a higher valuation of the poor than the rich, as though some lives are more important than others (hence, some souls are more important than others). What the "preferential option" really means is that Catholics, according to their means, should structure their lifestyles so that they can regularly tend to the needs of the poor. In other words, build as much charity and service into your lifestyle as is reasonably allowable; don't burn yourself out, don't overstretch, but give to your reasonable maximum, extending a fair share of time/talent/treasure to the needy.

Digging even deeper, some Christian communities - including the Catholic Worker movement, of which I am a member (the Seattle chapter of the Catholic Worker, dormant since May 11, 2007, is re-organizing and will protest the presence of nuclear weapons at a Seattle rally this upcoming Sunday) - practice subsidiarity and a preferential option for the poor by establishing houses of hospitality among the poor. (The Open Door Movement is a Protestant organization with many similarities to the Catholic Worker.)

These and (I'm sure) many other organizations reflect a deep and abiding passion for the poor among progressive Christians in multiple denominations. For many progressive Christians - some of which are community organizers - the whole point of political speech and action is to give voice to the people at the bottom of various social, economic and political power structures, enabling them to act as citizens and function as contributing members of society. I'm sure there are also some atheists and agnostics who strongly identify with the need to help the poor on a local level and in an intimate way.

So let it be known: There are considerable numbers of people in America who walk under the progressive banner and yet identify with the bottom... not just in terms of political preference, but as a way of life and as an extension of faith and practice.

It makes it all the more lamentable that, on a wider national level, liberalism writ large is guilty of having - as a reflexive default stance - an outlook on politics in which the federal government is seen and looked to as the best and foremost answer to people's problems. It is virtually impossible to look at our national polity and not conclude that the Left, taken as a whole, views government as a central part of the solution to social ills.

Here's what needs to be unpacked... and what needs to (consequently) be said about the ultimate failing of the political Left in the United States:

I'll let people on the Right try to address the similar tensions they face, but since I have grown up on the political Left and will always be more fundamentally Left than Right, it's necessary for me to own up to the Left's weaknesses and explain them... not just for my own sake, but for other people who self-identify as liberals or progressives (I prefer progressive over liberal myself).

All of us - no matter our ideology or our political leaning - must confront a number of challenges in our ongoing evolution as citizens and as students of the world around us. One core challenge, which is particularly broad in its scope and reach, is the need to be able to confront and acknowledge the weaknesses and limitations in our own worldviews, and to realize that the formation of sound policy usually doesn't emerge from the extremes, but from the collective wisdom of people who, over time, learn to live in balance with competing tensions. This theme of balance (not between Left and Right, but between/among aspects of everyday life) needs to be kept constant in our observations of the political landscape.

When we carefully consider what ought to hold sway in the realm of governance, the point is not to enshrine certain methods, but to safeguard principles and - ideally - outcomes that are worth fighting for. It's not the growth of government that progressives should seek; instead, the Left must prioritize the improvement of people's lives in a manner that doesn't unduly impose on the citizenry. This emphasis on the true goal, and not a methodology, has been lost in contemporary liberalism to the detriment of the country.

One can say that liberalism and progressivism have not been practiced much in recent years, but when the cry for government action is articulated - I've joined the chorus quite often over the years - a liberal must then become accountable for that position. It's not enough to say that the government should do something; much as the moral case against war demands that a war be conducted fairly (in addition to the initial decision to wage war itself), so it also stands that government has to conduct its affairs fairly and exercise due proportion, restraint and wisdom in its daily operations. To then insist on government action when government has not proved itself to be terribly competent or honest is the misstep that liberals - and I will include myself in this group of guilty people - have consistently made. It was not until 2007 - when the newly-elected Democratic Congress continued to approve war budgets and pass corrosive "free trade" agreements, especially in Latin America - that my last shred of hope in government fully and finally evaporated.

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Previous blog posts have lightly touched on this topic, but it now deserves a more substantial examination: One of the great challenges of our time (a challenge that is likely to remain for future generations long after we're all gone) is to meet the needs of the "unchosen suffering" - those at the bottom - within a framework of fiscal responsibility and systemic integrity. As the recent economic downturn has shown (and this is not a liberal or conservative point; it should be seen as plainly empirical, a natural outgrowth of observing reality detached from polity or ideology), many lives - in America and throughout the world - are affected by forces beyond their control.

What happened in the governmental chambers of Washington, D.C., and the boardrooms of New York - not to mention offices of firms like Washington Mutual in Seattle and Countrywide in Los Angeles - hammered a lot of middle-income families in the gut. Some people in lower-income brackets got rightly slammed for treating homes as commodities and for playing fast and loose, but many other families who played by the rules and trusted in the expertise of mortgage companies and banks got taken to the cleaners. When these kinds of events take place, the importance of a safety net for wronged individuals becomes substantial. The innocents who saw their holdings get wiped out by the economic downturn deserve and need a helping hand, and the charity of private citizens - many of them with shrunken wallets in their own right - can't be expected to do ALL the heavy lifting. This is the enduring progressive worry: That people will continue to suffer, without choice, because larger structures aren't there to help them in times of need.

With that having been said, though, one must return to the problem facing liberalism today: government's manifest lack of both competence and honesty.

As much as I and other members of the Left want (and have long wanted) our government to respond to acute needs, that wish won't change the brokenness of our systems, mechanisms and institutions. Government debt is skyrocketing. China and other foreign entities propped up the likes of Citigroup and continue to funnel money into the innards of our financial sector. Goldman Sachs's cozy relationship with each of the last two White Houses and their Treasury Departments is a profound moral and ethical scandal of our age. Congressional worship of Alan Greenspan and a collective belief that the Masters of the Universe on Wall Street could do no wrong in the middle of the past decade ("the aughts," as many called them) revealed a tight and intimate fusion of government and high finance. Government and corporations - aided and abetted by both parties to an overwhelming degree, with Democrats being just as bad as Republicans (again, don't keep score; both parties are guilty as sin - it does little good to claim who's worse, even if one has the ammunition) - aren't just in bed together, to use that metaphor. They're making out (like obsessed lovers in the throes of passion)... and they're also making out (like bandits!).

In the face of these realities, liberals simply have to confront the fact - and it is a fact - that government isn't working. It's not working the way it was supposed to work; it's not serving the people it's supposed to serve; it's not maintaining appropriate distance from special and outside interests; it's not being a watchdog and advocate which looks out for ordinary people just trying to live their lives; it's not facilitating an easier and more manageable existence for anyone outside its doors; and last but certainly not least, it's not delivering results to the populace.

Liberalism can't continue to reflexively and automatically invoke government as a savior. Yes, private charity - the embodiment of the ideal of subsidiarity and, moreover, of personal action in response to local problems - is not entirely enough, but the moral agency connected to private charity offers a purity and clarity which need to be promoted in American life. When human persons, of their own free will and with their own sweat, create better outcomes on the ground, that's highly preferable to the cold and distant machinations of an aloof government giving a handout to a person with whom it has no intimate emotional relationship. The limitations of the conservative or libertarian perspective (which I'll allow others to elaborate on at greater length) are not limitations of argumentative quality; they're limitations of scope and scale.

In Seattle, I've personally seen how government - as broken and dysfunctional as it is - still plugs in gaps and keeps already-frayed lives from falling even further into disrepair. I've also listened to stories and read accounts of how government's deficiencies wind up increasing the pressure on citizens to deliver charitable services to the needy.

At the Seattle Catholic Worker - founded in 1975 - the soup kitchen program it initiated served roughly 80-100 people per day, five days a week, through 1980. Logs and record books in the Seattle Catholic Worker archives - corroborated by the accounts of the people who ran that soup kitchen at the time - indicate that from 1981 through the rest of the 1980s, soup kitchen attendance swelled to 225-260 people per day.

Why did that happen? Don't ask me. Ask the longtime Seattle Catholics who regularly practice subsidiarity and have spent their lives offering localized, direct help to the people at the bottom of society. Ask these progressive people of faith if Ronald Reagan's mental health and social service cuts created that surge in soup kitchen attendance. "Yes" will be the almost uniform answer.

It's a somewhat cruel irony, when you think about it: While secular liberals, for the most part (I'm sure there are some principled exceptions), automatically trumpet the virtues of government and promote the need for government intervention on so many levels, a great many Catholic liberals (and other progressive Christians) have already been living with and working for the people at the bottom. Yet, any government movement away from increased social service expenditures will almost certainly make it harder for progressive Christians and many other private individuals to - of their own accord and initiative - meet the rising needs they see in their communities. This was true in the Seattle of the 1980s, and it's just as true now if not more so. The average monthly rent for a 1-bedroom apartment in Seattle is valued between $1,000 and $1,100, making affordable housing a very scarce commodity in this city. Government is awful, and yet without its funds, local needs would be even more acute.

It's a damned-if-you-do-and-damned-if-you-don't situation, an awful mess with no easy solutions or answers - not, at least, in the realm of hard choices and bewilderingly complex realities facing anyone who works in or with the federal government of the United States.

I'll close, then, with this thought, which will be unpacked in the near future: Government does not deserve to be - and has not proven itself worthy of being - the primary mover or central agent in people's lives. Government cannot be the first response or the immediate and complete answer to the problems faced by the "unchosen suffering" in our land. Yet, with all that having been said, it does keep a great number of people from falling completely off the radar screen of society, something that - at least in Seattle - has been apparent for the past three decades (if not more so).

This is a discussion which needs to develop and continue in our homes, at our water coolers, and in our churches, but let this idea begin to take root in our minds: The basic way to confront the government-power problem, and to get liberals to focus more on the people at the bottom of American life, is for government - especially at the federal level - to be seen not as a "first responder" but as a LAST responder; not as a first outlet but as a LAST resort, when all other options for help have been reasonably exhausted.

People on the ground know the needs of their community best, and it's much more nourishing to the whole of society for individuals to choose charity instead of having a lot of dollars - often wastefully - thrown around at taxpayer expense without delivering results. Yet, there will be occasions when government does need to intervene. Such is the tension of crafting policies and responses to problems: One side might have the better theoretical approach or the more idealistic vision, but both sides ultimately need to shape and constantly refine the ways we deal with problems.

The following idea is easy enough to articulate, but it must now be enfleshed in progressive efforts within the hardball worlds of politics and governance: The shift in our larger thought process as progressives doesn't have to abandon government, but it definitely has to downgrade government and regard it as the last solution, not the first, in response to people's crushing problems and dire needs.

So many religious progressives have always identified with the people at the bottom over many years of ministry and service; for me, other Catholic Workers, and other lefty Christians, the Gospel and the life of Jesus are all about outreach to the poor, the lowly, the disenfranchised, the oppressed, and the voiceless. However, for all the times when we progressives have reflexively looked to the government - a broken and disordered government - we have not viewed life from the bottom up.

May this enduring and substantial weakness within the architecture of liberalism - indeed, the greatest flaw of the American Left in the course of its entire existence - be addressed in the 21st century. We progressives need to reshape our fundamental posture to the government we've trusted far too naively for far too long a time.

GUEST POST - SHARING OUR STORIES, FIRST INSTALLMENT

2010-04-26T16:57:00.000-07:00

PUBLISHER'S NOTE: In the attempt to foster sincere and productive Left-Right dialogue, readers of this blog were invited to share their stories of political and religious awakening. The purpose of this kind of storytelling is to enable all of us to understand the pains and joys of self-discovery within contexts of faith and citizenship. This form of personal sharing is designed to help us realize that we have all experienced pain caused by political opponents, but also affirmation and encouragement from mentors. Other readers of this blog are encouraged to submit their stories for future publication.

Today, I'm thrilled to be able to publish this first installment, a poignant and profound perspective offered by Jasmine Koehn, a dedicated activist in Colorado who is working hard to combat sexual trafficking and other forms of human slavery. Ms. Koehn has worked frequently with the Not For Sale Campaign, which you are encouraged to learn more about. Jasmine will gladly field questions in the comments section... not just about Not For Sale, but this marvelous essay she's crafted. I'm sure she'd welcome contributions you could make to NFS, which has numerous chapters in the United States. -M.Z.

SHARING STRENGTH, NOT INVECTIVE

Jasmine Koehn, Guest Contributor

Firstly I want to thank Matt for always being a gracious host of discussions and a wonderful example of a listener and a person who walks his talk. For one such as myself, a self-proclaimed moderate with conservative tendencies it is incredibly refreshing to have interactions and discussions with Matt, we do not always agree on our approaches to issues political or otherwise, but we can have civil conversations and walk away from said conversations with a better understanding of where the other person stands, but for me at least, also where I stand and why. I do not say all this simply to offer praise, though such praise is deserved, it also serves to build the base of the theme of this post. Matt is the antithesis to most of the people I have interacted with in the political realm.

It is important to understand my background because it explains my current worldview and why I place such an emphasis on conversation and seeing both sides of any argument. I was raised in a loving Christian household in the great state of Colorado. My Protestant faith has shaped me both as a spiritual person, but also the interactions with and within the Church have had a profound impact on my growth as a person.

As a child I participated in all the Church events, AWANAs (AWANA is a national evangelical Christian organization) and children’s choir. I went to Sunday School, and because I was homeschooled, I also attended a weekly Christian based “school” to try and keep me from turning into a weird reclusive homeschool child. Throughout my early years, life was simple fun and I had a wonderful group of friends. Middle school occurred and like the story of many children in America EVERYTHING went belly-side up. In case you aren’t aware girls are TERRIBLE creatures (sub-human really) during middle school and my friends (and myself as well I’m sure) were no different. I also started attending a charter school in my hometown in seventh grade. Between sixth and eleventh grades I changed churches several times, had several of my friends abandon me and became politically active.

On the surface these three events seem unconnected but for me they were related. I learned the pain of betrayal (something that is central to politics, sadly) and I learned firsthand what it meant to be an outsider. I spent several years as an outcast both at school and church, events which only furthered my heart for “those without a voice.” These years taught me the need to recognize the pain of others because none of my friends saw or cared about my pain. It was also during this time that I learned the art of seeing things from the other perspective. I have always been empathetic and a people pleaser – I hate to blame others for their faults and I will blame myself first in order to defuse an uncomfortable situation. I never justified the actions of my friends, but I understood at times why they made the choices they did and decided not to hate them for those decisions. It took a greater amount of time to forgive those choices, but I could understand.

Fast forward to my senior year and you will see me at my high school as the founder and president of the Young
Republicans Club. I was also one of three conservatives in my AP Human Geography class (my teacher constituted one of the other two). I was in this class during the Bush-Kerry election and I will never forget the day after Bush was re-elected. The anger and hate that filled the room was palpable and at one point that anger boiled over and was directed at me. The reason why I will never forget that day or that class is not because of the attack, but rather because of the president of the Young Democrats Club. He stood up for me and told the others that I had a right to my opinion.

A different day in that same class saw a heated discussion pit myself and my fellow conservative against everyone else and again things got heated; invectives were hurled, and I could not speak because of the overlapping yells coming from my classmates. Again I remember this day because the President of the Young Dems never treated me like that and at the end of the day he wrote me a little note apologizing for not standing up for me more in class, and to be honest I was surprised not because he apologized but because he had nothing to apologize for. This young man gave me hope for my future, he encouraged me to stand by my political beliefs and NEVER treated me as an inferior for having a different opinion. He gave me the strength to be vocal in college and to believe that perhaps I would have the pleasure of meeting another person who would not agree with me but would be willing to accept me anyway.

In college that person came in the form my wonderful history professor. I miss him terribly: He could be trusted to care for me when I was having a rough day while also being willing to challenge me and discuss everything from politics to religion without ever judging my answers. I thrive in such a situation, I love being challenged because it only further solidifies my base when I realize I am right and it helps me correct my wrong assumptions. His classes were phenomenal, but I will ALWAYS remember him for the conversations we had and for his open-minded acceptance of my strong and unwavering stand regarding my faith.

As an aside, my faith defines me as a person, but I can and do separate my faith and politics. I understand the difference between what is morally black and white and what is feasible in the realm of politics. This has on a fair number of occasions gotten me in trouble with my more conservative-minded friends, but like everything else in my life I stand by my convictions and respect my friends for standing by theirs.

Matt has been the most recent acquaintance who listens and strives to understand and find the common ground between all our differing views. He, as well as the others, continues to give me the strength to face those who ridicule both my faith and my politics. I bite my tongue and try to find the common ground because I know I am not alone in that endeavor, that not all liberals think and act like some of my classmates at graduate school, that not all professors spew hate against neo-cons and use their position of power to attack and brainwash, and that even high school boys can recognize the value of friends across the aisle. I would much rather discuss these positive interactions than dwell on all the negatives that have occurred even since starting graduate school. *gets on soap box*

It is easier and more acceptable in society to dwell on the hurt, to hold grudges and to look for revenge opportunities. We love to tell stories about the pain that has been inflicted on us by friends, family, even strangers – and at times, it is incredibly necessary to share one’s pain – but in the long run focusing only on the differences, only on the pain, the anger, the invectives, only serves to cause more pain. We lose patience with an entire segment of society – right, left, the church – simply because of the stupid actions of a few. The culture war that is tearing this nation apart is fueled by the constant generalization of groups based on their radical elements, blaming the whole for the sins of a few.

I am not an idealist; I will not pretend to believe that one day we can all get along, I believe that mankind will continue to fight with itself because mankind is selfish, but that does not mean that I will fall into that trap. I will hold myself to a higher standard and I will encourage my friends to hold themselves to a higher standard, and although it won’t change the world, it might change my school, and more importantly it WILL change one life. The people that I have mentioned in this post changed my life; I will strive to provide a similar hope for the people I interact with, because that is what I can do.

Building Toward Understanding, Part Two: Stop Keeping Score

2010-04-23T12:24:00.000-07:00

The mindset currently gripping America's political psyche can be explained by sports metaphors. This notion provides a really good way to understand why our public debate has become so bitter and impoverished.

First, we want to score points. I've long wanted to score points, and it took a long time for me to mentally and emotionally detach from the need to score points. We, as human beings, possess egos which crave competition and, perhaps even more powerfully, validation within the framework of said competition. We want to win the battle and see our beliefs prevail in the public square. Yes, we want to make the world a better place, but since our experiences shape us and give rise to a strong emotional center deep within our being, a healthy and proper sense of ambition leads us to connect desirable outcomes with the policy positions we've come to see as being superior to others.

This is not wrong or disordered, one hastens to add.

Ambition is not a value-negative word, but a value-neutral word. Human persons are supposed to be ambitious; it's a way of referring to the life force we carry as biological creatures. The key element of ambition is that, like so many other qualities we possess, it must be channeled in the right direction and used with great care. We should fight for our ideals and beliefs as we seek to improve our country and its constituent communities. Otherwise, we wouldn't have any intellectual or personal integrity. No great struggles are won without vigorous effort and considerable struggle. We should be passionate about winning fights that we sincerely believe will benefit our neighbors.

The key emphasis, though, is that last part: What we do needs to benefit the common good, our neighbors in the sense that Jesus used the word "neighbors": as the rest of the world, not just like-minded people we're naturally drawn to and congregate with. The Parable of the Good Samaritan in the Gospel according to Luke makes that point clear.

The president of Gonzaga University gave a talk in 2001 at the Western Region meeting of the Society of St. Vincent de Paul (referred to in an earlier blog post about my personal journey) in which he stressed the need to discern between competition and contribution, between a mindset which values climbing up a ladder over other people and - on the other hand - giving to others in a spirit which seeks mutual benefit and edification.

Don't get me wrong: Competition - similar to ambition - is not value-negative. However, whereas ambition is a little bit more general in scope and application, competition is more connected to the notion of outdoing someone else. Competition is not inherently geared toward the diminishment of others (again, it's not value-negative; it's value neutral, just like ambition), but it risks doing so and must therefore be carefully calibrated by each and every person.

Safe to say, Americans have a hard time learning when to shut off their competitive instincts in favor of a solely contributive mindset and model.

This is where sports metaphors re-enter our discussion.

Election Night in America (I can't speak for international readers here) is so much like a sporting event: The multiple panelists, the avalanche of graphics, the parade of stats, the special sets built just for the occasion. Our press - as both the Left and Right know quite well - is obsessed with what is called "the horse race" (sports metaphor) and likes to talk of an electoral sweep (sports metaphor) as the fruition of a game plan or strategy (sports metaphor).

[I'll spare you the other sports metaphors used amidst election talk in this country. Point proven, I trust.]

So much of American political culture - and this country's mainstream media programs perpetuate this - is dominated by a competitive mindset which, like America's legal system, owns an entirely adversarial flavor.

The McLaughlin Group started this trend in the late 1980s. Crossfire continued it on CNN in the 1990s. Hardball has perpetuated it in this decade on MSNBC, as has Fox News' collection of programs. Talk radio - Left and Right - has increased the reach of combat politics, as have the not-so-civil sections of a very diverse blogosphere (and now Twitterverse as well).

The basic formula for a political TV show these days is simple: either have an adversarial host with an opposite-minded guest, or a host with two guests who are adversarial toward each other and appear on a split screen. Instead of performing real journalism (which costs, but also enriches the public), cable news directors are instead running programs on the cheap by filling vast stretches of air time with yakkers.

Yak, yak, yak, 24-7-365.

No wonder our so-called "debates" in America generate far more heat than light.

No wonder our public discourse is so tired and worn.

No wonder each cable network (and talk radio station) only furthers a mindset of mortal combat in our political culture.

No wonder the same debates - with all their familiar attendant talking points - get embedded deeper and deeper into the minds of the general populace, thereby entrenching viewpoints and creating a bunker mentality on all sides.

No wonder people on the Left and the Right feel so beaten-down, misrepresented and generally unheard in our public commons. No wonder this deep-set sense of fatigue prevents each of us (progressives and conservatives, Green Party members and Tea Party members) from being able to hear the wisdom in a divergent or opposing viewpoint.

Combat politics - what I like to call the "food fight" model - has been hammered so deeply into the American psyche that we can't imagine what a different model would look like. (Bill Moyers, who is retiring from broadcast journalism on April 30, owns views that my friends on the Right might virulently disagree with, but one thing that has to be said is that Moyers has always created an environment conducive to extended adult conversation with people from all corners of the political arena.) I would venture to say that we, as Americans, have a yearning for a better way of communicating, but the commercial landscape of broadcast media makes it all too apparent that Americans aren't about to be better served by the generators of mainstream broadcast content.

In many ways, the purpose of this blog is to call all of us - Left and Right and all places in between (or even beyond!) - to the idea that not only CAN this happen; it MUST happen.

Will it be easy? Of course not. One by one, though, we need to spread the idea that we can produce dialogue which both respects our positions yet creates possibilities of reform in mainstream media, journalistic research, academic integrity, governmental competence, and corporate accountability (among other important realms).

One by one, we need to create the idea that our two-party system - which can't possibly contain the full spectrum of viewpoints on both the Left and the Right and is therefore corroding American politics to a degree which can't be overstated - must give way to a four-party model. That's a long-term project, though, so for the time being, we need to find a way to debate within the (impoverished, ineffective, combat-conducive, systemically adversarial) Democrat-Republican model we have.

To focus this essay a little more precisely on the nature of the problem in front of us, I'll emphasize one particular point about the nature of debate between the Left and the Right in America.

Naturally, it goes back to keeping score.

So much of commentary - on TV, radio, blogs, Twitter, and other formats - is geared toward saying how X politician or party is worse than Y.

Obama got more corporate cash than Bush. Bush did worse on foreign policy.

Bush couldn't use proper syntax, says the Left. Obama bows to other leaders, says the Right.

Bush got us into this economic mess, says the Left. (Not without reason or cause.) Obama's making things worse, says the Right. (Not without reason or cause.)

We're so conditioned to defend our turf and our positions to the extent that we (and I've been part of this dynamic for many years) try to say that if we're bad, well, the other side is worse. If "we" have been ineffective, "they" have been disastrous. If "we" have been inconsistent, "they" have been hypocritical.

In many ways, our political climate - and its hostility to edifying, respectful (but still vigorous and rigorous) public debate - can be characterized by a saying which captures the Republican-Democrat model:

"When you do something, it's an abuse of power. When I do that same thing, it's inspired leadership."

Indeed: the Bush and Obama administrations are guilty of many of the same sins and the same abuses of power, but our media climate leads us to compete with each other and emphasize how one camp is worse than the other.

Let me level with all of you, but especially my friends on the Right (since I lean Left): I'm sure there are aspects in which Obama has been definitively worse than Bush. All I'm saying is that it does little good to get into a pissing contest where we spend our time on image-based minutiae and competitive measures of who did more to ruin our country.

Did Party A or Politician B unleash more unhealthy effects than a counterpart? Perhaps... but not enough that the well-being of our Republic depends on the answer.

Both parties - and presidential administrations representing them - have presided over a political culture that has steadily eroded American power, influence and economic health.

Yes, one Texan president (Bush) got us into an ill-conceived war against a savvy and elusive insurgent opposition, but Lyndon Johnson wrote that same narrative some 40 years earlier. Yes, Richard Nixon is a magnet for hate among liberals of my mother's age, but it's important to note that LBJ - with the Gulf of Tonkin debacle - truly began the decade (1964-1974) during which Americans' trust in government rightfully and appropriately plummeted.

Income inequality increased under Bush (43), but it was Bill Clinton who - while enjoying the fruits of a situationally convenient but short-lived and speculation-based tech boom in the late 1990s - made many decisions (in cahoots with vultures like Bob Rubin and Larry Summers) that perpetuated income inequality and also undercut our nation's economic footing.

Both parties - Republican and Democrat - are and have been in thrall to the military-industrial complex and so many other odious extensions of what friend and regular commenter John Cary rightly terms "the federal leviathan." It does us precious little good to waste our time figuring out who's worse. What we should be doing is figuring out how we get better as a nation, as a people, and as a morally-oriented and socially just collection of subcultures in the different corners of these (not-so-United) States.

Simply stated, we need all voices and political perspectives to show us a way out of this mess. The culture of cutthroat political competition must give way to a culture of contribution which seeks mutual benefit, growth and improvement.

The era of political scorekeeping must end... even if it means that I (and you) can't score any more cheap points in this contact sport called politics. Sports metaphors and the hunger for electoral victory need to take a backseat toward the service of the common good.

After all, it's easy to criticize the opposition or proclaim what won't work. It's much harder - but infinitely more rewarding and beneficial - to work with the opposition and craft something that will succeed.

Part Three of this "Building Understanding" series will come out early next week, after the weekend is over.

Building Toward Understanding, Part One: Clean Your Own House First

2010-04-21T20:00:00.000-07:00

NOTE: This essay will be longer than usual, but still nothing approaching a novel.

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In the comments section following Monday's self-revelatory post, the contours of what can potentially be a very productive discussion came into view. A libertarian from Florida made the point - and I agree with it - that government cannot be seen as a first responder or outlet with respect to various social ills in America. A progressive from Britain then made the point - and I agree with it - that there does have to be at least some balance between respect for private, individual charitable action and - on the other hand - built-in structural support for people who fall through the cracks.

As newcomers to this blog need to know, this and other essays won't try to argue for the superiority of one political or ideological position in comparison with another. As soon as one takes sides or makes a declaration of where s/he stands, perceptions begin to set in. The purpose of today's commentary is precisely to wean Americans of all persuasions away from either-or, one-or-the-other-type thought processes.

What we instead need in our society (and this would also apply for Brits and Germans and Japanese friends and Filipinos and Australians) is a both-and approach. Even the quickest and most simplified survey of human life should enable people with different mindsets to come to such a conclusion.

Human beings need to be nurtured by loving and morally-centered parents, but they then need to be allowed to grow and think for themselves.

Human beings need to be disciplined, restrained and judicious in the ways we carry ourselves throughout life, but we also need to be expressive, tender and caring as well.

We need to be generous, but we also need to protect our interests and be willing to say no at times.

We need to conserve resources, but there are times when we need to splurge or enjoy something pleasurable in order to alleviate stress or keep a marriage fun.

There are times when one has to play things by the book, and there are times when one has to break the rules (once in a while but surely not often, a big one) in order to make a larger point or achieve a greater good.

There are times to assert a masculine sense of strength and fortitude, and there are times meant for a feminine understanding of situations.

There are times when one must insist on a certain route or path, and there are times when one must step aside and not fight every battle, allowing certain skirmishes to be carried on by others (if at all).

One could make many more similar statements. You get the point: We are multi-dimensional organisms who need to attain certain degrees of balance, lest we lose the sense of equilibrium that's so essential to a healthy existence. (I'm aware of what's imbalanced in my life; I'm not that great about solving those imbalances, however. A work in progress.)

For every instinct we have, there usually - if not always - needs to be a tempering and countervailing inclination which prevents us from going too far down the other road. This realization comes not from the realms of politics or ideology, but from the larger experience of being human and navigating the choppy waters of a day-to-day challenge that always acquires new dimensions (albeit within old forms). This is all a way of saying that living a balanced life - and establishing good foundations for a healthy, integrated journey on this planet - should not be perceived as belonging more to one political philosophy than another.

This is where things get really tricky.

I would like to think that people of (almost!) any political leaning or ideological mindset want the best for society. There will always be fringe elements of various groups, or aberrant individuals who try to hijack or distort a given movement, but in the bigger picture, liberals and conservatives, progressives and libertarians, centrists and radicals, reactionaries and socialists, want their country to thrive.

Do we have different ways of conceptualizing and articulating the well-chosen path or the virtuous school of thought? Of course. Should that mean, though, that we doubt the sincerity of a person with diametrically-opposed views on the specifics of policy, law, the Constitution, and electoral competition?

It's always instructive and telling when a person on one side of the political divide makes a statement which doesn't fit with a larger mainstream perception. Bruce Fein, a conservative constitutional lawyer, had much to say about the Bush Administration's abuses of power. Noam Chomsky, an iconic liberal intellectual, very recently condemned the Obama Administration for its practices while talking about the legitimacy of the Tea Party perspective. When events like these take place, it's almost always the bloggers or tweeters on the other side who point it out:

"Look, fellow conservatives! Even Noam CHOMSKY agrees with us!"

"Here, fellow liberals! Even BRUCE FEIN sees the light!"

We know why we love to tweet about such occurrences: It's so rare when one of "them" understands "us" that the moment has to be marked and remembered. The conversion or the sympathetic presence of a long-perceived adversary (regardless of whether that person really was or is or should be viewed as an adversary) provides immense validation to our own political and intellectual architectures. It's powerful stuff, and I've participated in this process enough to know how intoxicating a feeling it really is. My massive ego drinks this stuff up. Darn straight it feels good.

But you know what? I'm 34. I've lived through lots of battles, and they've all left me profoundly unsatisfied, if not outright miserable. This necessitates further sharing of my own life story.

I shook Paul Wellstone's hand at the University of Washington in February of 2000 while working for Bill Bradley's campaign against Al Gore for the Democratic Party's presidential nomination. That moment was great, but it was about the only enjoyable moment from that Bradley-Gore fight. I was interviewed during that campaign by Mike Allen of POLITICO, the same Mike Allen who just got profiled in the New York Times Magazine yesterday (April 21, 2010). Allen phrased his questions like a man who knew the answers he wanted beforehand; that was a telling look inside the mindset of a Beltway journalist.

I voted for Ralph Nader in the 2000 general presidential election and - not knowing 9/11 would happen - hoped that George Bush would take the presidency to teach the Democratic Party a lesson and make it much more liberal in the years ahead.

I watched MSNBC in 2004 as Chris Matthews laughed Howard Dean off the stage of American presidential politics following Dean's perfectly innocent attempt to rally the hearts of student volunteers who had just suffered a crushing and disillusioning disappointment in the snow-covered plains of Iowa.

I watched the 2006 election night results and realized that the Democrats would control the House for the first time since 1994. I hoped - one last time - that maybe, just maybe, Nancy Pelosi and Harry Reid would turn the Dems into a party I could actually admire and fight for.

I watched in 2007 and 2008 as Pelosi and Reid kowtowed to the Bush Administration on matters of civil liberties, war and peace, and (unfettered) free trade. My belief in the Democratic Party - which had been whittled down to virtually nothing - fully and finally died during the final years of the Bush (43) Administration.

Now, I've watched Barack Obama - who, for all his openly-stated centrist positions, was still a community organizer - erode our country to an even greater extent. Community organizers are people I've spent a lot of time with in my work, be it volunteer or paid, in Catholic Seattle. My mother knows many community organizers in Phoenix, and our shared experience of these people is that they have the interests of commoners in mind. They might not always produce the best outcomes, but they're trying to inspire involvement and create empowerment among the citizenry, the people at or near the bottom of the socioeconomic ladder.

Say what you want about Obama; he's been a thoroughly horrible president. The only point I wish to make is that Obama's betrayal of the ethos and mission of a community organizer - namely, to give a voice to those at the bottom of a power structure - represents just the latest in a series of events which have affirmed the Democratic Party as anything but the friend of the poor and the vulnerable. I have, for many years, touted one political viewpoint over another, but all the while, I've never really had a political party or organization which has housed my views with sufficient amounts of legislative clout, real-world heft, or - most importantly - bracingly courageous honesty.

I would dare to suggest that my friends on the other side of the political and/or philosophical divide(s) would say the same thing.

The Republican Party is much less the prime mover in the realm of conservative and libertarian activism than is the Tea Party movement. The Republican National Committee's resistance to Ron Paul is as much of an indictment of the GOP as the Democratic National Committee's opposition to Ralph Nader is an indictment of the Dems. Alternative voices, anti-establishment voices - voices which basically threaten to overturn an enduring and deeply entrenched power structure in Washington, D.C. - are regularly muffled and marginalized by the Republican and Democratic parties.

What does this all mean? It's more material than this one essay can contain. (A "part two" will be absolutely necessary.) For now, though, just absorb what the following statement must mean to me: At age 34, I've seen the Democratic Party - which was always supposed to be "on MY side" - act in ways that have run counter to many if not all of my values, hopes and desires. I'm not enchanted with much of anything the Republicans have done, but the people and politicians who claimed to represent me and speak for me have not earned my trust.

What good is it, then, for me - a progressive - to tout all the instances in which a conservative criticizes a Republican or a libertarian criticizes a conservative?

What good is it, then, for me - a progressive - to identify acts of hypocrisy, excess, bluster, arrogance, greed, narrow-mindedness (etc., etc., etc.) among Republicans when the Democrats own all those same black marks in relatively equal abundance?

I'm tired of tweeting about how the so-called "other side" is bad. I want my values to be represented, which means that people who agree with me need to be pushed out of their comfort zones and into a posture where we - as progressives - tweet more about Democrats' failures than Republicans' missteps.

I'm tired of comparisons between Democrats and Republicans, between liberals and conservatives, and trying to defend "my side" against the opposition when "my side" really isn't on "my side" in the first place.

Richard Rohr - my favorite Catholic priest and the spiritual teacher I admire the most in contemporary American Christianity - said at a 2006 lecture in Albuquerque that "liberals think they can convince conservatives by giving them enough information." Rohr has stressed that liberals all too frequently try to overwhelm ideological opponents with enough statistics and "facts" that the other side will give way, an approach he viewed as hopelessly futile and doomed to failure.

He's right.

I have my information, you have yours. I have my media outlets and trusted sources, you have yours. A liberal will have his or her preferred TV programs, magazines and blogs. A conservative will occupy separate corners of the multimedia and journalism universes. A progressive will tout one study, a libertarian the next. A socialist will trumpet one set of economic indicators, a Chamber of Commerce Republican another.

Enough. I'm tired of it, and what's more, our country is groaning and creaking under the weight of the hyperpartisanship that is generated, multiplied, and further entrenched whenever competing sides launch their own stacks of information and their own exposes at the opponent across the way.

Government is in such a sorry state - and our country finds itself in a generally unfavorable position - because both parties have kicked the can down the road and failed to make responsible adult choices about budgetary restraint, federal overreach, and the plight of the poor. We all have our own spins or slants on the matter; we all have our own studies, assemblages of information, and panels of experts to cite in all of this. Yet, in a country that's rather polarized - look at the results of our last three presidential elections - does any one of us really think that we'll be able to secure such an overwhelming national mandate that we don't have to debate or reckon with others in an attempt to pass meaningful legislation and create substantial positive change?

The Democrats - with a 59-41 advantage in the U.S. Senate - have been extremely impotent and ineffective. Should we think that the Republicans will move the needle even further in the other direction? Moreover, should any of us view it as a primary goal to either work for or against such a goal?

We have to dialogue and come off our respective perches at some point. We have to emerge from our separate cocoons of thought and hash out some hard-won but legitimate compromise, the way adults do in the workplace and the way married people do in the home. Give a little, get a little; protect what is non-negotiable but give up the things that are optional.

The fusion between good libertarianism and good progressivism, which was mentioned at the beginning of this essay, requires a separate post in the coming days. For now - and in conclusion - just realize that whether government is big or small, the most important thing is that government be made BETTER. That's a goal which transcends political labels and ideologies. We all need to improve ourselves in order to create a better and more thriving America (and world). Therefore, since we know our own political philosophy better than others', why don't we develop the habit of identifying the weaknesses, hypocrisies and outrages in our own party or among our own crowd? I can't reform a conservative nearly as well or as powerfully as I can reform a liberal. I can't understand the nuances of libertarian thought nearly as well as I can identify a progressive sensibility and then pronounce what I so clearly and fervently advocate.

A certain man named Jesus - yeah, that one - said something about removing the plank from one's own eye before focusing on the speck in the eye of another. This idea is found in the expression "Clean up your own house first!"

Americans have to learn to do this, and pull ourselves away from the "food fight" political model in which we spend our time trying to justify how bad the "other side" is, how much worse "THEY" are than "WE" are.

Once we take this important and essential first step, we can then move forward and attain the balance our political and intellectual (and spiritual) lives so desperately require.

Please, friends, no matter where you lie on the political spectrum, you need to tend to your own party or movement first. Understand the tensions and conflicts with your own "in-group," and then the debate across party lines and ideological barriers can take place in earnest.

In part two, we'll look at how that cross-party debate can happen in a meaningful way.

My Story - The Sharing Begins Here

2010-04-19T14:46:00.000-07:00

I've been talking about the need to share personal stories of how we - as individuals - have arrived at certain sets of views. Before we debate, Americans - Left, Right and Center - must understand where we've come from. Otherwise, the bridge-building that is so necessary to a healthy country cannot take place.

There's nothing wrong with standing one's ground in fidelity to principles one holds to be supremely important. There is something wrong, though, with hyperpartisanship. This is not the fault of individuals, but more a national contagion which must be confronted from all sides.

In the effort to initiate storytelling, I can only try to set a positive example. This blog post, then, will hit the high (or low!) points of my journey as a political, ideological, religious and moral creature living in turn-of-the-millennium America.

FOUNDATIONAL EXPERIENCES

In 1989, when I was 13, my mother joined the Society of Saint Vincent de Paul from her Catholic parish in Phoenix, Arizona. St. Vincent de Paul (SVDP) initiates its services from individual Catholic parishes but has some central offices and locations in Phoenix and other cities where SVDP exists. My mother took me on trips to the main cafeteria, clothing bank, and counseling center located south of Downtown Phoenix, but our main work on behalf of SVDP took the form of the most central Vincentian ministry: home visits.

The Vincentian home visit requires that at least two Vincentians come to the door of a needy neighbor and deliver either in-kind or financial assistance. The arrangements for a home visit involve a few steps: First, the person (household) in need calls the city's main SVDP office/hub; the hub re-routes the request to the specific Catholic parish. The parish chapter, which meets at least once every two weeks (and is supposed to meet weekly), discusses its ability and/or capacity to serve the various clients that call in. Then, clients are called back and home visit times are arranged.

Until I graduated from high school in 1994, I accompanied my mom on SVDP home visits, usually during weekends. We visited dozens of dumpy apartment complexes, at least four or five trailer parks, and many homes with barren, dusty (non-)yards and cracked sidewalks. We served African-Americans and Hispanics; individuals and families; people with TVs and VCRs and clean floors, and people without them. My mom and I served some people who were clearly hiding some of the more intimate details of their lives and tried to fast-talk their way through; we also served many families who were crushed by strings of hardships that came in rapid-fire fashion and put parents near the breaking point.

After graduating from Seattle University in 1998, I would join my parish's SVDP chapter in Seattle and performed home visits for four more years (2000-2003). In many ways, the subculture of the SVDP chapter (and of SVDP in Seattle at large) was very different from what I experienced in Phoenix, but in other ways, it was quite similar.

One of the scandals of the SVDP chapter at my Seattle parish was that it did (and still does) keep about $65,000 in the bank, for a "rainy day." This runs counter to the Vincentian mandate as laid out by founder Frederic Ozanam, the Parisian student who gave life to this ministry in the 1830s, modeled after Vincent de Paul, a 17th-century saint. I had to leave SVDP due to health problems in 2003, but I've had no desire to return to my Seattle parish chapter precisely because of its shameful practice. A lot of Seattle families could use the $65,000 being held onto in the parish SVDP treasury. A longstanding battle between conservative-minded Vincentians and progressive-minded Vincentians has focused on the interpretation of "stewardship." For the conservatives, who skew toward an older age demographic, "stewardship" means keeping money in the bank as a safeguard. For progressives (like my mom), it means spending whatever money comes in and giving it to the poor in the form of rent help or purchased groceries. I will always stand with my mom on this issue.

Now, what were/are the takeaways of my Vincentian experiences, which - at least in some ways - have been replicated in subsequent stints as a soup kitchen assistant manager and a case manager (now grant writer) at an eviction-prevention agency?

One realization about my experiences is that service to the needy acquires all sorts of dimensions. There are people who are lazy and who have become poor as a result of bad personal decisions. There are also people who are poor in spite of their best efforts, people who have truly not chosen or brought about their own suffering. There are people who are all too prepared to tell specific stories that have been rehearsed after many hours of internal practice, and are savvy enough to pull off the trick in public. There are other people who can't pull off the con, and there are others who humbly ask for service and are often quite embarrassed that they must do so.

Serving the poor is not different from any other endeavor in the sense that people are different in any socioeconomic stratum of society. No two poor people or rich people or middle-income people are alike. Each person demands specific attention on a case-by-case basis. "The poor" are not one monolithic group, but should instead be seen as a collection of diverse stories that offer different snapshots of a larger problem.

Flowing from this realization about the diversity of biographies presented by "the poor," it also follows that giving to the poor inevitably involves being taken advantage of, at least to some extent. Yes, one's skills of discernment - otherwise known as a "bullshit detector" - need to improve with age, but helping out people with disordered lives is a messy enterprise and an art more than a science. It always helps to create and facilitate accountability mechanisms, but sometimes, that's not entirely possible; or at least, the accountability mechanisms might occasionally lack the ability to verify every aspect of a person's sob story. This certainly holds true for interactions at a soup kitchen, where a group of 25-40 people might become intimately known over the course of four years as a worker (I worked at a soup kitchen in Seattle from 2004-2007) or 14 years (1994-2007) all told.

At certain points along the way, urgent requests for extra assistance - which sometimes transcend the boundaries of a specific ministry or job description (serving a hot meal) - will require a certain amount of trust. If other avenues have been pursued to no avail - shelters quickly fill up in Seattle, and there are no nighttime food banks in the city, despite its considerable offering of food programs - I and the people I've worked with in faith-based ministries have tried to offer a helping hand to others. Some successes were achieved, but other stories turned into portraits of frustration. Still other people, it was learned, played a con job... but only after years (in some cases) of subsequent revelations that simply couldn't have been foreseen at the time.

MAKING SENSE OF THE STORY: CONCLUDING THOUGHTS... ON THE ROAD TO A NEW BEGINNING

What does all this say (and keep in mind that this just scratches the surface of years spent amidst at-risk/homeless/low-income/mentally ill populations)?

Well, for one thing - and this will sound like Yogi Berra - my experiences can't say everything that really needs to be said. I'm only one life with one story in one pair of cities. I'm only one person who has been inspired by one mother and one set of other role models in the Catholic Church, SVDP, and at the Seattle Catholic Worker (which takes its cues from the Christian example of Dorothy Day, Peter Maurin, and other Catholics with a life story different from that of many others).

I will make two very general conclusions about my work and my evolving views:

1) If a family or individual has undergone certain unchosen hardships, and the Catholic parish (or SVDP center) in that person's (blighted, underdeveloped, underserved) neighborhood is underfunded, and the shelters are full at night, and the county government lacks funding, and the city is similarly hamstrung, society has a moral obligation to help that particular kind of family or person. To not do so would be immoral.

2) The progressive model of stewardship that should prevail in a Vincentian or other faith-based context - the model I long thought should apply to the federal government - should indeed NOT apply to the United States government. When other people's money is on the line, full-scale accountability must exist, without question. The track record of persistent poverty in America, plus widening income inequality (among many other lingering social ills), reflects a landscape in which the public can't know where or how its dollars are being spent. A model of subsidiarity - a core Catholic principle in which services are delivered by the most localized outlet possible - does need to be promoted in American governance.

How to reconcile points 1 and 2? Tough question. In many ways, this challenge - the challenge which has emerged from my story - is one of the three greatest tests facing human beings (not just Americans) in the 21st century and beyond.

Abortion: An Historico-Cultural Explanation

2010-04-15T18:02:00.000-07:00

Real life keeps getting in the way, but I've finally been able to set aside time for a post explaining why abortion has come to be accepted, even favored, by a large chunk of the American populace.

The first thing which needs to be said, before going any further, is that all but a few Americans (this is said unscientifically but with an appreciation for the basic decency of people) agree that abortions are sad events, events that need to be rare and become rarer still in the future. Yes, you'll find some people for whom "abortions of convenience" are perfectly acceptable, but that's not a mainstream position, and it's not what's going to be addressed in this essay.

The second thing which needs to be said - this will be a constant theme of the blog for those just joining the discussion - is that abortion (like other policy positions or viewpoints) will not be justified or defended.

The purpose of this blog is merely to explain how a given set of viewpoints came to exist, for it is only in understanding the evolution of perspectives that one can improve or correct them. No honest debate can take place unless there is at least some mutual awareness of the pillars being used by competing sides. Every contentious issue in American life (or in any other society, for that matter) demands such an historico-cultural analysis.

So it will be with abortion in the next several hundred words.

As a white male and as a Catholic Christian, I immediately realize that I'm not in the best position to speak to the development of American women's views on abortion, so I'll speak cautiously on this issue and try not to overstep my bounds. I'll also forthrightly declare that I will not mention every single cultural or historical nuance that has shaped this issue in the United States.

On a very simple and general level, a fervent belief in the right to have an abortion stems from at least a couple of factors. (Female readers and pro-choice readers - we'll save debates about terminology for later as well - are invited to post additional thoughts and context in the comments section to enhance a public debate.)

One factor is easy to identify but hard to limit to a particular window of time: The oppression and subjugation of women throughout history. Women were viewed as property for quite some time, and the development of marriage as an appreciably mutual love-based covenant is not all that old within the larger sweep and scope of human history. In some pockets of the world today, women are still treated as property, as commodities to be sold; much of this is enshrined in religious practices, with India and Sharia Law-governed pockets of the Islamic world. Polygamous Mormon sects treat women in a way few of us should be comfortable with, and - outside the realm of religion itself - women are still consistently objectified by Western popular culture. One could list many other examples of the dehumanization and oppression of women, but that would divert us from the focal point of this essay. The bottom line is that the oppression of women has been a constant in human existence.

Therefore, when Margaret Sanger, Betty Friedan, Simone de Beauvoir, and other mid-20th-century feminists generated momentum for the movement they kick-started, an understandable torrent of excitement, optimism and hope began to emerge.

It shouldn't be too hard to understand when one thinks about it in a larger context.

World War II had just ended. Domestic life re-entered the focus of American women (and women in Europe as well). Moreover, there was an eagerness to return to the home front and step away from the battlefields of Europe and Japan. Women in the West also wanted to peel themselves away from the unimaginable tensions they felt - as wives, girlfriends and mothers - while the men in their lives took up arms against Hitler and Mussolini.

The years during which the American baby boom took place were years in which men and women separated by war stepped into a new social context. I can't speak for Europeans here, but American life acquired pronounced new cultural and commercial dimensions from the late 1940s through the mid-1960s, when the United States economy existed at its zenith. The development of the interstate highway system, the construction of suburban housing units such as Levittown (throughout the Northeast), and a boom in post-war manufacturing created a world that was manifestly different from the pre-war environment so many American men and boys inhabited until December 7, 1941.

Americans were discovering the life-altering medium of television (my grandparents got their first television in 1947, and were the third household on their block in Chicago to get a TV). Women and men were catching up with each other after several years of lost time. The G.I. Bill was transforming the nature of America's workforce for the next few generations. Rapid change defined the American situation in the late 40s and for much of the 1950s. In that kind of context, it is always difficult for human beings in large communities to feel satisfied with their standing and - even more importantly - a given set of assumptions that had carried them for so long.

[Again, not a justification or a defense, but merely an explanation for why things unfolded the way they did.]

And then, if you thought the 1950s brought forth a lot of change, then came the 1960s, when the doors got blown off.

The pill.

The Civil Rights Movement.

The Second Vatican Council (a moment understood by Catholics, but underappreciated by non-Catholic Americans who don't realize the extent to which intra-Catholic transformations reshaped American polity in the past 50 years).

The Vietnam War.

The resistance to the Vietnam War.

The sex-drugs-rock-n-roll scene of Haight-Ashbury and Woodstock.

The free love movement.

These events and social forces carried overwhelming weight and unavoidably caused Americans to re-assess and re-calibrate how they lived and what they thought. Many Americans didn't feel the full force of these earth-shaking changes, and some didn't change their views all that much, but the point is that many U.S. citizens did, with women rethinking their basic approach to life, love, career, sexuality, divorce, family, and other considerations.

Once more, the matter of right or wrong is not what's at issue here. The matter at hand is this: how did a large number of American women come to feel that a right to an abortion was something that needed to be cherished and/or defended?

Old views of sexuality and relationships were questioned.

Old views of work, family and culture received fresh scrutiny and examination, perhaps for the first time in many American households once governed by ironclad rules and principles which endured through the 19th century and well into the 20th century as well.

The integrity of the United States government - thanks to the Gulf of Tonkin debacle in 1964 - caused many Americans to question authority figures, which most certainly included those people we call PARENTS. Again, right or wrong is not the issue; HOW THINGS CAME TO BE is the topic being discussed. (If you're tired of the repetition, I understand; I just want to emphasize it in these initial essays.)

The integrity of the Catholic Church was newly assessed back in the sixties as a result of Vatican II. Lay Catholics who, in prior decades, obeyed everything a parish priest or diocesan bishop said without question - at a time when the Mass was said in Latin, a dead language - now took a fresh look at their church and pondered the possibilities of lay leadership. Catholics attained new levels of affluence and post-secondary education, making them question various edicts and pronouncements levied by an institutional church that prides itself on thinking in terms of centuries, not days.

Against this kind of backdrop, new perspectives were gained, old perspectives were - if not lost - certainly forgotten. Abortions - conducted in the horror and crudeness of back alleys with primitive materials - were felt by many to be a necessary procedure which demanded advanced medical attention. With American culture radically re-defining matters of sexuality, and the pill then hastening a tectonic shift in bedrooms and college campuses throughout the country, the matter of abortion came to be seen in a very different light.

One more Catholic element merits mention here: The places where Catholicism flourished in America were the big cities of the Northeast and the Midwest, plus Los Angeles. Baltimore, Washington, D.C., Philadelphia, New York, Boston, Chicago all house American cardinals, along with L.A. and also Detroit. These are the metropolitan areas deemed by the institutional Catholic Church as meriting the centrality and primacy of Cardinal archbishops (as opposed to regular bishops who don't receive elevated cardinalatial status).

When attitudes among American Catholics shifted markedly in the 1960s and the reforms which accompanied that time period, many college-educated urbanite women began a slow but steady process of rethinking their religious identity. For many of these women (my mom grew up in Chicago in the 1950s), the Catholic Church is today a sign of disgrace and shame. The Catholic faith might still be lived out by these women and their daughters, but a confidence in the integrity of the institution has been wiped away. More specifically, Catholic women (and their even-more-skeptical daughters, some of whom don't go to Mass these days) are fully convinced that old white men in positions of ecclesial power have nothing (healthy or positive) to say to them about sexual conduct and moral behavior in the bedroom. Deteriorating attitudes among Catholic women toward Catholic leaders - in archbishop chairs here in the states, but also in Rome - cannot be underestimated as a main source of shifting attitudes toward abortion.

Does life begin at conception? That's a mighty fine question which can be debated in the comments section. This essay, though, was simply meant to show how views of abortion developed, established and became further entrenched in the minds of a good many American women over the past 40-65 years or so.

There is a time for dialogue about the science and ethics of abortion. The conversation that must first take place, however, is a dialogue about how our views of abortion ever came to exist at all.

Our Different Journeys: Common Good, Separate Roads

2010-04-09T11:50:00.000-07:00

Today - Friday, April 9, 2010 - is a day that brought the issue of abortion back to the center of American political discussion. It's tempting to focus on abortion, but it was promised that this second post would focus on the different journeys human beings take. Perhaps some kind of synthesis can be achieved, but I intend to keep (most of) the focus on the differences in various human lives.

One event that (not immediately, but eventually) enabled me to transcend my one-minded, one-sided political worldviews came in my senior year at Seattle University. My English professor - whose views were quite liberal - showed our class a video on the history of the Civil Rights Movement. In a post-video discussion, the professor (Sharon Cumberland by name) made the oh-so-essential point that we should not look upon civil rights opponents from the 1950s as somehow inferior or inherently bad people. She went even further and said that we cannot use present-day lenses to view the appreciably distant past.

The principle at work in Professor Cumberland's remarks was this: What if I myself had been born in Jackson, Mississippi, in 1940? What if I myself had been born in Richmond, Virginia, in 1938? Would I have been able to grow up and easily acquire a pro-civil rights set of viewpoints? Almost certainly not. This realization took many years to fully penetrate my consciousness, but over years of disagreement with others, the weight of Cumberland's guidance began to sink in.

The most difficult element of politics is simply this: People are different. More precisely, people's experiences are different. We know this, actually, but it gets lost in the heat of political combat. To be more exact, we are aware of differences, but find it hard (and understandably so) to wrap our minds around the extent to which we occupy separate sides (or corners) of various issues and identities.

It's not just a matter of when or where you're born, though those two facts certainly shape much of a person's existence right then and there.

What kinds of parents did a person have? Good parents? Ideologically fervent parents (in either direction)? What occupations did they have? How materialistic were they? What baggage or inspiration did parents carry with them in life? How did one's parents handle their own successes and shortcomings? How stable was the marriage of one's parents? Did the examples set by one's parents create divisions or affirm originally held views? Did parents exhibit hypocrisy or consistency? Did they nourish? Did they discipline? Did they coddle or enable? Did they fail to praise or communicate their love?

These and other questions capture only a small piece of the larger complexity that defines any person's upbringing, and the web of emotional relationships that colors it. We can ask numerous questions about every other aspect of a person's upbringing as well.

What kind of neighbors existed in the community?

What kind of teachers and non-parental role models - of both genders - existed?

What kind of churches and pastors/rabbis/imams existed in one's early years?

What was the economic condition associated with one's childhood and adolescence?

How much of a chance did you have to play and run free as a child?

Was original, independent, critical thinking encouraged, or did your parents push a particular line of thought, and/or a specific line of work, and/or a specific field of study?

And then there are questions pertaining to a given time in human history.

One such question would be this: Did you grow up in a part of the United States or the world where one issue (or one subset of issues) acquired paramount importance at a given point in time?

Did your household and neighborhood face the need to confront a specific problem which did not exist five or 10 years earlier?

Did your church or synagogue or mosque have to deal with time-specific challenges, notable accidents, systemic wrongs, internal controversies, or other issues which attained a degree of centrality not found in many other cities, states, provinces, or regions?

Then consider the course of human events and how they would have affected a human life.

If you were 3 years old when a seminal, life-altering moment became part of human history (September 11, Pearl Harbor, The Six Day War, The JFK assassination, Watergate, the fall of the Berlin Wall, the Martin Luther King assassination, the Great Depression), the intellectual and emotional impact of the event would have been quite different from the ways in which a 13-year-old would have been affected. A 13-year-old person would have felt such events differently from 23-year-olds, 33-year-olds, 43-year-olds, and so on.

These lists might seem tiresome, but again, they're laid out in full so that the immensity of human experiences - and more precisely, their variances - becomes that much more apparent.

If your mom stuffed envelopes for Margaret Sanger or Betty Friedan, or if you grew up in a liberal enclave in Greenwich Village in 1965, your outlook on life would be different from that of a rancher who grew up in Wyoming in 1982. The outlook of an 18-year-old boy in Haight-Ashbury in 1967 San Francisco would have been quite different from the outlook of an 18-year-old girl in a staunchly old-school Catholic family in 1951 Nebraska. Internationally, the worldview of my father - who lived in his native Czechoslovakia during the Nazi occupation - is irretrievably different from the outlook of a Czech who grew up after the fall of the Berlin Wall and knew nothing of Nazi or Communist oppression. The outlook of a 20-year-old girl in 1979 Sweden would differ greatly from the outlook of a 20-year-old girl - if she even got to live at all - in 1979 Cambodia.

And so on, and so on, and so on.

People are different, yes, but we are different not just because of our personalities. We are different because we are molded by millions and millions of different events, facts, circumstances and turning points that combined in just such a way that we forged certain viewpoints as a response. If the order of events had been altered - in other words, if we knew what we did at 17 when a traumatic event happened at age 13 - we might have been able to travel a different life path.

Alas (or fortunately!), we're only given one path.

Perhaps something will happen in the next six months that, due to our own awareness and education, we will understand in a way that a contemporary with a vastly different background would interpret in a manner foreign to us.

Such is the endless complexity of one human life as it unfolds. Magnify this by 6.4 billion (and growing), and my goodness, no wonder it's hard to forge a broad bipartisan consensus on almost any issue.

Profound differences on abortion are sad and lamentable, especially to the extent that the American Left - with so many good things to say on so many issues - has not been able to see how damaging and hurtful its position really is. I don't defend the Left on abortion, but what can be said is that it's not surprising that we have the culture-clash that we do.

For almost 50 years since The Feminine Mystique was printed, America has had to confront wrenching and not-easily-resolved issues of gender, work equality, child rearing, household stability, and human identity that - unfortunately but undeniably - have come to affect the issue of abortion as well.

Perhaps if women had been given the right to vote several decades earlier, the women's liberation movement - which has helped women attain some measure of workplace equality - would not have felt the need to agitate for abortion rights in the late 1960s and early 1970s. Heck, perhaps there wouldn't have been a women's liberation movement in that time period if Lucretia Mott and Elizabeth Cady Stanton had broken through barriers much earlier than they ultimately did.

The point of this is not to render a finite verdict on the issue of abortion or on the history of feminist political movements in America; the point is to show that various confluences of events, multiple convergences of people and passions, created a specific trajectory that encompassed various human lives. A free-living girl in Los Angeles in 1973 probably viewed Roe v. Wade differently from the way in which Anita Bryant's children viewed the matter at the time. (Those youngsters may well have switched their views in subsequent years due to different progressions of events; who knows?)

The only bottom line I wish to promote (I generally don't like to insist on one reading or one takeaway from a multifaceted and nuanced narrative) is this: Before perceiving a specific meaning in response to a political or ideological opponent, try to ask one fundamental question that can create a climate of mutual respect - not agreement, not synchronicity, but merely respect.

The question is: What's YOUR life story?

What's the life experience that led you to your own set of beliefs, and the points of emphasis which accentuate those beliefs?

If we all heard each other's stories, we wouldn't necessarily agree more, but we would find it easier to at least respect a political opponent... maybe not the opponents in Washington, D.C., but the opponents we work with, go to basketball games with, and go to concerts with. Perhaps the next-door neighbor, too.

We must continue to fight for our views and for the principles we hold dear. However, this should not lead us, in America or anywhere else in the world, to think that an opponent is deranged, disordered, dysfunctional, demonic, demented, or in some way intent on promoting evil.

There are some fanatics in the world (think Osama Bin Laden) who are removed from any and all reason. There are a few people (Robert Mugabe of Zimbabwe) who cannot be bargained with or persuaded on pretty much anything.

But let's emphasize the key word there: FEW.

Most of us - if we sat down and talked with each other - would not agree with an opposing worldview, but could at least be made to see what an opponent or colleague is at least trying to achieve.

This has implications for how we see abortion; more importantly, it has implications for how we carry ourselves throughout our lives in the larger realm of politics.

Harmony of Mind and Heart: Linking Empathy and the Political Intellect

2010-04-07T18:30:00.000-07:00

Life's various crosscurrents have taken me away from blogging since 2004, when I decided to step away from the necessarily consuming realm of daily political commentary. It's probably just as well.

While a fundamental attachment to a progressive sensibility still exists, the way in which I've carried my views has certainly changed. In 2003, I wrote a book about the need for liberal principles to be articulated in ways that Christian conservatives could not only understand, but embrace; however, my mind had not yet caught up with the heartfelt desire to forge some small measure of unity among Americans of different political persuasions. I would write of the need for reconciliation, but my instinctive reactions to an array of political controversies would still reflect a certain hostility toward "them," otherwise known as political opponents.

Republicans. Conservatives. Them. Really Christian and generous, eh?

That's how I held my beliefs through my twentysomething years. I don't look back on that period with any sense of admiration or satisfaction. Deep shame? No - not that, either. I view my twenties as a period I had to outgrow. It was necessary to shed the rough edges and uncharitable elements of my outlook; not the contents of my policy positions, mind you, but certainly the extent to which I held disagreements against political opponents and suspected their motives as well. Love and respect for other people needed to become a part of my political way of being, even as I maintained disagreements with various individuals, usually on the Internet.

My blogging period - from April of 2003 through June of 2004 - was characterized by a competing pair of gravitational forces. When responding to a libertarian, I would think of the kindest possible way to say "you're wrong," while feeling in my churning insides the turmoil of a person who was extremely agitated. The fusion between mind and heart, between intellect and emotions, that represents a well-grounded human person did not exist for me. I could create a phrasing that minimized tension - and there is a certain virtue in being diplomatic with one's public words! - but I fell far short of cultivating true peace in my heart.

Why did this lack of internal harmony exist? Well, for one thing, I still regarded political "food fight" shows such as the McLaughlin Group as fun. I wasn't raised by my mom to dislike Republicans, but her ire at opposing views wound up conveying that message. Political combat wasn't preached, but the absence of a fundamentally cautionary posture - with wise counsel from elders - essentially brought me to the same militant place.

Multiply this by millions of other Americans on both sides of the aisle, and you get what we have today. The 11 months I've spent on Twitter - wonderful though it is - have exposed me to new rosters of bloggers and commentators who each have something to say. Some of these voices originate from media outlets, others inside the homes of simple citizens. Many of them are locked in the frame of political combat. (Not all of them; in fact, the people who read this essay are the ones who possess a sincere desire to survey the entirety of the landscape rather than just certain regions of it.)

On the Left and on the Right, look at how many media watchdog groups and content monitors there are. Observe how many politically flavored tweets acquire the basic framework which says something to the effect of, "If this other group did this other thing, the media would be all over it. But with our group? Silence."

Or vice versa. You get the point.

I, for one, want to see something better, now that I've been able to grow - at least on certain levels (being human, I'm never a finished product or a person who has it all figured out) - past easy political polarities. I can't demand or insist that others grow past their views. What I can do is offer a conversation and a safe space in which to facilitate it.

During the spring and summer months - as I take at least a partial break from my college sportswriting responsibilities - it's time for me to breathe in the air of politics and the well-directed society here in America. However, I intend to talk about politics with others in a way that's different from the past, and different - I hasten to add - from what we see on television today.

I won't seek to convert people with a different political worldview.

I won't seek to win agreement among those with a markedly different ideological leaning.

What I will try to do is enable people to gain an appreciation of life's complexity, at least to the extent that our different journeys necessitate a more compassionate view of political opponents. By engaging in this process, we Americans can become more empathic toward the specific positions political opponents acquire in their divergent lives.

Here's to an evolving conversation which will hopefully bear some fruit. This conversation shouldn't evolve too quickly or be colored by an inclination to fill in various blanks. Let it breathe on its own terms and unfold in due time.

In the next blog post, I'll begin to talk a little more about the differences in our respective human journeys.

The Essential Lane Kiffin Reader

2010-01-13T15:41:00.000-08:00

Weekly Affirmation: Lane Kiffin in Full View

By Matt Zemek
CollegeFootballNews.com

Posted Sep 23, 2009

Lane Kiffin caused quite a stir in the college football community this past week, generating spirited debate about moral victories, play calling, public relations wars, and many other ingredients that can always be found in college football's potent cultural stew. If you want to understand Kiffin and the moments he made, set aside some time for this special edition of the Weekly Affirmation.

Mr. Zemek's e-mail: mzemek@hotmail.com

WEEKLY AFFIRMATION SPECIAL ESSAY: Life In The Kiffin Lane

Part I. Preamble: Setting the Scene

Are there moral victories in sports?

Do you throw on 3rd and 8 when leading by four points with 1:30 left in the fourth quarter, when your opponent has no timeouts left?

Is life measured by meeting objective universal standards, or specific situational expectations?

Is the tweaking or unsettling of an enemy always desirable?

These are just a few of life's many urgent questions. Some people quickly arrive at finite answers to such queries, while others find concrete responses to be eternally elusive. Say this much, at any rate: Right or wrong, cautious or confident, great questions--and the issues that flow from them--always demand re-examination every now and then.

When college football offers a window into the human condition, it's worth jettisoning the regular column format (the Subjective Heft Show, plus an assortment of opinions on a full week of action) to present a single-issue essay that cuts to the heart of who we are, and what we aspire to become. The Lane Kiffin-Urban Meyer feud--initiated in the off-season and brought to full flame this past week--offers just such an occasion.

NOTE: Here's a single-issue Weekly Affirmation essay from 2007: http://tinyurl.com/lteljn

Before going forward, it must be said that the Kiffin-Meyer kerfuffle is, in the grand scheme of things, a quite trivial matter. In other corners of the globe, battles for life and death occur and unfold every single day. In comparison to the dark realities of sexual slavery, child labor, severe malnutrition, and genital mutilation, this "Tiff With Kiff" amounts to a comical diversion from life's weighty considerations and cares.

One would be perfectly justified to ask, then, "Why write about this insignificant subject if one wants to say something profound and meaningful?" That's a mighty fine question, one which needs to be addressed in a credible manner.

The most immediate answer is found in the fact that college football is a multi-billion-dollar industry which enjoys considerable cultural centrality in much of America, particularly the places where football feuds burn brightest. Tennessee (or Florida, or LSU, or Ole Miss, or Georgia) football represents a point of pride and passion which generates considerable depth and breadth of interest from local and regional populations. Because college football commands such a loyal and vigilant following, it represents a realm of human endeavor in which a large audience can be found. And as any writer knows--no matter the genre or forum--publishing opinions, analysis, or news stories doesn't mean all that much if people aren't around to read them.

A broader answer to the question, "Why write about Kiffin-Meyer instead of African poverty or Thailand-based sex trafficking?", is found in a nugget of wisdom that's become impossible to ignore in modern American life: Ostensibly silly and unimportant events frequently do the most to reveal our true condition and character as a nation.

Unconvinced? Consider how the O.J. Simpson trial--a farcical, carnival-like spectacle of ridiculous proportions--held up a mirror to American society on questions of race, celebrity, money, power, and jurisprudence.

Consider how one human being's infidelity--Bill Clinton's Oval Office fling with Monica Lewinsky--revealed the machinations and motivations of Washington, D.C., writ large, while also stimulating (pun intended) a far-reaching national conversation on American attitudes toward sex, relationships, forgiveness, and human longing.

Consider, too, how our presidential elections and other political intrigues usually seem to pivot in response to images and personalities more than policy-wonk intellectualism: In 1988, there was the Willie Horton ad; in 1992, there was the sight of George H.W. Bush checking his wristwatch during a debate; in 2000, there was the mention of Al Gore's earth tones; in 2008, there was the combination of Hillary Clinton's snowflake/tear and Jeremiah Wright's sermonizing in the primaries, followed by Sarah Palin's Alaska accent and megawatt presence in the general election.

None of the above events, images or personalities had anything to do with the reform of Wall Street, the handling of Afghanistan, or the delivery of health care. Yet, they became the source and center of intense media coverage which--in turn--roiled the emotions of the American populace and, in due course, afforded Americans new glimpses of their constantly-shifting country.

Let's be clear here: A fight between two Southern football coaches should not matter more than the profound problems of a groaning world. The act of writing about all things Lane Kiffin--while undeniably conferring a certain amount of importance on the man--does not represent an elevation of Mr. Kiffin beyond the greater concerns of humankind... not automatically, anyway. When the press trains its eyes on a public figure or a national story, the style of coverage and the substance of a given critique represent the ultimate measures by which journalists and their publications should be judged. We're now ready to delve into the specifics of Lane Kiffin's memorable fight with Florida.

Part II. Just The Facts, A Mid-Essay Intermission: Essential Kiffin Quotes and Maneuvers Connected to the Florida Feud

More analysis and commentary await, but first, let's just roll out the compendium of Lane Kiffin's statements, gestures and play calls:

The first remark: "I'm really looking forward to embracing some of the great traditions at the University of Tennessee, for instance the Vol Walk, running through the T, singing 'Rocky Top' all night long after we beat Florida next year. It's going to be a blast." - Lane Kiffin, at the press conference announcing him as Tennessee's new head coach, December 1, 2008

Play-by-play transcript of Tennessee's final offensive possession, which began when the Vols trailed 23-13 with 6:01 left in regulation:

"Tennessee at 6:01

1st and 10 at TENN 22 Montario Hardesty rush for 7 yards to the Tenn 29.

2nd and 3 at TENN 29 Montario Hardesty rush for 3 yards to the Tenn 32 for a 1ST down.

1st and 10 at TENN 32 Jonathan Crompton pass complete to Kevin Cooper for 1 yard to the Tenn 33.

2nd and 9 at TENN 33 Jonathan Crompton pass complete to Jeff Cottam for 4 yards to the Tenn 37.

3rd and 5 at TENN 37 Jonathan Crompton pass complete to Gerald Jones for 8 yards to the Tenn 45 for a 1ST down.

1st and 10 at TENN 45 Bryce Brown rush for a loss of 1 yard to the Tenn 44.

2nd and 11 at TENN 44 Jonathan Crompton pass complete to Quintin Hancock for 7 yards, fumbled, recovered by Tenn at the Tenn 49.

3rd and 6 at TENN 49 Jonathan Crompton pass incomplete.

4th and 6 at TENN 49 Timeout TENNESSEE, clock 02:00.

4th and 6 at TENN 49 Jonathan Crompton pass intercepted by Ahmad Black at the Fla 26, returned for no gain to the Fla 26.

DRIVE TOTALS: Tenn drive: 9 plays 27 yards, 04:10 Tenn INT

Florida (ball) at 1:51"

Next, here's a recap of quotes and actions from gameday in Gainesville, Fla., 9/19/09:

"Kiffin couldn't resist one last dig. In a tan suit, paisley colored tie and sunglasses, Kiffin gave a patronizing wave to Gator fans. 11:31 AM Sep 19th from TweetDeck" - Pete Thamel of the New York Times on Tennessee's arrival at Ben Hill Griffin Stadium following the bus ride from the team hotel; this quote came from Mr. Thamel's Twitter feed, @PeteThamelNYT

"'Fabulous moment at halftime. Kiffin sprinting off field, points at Florida fans giving him the Gator chomp. Think he's feeling pretty good.' 1:56 PM Sep 19th from web" - Pat Forde of ESPN.com via his Twitter feed, @espn4d

Halftime score: Florida 13, Tennessee 6

"Kiffin's time out here is a huge gloating FU to urban and the fans - still an L 3:32 PM Sep 19th from Tweetie" - Dan Shanoff, columnist for The Sporting News and blog founder of DanShanoff.com and TimTeblog.com, from his Pacific Time-based Twitter feed, @danshanoff

"After the game, though, the news conference felt as if the Vols had won. It was jammed with reporters, all waiting to see what Kiffin would say next.

'I didn’t come down here to cover the spread and have a moral victory,' he said.

Still, he did not hesitate to pat himself on the back..." - Thamel, Sept. 19 game story for NYTimes.com

Kiffin after the Florida game, on his psychological approach to the contest: "I think it worked perfect... It took all the attention off our players. Allowed them to play free. You don't want pressure on your players. Put it on me." - Forde, Sept. 19 column on ESPN.com

"Kiffin fires back at Meyer: 'I guess we'll wait, and after we're not excited about a performance, we'll tell you everybody was sick.' Wow. - 9:17 AM Sep 22nd from TweetDeck"... and later: "Also said Meyer ignored SEC's warning on public insults. 'Obviously Urban feels he doesn't need to follow that. We won't say anything else.' 9:20 AM Sep 22nd from TweetDeck" - Thamel, via Twitter

Part III. The Media's Role

After Florida's 23-13 win over Tennessee became official, the collection of on-site tweets and firsthand accounts from Mr. Forde, Mr. Thamel, and Mr. Shanoff convinced me that this was no ordinary moral victory, and no appropriately modest level of satisfaction being shown by the coach of a team that did exceed expectations. It appeared that Lane Kiffin was relishing his close loss, instead of merely gaining quiet encouragement from a small yet inadequate demonstration of improvement on the part of his team. Therefore, I felt that Kiffin needed to be knocked down a peg or three.

If someone in the public eye acts inappropriately, he (or she) merits criticism. Sometimes, said criticism will be expressed with full-bore anger, other times gently, and still other times in a unique tone befitting the emotional calculus of the moment. The feeling here was that since Kiffin's pleasure was palpably felt by the reporters who flew down to Gainesville to cover the game, the coach who is roughly the same age as the Weekly Affirmation's author needed to know that his theatrical yet genuine performance was not in any way impressive, laudable, or a positive reflection on Lane Kiffin the man.

Readers of CFN's Instant Analysis (which, as you've noticed, has been re-formatted this year) expressed displeasure not just with the substance of my postgame remarks, but with the tone in which they were delivered. I normally use a more cerebral and highly-structured style of analysis, which only served to give my commentary a rather amateurish appearance. I'll have more to say on that subject in a bit, but before doing so, the Weekly Affirmation needs to address the primary purpose of referencing reader reaction to Saturday's postgame "Riff On Kiff."

The most illuminating aspect of reader response to my knee-jerk Saturday commentary was that I, as a member of the press (not the traveling press, but an editorial commentator and news analyst who watches the proverbial "bank of monitors" for 13 hours every football Saturday), was criticizing Kiffin after helping to fan the flames of controversy in the days and weeks before kickoff.

I can't speak for my colleagues in the profession, but I can vouch for myself. If you read the previous edition of the Weekly Affirmation, you would have found zero mention of anything relating to the Kiffin-Meyer feud or even the Tennessee-Florida game as a whole:

Week two edition of this year's Weekly Affirmation: http://tinyurl.com/l2tq98

Let's establish some parameters, then, because that's how intense debates and raging controversies can at least be understood for future reference. Emotional public conflicts might not get settled to the satisfaction of all parties, but thorough explanations--complete with an extensive elaboration of proper boundaries (which therefore spells out the improper boundaries as well)--can at least shed light on these issues, instead of adding more heat to an already-roaring firestorm.

A first parameter to entrench in the public mind is this: Making light of a silly or low-grade controversy (compared to one of the life-and-death issues mentioned above in Part I of this essay) is not commensurate with a belief that the controversy is profoundly important on its raw merits. This is why Part I was so painstaking in its attempt to show that some of America's more trivial events in recent years have wound up broadcasting important revelations to the national populace.

The above parameter, phrased differently, can read like this: A given event can be unimportant even while the event itself has the effect of revealing significant truths or realities to a larger community. One could then turn that statement around and say, with equal weight, that a hugely significant event can fail to penetrate the larger consciousness of a population. Making light of such a reality doesn't detract from the inherent meaning or value of events; commentary, when viewed strictly on its merits, is an attempt to convey something of significance to a larger audience. If an editorialist feels s/he can perform that noble task by citing a trivial event rather than a significant event, so be it.

The Lane Kiffin story is a perfect case in point. The event isn't important on an objective scale, but because it has acquired considerable emotional centrality and multimedia visibility for a large cross-section of Americans--namely, those who love their college football--it's worth making light of the incident, much as it was worth it to comment at length on the Georgia-Florida game from 2007 (linked to above, in Part I).

A second parameter, flowing from the one just outlined, is this: It is on the "front end" of media coverage--i.e., in pregame buildup or in the volume of 'round-the-clock stories devoted to a topic--where the true priorities of news outlets and (on occasion) individual journalists ought to be measured. If a reporter is flown to a game site to cover specific aspects of an event, the parent company's organizational methods and motives fall under scrutiny, not (so much) the individual reporter who is following his editor's or publisher's instructions.

Notice, for instance, the above quote from Pete Thamel's NYTimes.com story on the Tennessee-Florida game. Thamel noted how the Vols' losing press conference felt like a presser given by a winning team and coach from a victorious locker room. The fact that the Vols' press conference was jammed with reporters (while Florida's wasn't as jammed) does reflect poorly on the national media. Very poorly, in fact. But to be clear, the negative reflection falls not on the individual reporters whose paychecks are signed by higher-ups; the blame falls on the higher-ups themselves, who sent reporters to Gainesville to cover the Kiffin angle and ensure it received considerable play.

The burden or weight of responsibility falls on individual commentators to the extent that they act as freelancers, or as journalistic actors who are given free editorial rein. When there's little or no corporate/editorial pressure on a reporter or columnist, s/he is then susceptible to full responsibility for decisions made in terms of coverage, plus individual remarks made in columns or other forums. Why? Because the reporter/columnist is making the decisions and calling the shots. Stuff like that matters when assessing each and every piece of published or broadcast content.

(Take note, readers: Before making overly broad judgments of news outlets and the people who work for them, be sure to go to the top of the food chain at news organizations and ask about the processes and procedures by which various editorial and structural decisions are made. As an example of this dynamic outside of college football, I spent portions of this past summer telling tennis fans to stop airing grievances at individual broadcasters, and to instead convey displeasure about TV broadcasts to the programming directors and CEOs of the networks that televise the sport in the United States. The recent Dick Enberg-Juan Martin del Potro flap at the U.S. Open trophy presentation ceremony offered a perfect case in point.)

The relationship of these parameters to my Saturday remarks should be clear, but let's connect the dots just to be sure: The Weekly Affirmation did not devote time or space to the pregame aspects of Tennessee-Florida or Kiffin-Meyer, so I did not participate in hyping up the game, only to then pounce on Mr. Kiffin in a hypocritical (or hypercritical, for that matter) way.

The larger national media, collectively, does indeed bear a fair share of responsibility... not the reporters on the ground (Thamel, Forde, Shanoff) who put in the hard yards and did the necessary legwork, but the editorial divisions of parent companies who assigned an inflated level of importance to Tennessee-Florida when, in fact, Nebraska-Virginia Tech and Cincinnati-Oregon State (and, one could argue, Utah-Oregon) merited more coverage from a pure matchup-based standpoint.

As for me, I bear full responsibility for the content and tone of my Saturday remarks.

My comments from Saturday's Instant Analysis piece can be found here: http://cfn.scout.com/2/900811.html

On the subject of tone, there's nothing to apologize for. The Instant Analysis pieces--as currently structured--promote the articulation of a briefly-stated, colorful and provocative opinion. Yes, a somewhat sophomoric tone with the literary voice of a message board resident would be inappropriate as a regular form of game analysis, but unless or until readers are (unfairly) subjected to that tonal quality on a consistent basis, they need not think that the quality or content of game analysis have been hijacked or severely compromised. If this becomes a regular pattern, I would deserve a public flogging. Safe to say, future postgame comments won't begin with "Yo (insert head coach's name here)!" That's not going to be a typical M.O.; moreover, it never has been.

But before you think, "Oh, another columnist failing to be accountable... PFFFFFT!! What else is new?!?!", I do have an apology to make. It is made not in reference to tone--which is severely overrated in all aspects of life--but to content, which is grossly underrated. (In our public discourse today, it seems that if one tells the truth with an off-putting tone, one receives far more criticism than if one tells outrageous lies in a pleasant, avuncular manner... that's another discussion for another day, but there you have it in a nutshell.)

The two lines in which I talked about Lane Kiffin's plummeting coaching credentials, and then referenced his acrimonious parting from the Oakland Raiders, give me a profound sense of embarrassment as I read them now. As long as I was chiding Mr. Kiffin for the way he handled himself in relationship to the Florida game--before and during it--I stood on solid ground. By then veering off the straight and narrow path and referencing unrelated events, I took cheap shots that were unwarranted. Mr. Kiffin and Tennessee fans deserve a full frontal apology for those portions of my remarks.

In reviewing the media's role in magnifying this controversy, the takeaway for everyone--the Weekly Affirmation very much included--is that criticisms on both ends of the writer-reader relationship need to be finely calibrated and evaluated. The simple act of criticizing Mr. Kiffin does not put a person in league with Urban Meyer or the Gator Nation. Having a problem with Kiffin's behavior does not mean that a person is drinking copious amounts of Gatorade-flavored Haterade and then spewing it at the Children of the Checkerboard. On the other hand, the need for me to criticize Kiffin did not automatically mean that I could lay into him for reasons and events unconnected to this specific set of Tennessee-Florida facts, figures and forces. I did my own share of line-crossing, and again, that warrants an apology from the Weekly Affirmation.

We're now ready for the final portion of this extended examination of Lane Kiffin and his fun time in Florida.

Part IV. The Right to Speak, The Right to Tweak: Kiffin, Spurrier, Moral Victories, and More

The academic portions of this essay have been largely put to bed. What follows--as we wind our way toward a meaningful and clear conclusion--is a method of debate resolution that would be recognizable in my companion column, the Monday Morning Quarterback. This past Monday, the MMQ looked at the ins and outs of late-game strategy on third and fourth down. The column looked at three different endgame scenarios and said that while some universal principles should be followed, each situation should ultimately be viewed on a case-by-case basis. No two endgame situations are exactly the same, even if the outward numbers say otherwise.

So it also is with the behavior of coaches, moral victories, and many other aspects of human psychological warfare that were on display over the past several days in this Kiffin-Meyer dust-up.

One thing that needs to be established is that I'm actually a believer in moral victories. They occupy a considerable place in big-time competitive sports. This doesn't mean that winning is overrated; it's more a view in which "losing at a high level" is underrated.

"Losing at a high level" typically acquires one of two forms: A) A team loses big in a championship game, attaining second place, but bearing the sting of being exposed to an embarrassing extent on a grand stage; B) A team with some degree of stature loses a vigorously-contested competition by a very narrow margin. If a team (or individual) loses under one of these two circumstances, I feel that the team (or individual) merits a great deal of praise... not more than the winning side, but certainly an amount of praise that's greater than any level of criticism. (Criticism is fine, but a larger amount of praise should accompany a "loser at a high level" in most cases.)

NOTE: If you want to read a column on those who lose at a high level, Google "Matt Zemek Dear Buckeye Fans" and click the "I'm Feeling Lucky" tab on Google's homepage. This piece represents my endorsement of moral victories in sports.

In assessing Lane Kiffin's words and actions before, during and after this 60-minute slugfest against Florida, one ought to match the man's actions with his team's results, and compare Kiffin's deeds with his credentials:

Why was I so upset with Kiffin immediately following this game in Gainesville (and still am)? Let's start from the beginning, shall we?

When he was announced as Tennessee's new head coach, loose-lipped Lane said he'd look forward to singing Rocky Top after beating Florida this year (see Part II, above). Well, Vol fans, this is nothing personal, but Tennessee simply didn't beat Florida.

I'm not inventing facts out of thin air or viewing your program in a negative light; if the national media ran with the bloodbath/rout/slaughterhouse angle, that's not my fault. The bottom line is that Mr. Kiffin spoke of VICTORY in his first (and widely-replayed) press conference back in December of '08. He didn't attain that victory, and he didn't even come within one score of doing so. That's a first measurement of the extent to which Kiffin's words far exceeded the sum of his and his team's deeds, even if they did surpass the expectations of many.

Tennessee's performance didn't surpass Kiffin's own words from his first press conference, which--it should be noted--was followed in February of 2009 by false accusations directed Urban Meyer and his own ethical track record (which isn't spotless, but isn't in renegade territory worthy of a Dennis Erickson or a Barry Switzer). With all this in the background, the 34-year-old head coach should have kept his mouth shut after the game and in the following days. Plainly, he didn't. Not good, Lane. Not good at all.

A second measurement which shows Lane Kiffin to be a far smaller man than his braggadocio would suggest comes from his assessment of his psychological tactics, specifically the view that his tactics were "perfect," as quoted in Pat Forde's column.

If a coach's tactics are "perfect," one would like to think that the coach's team actually managed to.... you know... WIN the game in which his team was competing. Kiffin did, mind you, have every right in the world to say that his tactics worked "really well," or "better than I had a right to expect," or something of that nature, but to have the unmitigated gall to say that they were "perfect" tactics is beyond the pale. Again, one ought not be viewed as a Tennessee-hatin', Florida-lovin', Gator apologist with a severe case of Phil Fulmer withdrawal to hold such an outlook. If a person acts rather foolishly and speaks with a foot in his (or her) mouth, that should be called out in the naked light of day.

People skeptical of any anti-Kiffin criticisms might think that they're fueled by the underlying fear that Tennessee might whip up on Florida in the coming years, once Mr. Tebow leaves. (I'm not ignorant of such a sentiment or the real psychological jujitsu attached to it.) First off, there is the possibility that that could happen--no sense in denying it or wishing it away. Then again, a lot of readers hammered me when I took Mike Gundy to task for his memorable YouTube-ing of reporter Jenni Carlson two years ago; Oklahoma State was going to mop up on the recruiting trail and zoom up the charts, so the refrain went. Well, two years later, no dice.

This doesn't mean Tennessee won't climb the heights; it only means that hopes of a Lane Kiffin conquest of the SEC are partly if not predominantly fueled by wishful and unfulfilled thoughts at this point. We've yet to see truly solid evidence of a Tennessee revival. We'll all know when (if) the Vols are ready to re-join the big-boy table.

A final word on this subtopic--namely, that fears of a Tennessee resurgence are motivating current anti-Kiffin sentiment--needs to be added to the mix: From this perspective, it seems patently foolish for Kiffin to make an enemy out of Urban Meyer. The Florida coach has already established a track record of smacking down opponents who dare get frisky or combative with him. This leads to the next--and perhaps, the most fascinating--element of this essay: Stephen Orr Spurrier, the elephant in the room.

Other columnists have compared Lane Kiffin to Steve Spurrier, and on a superficial level, there are many obvious similarities: They both coached professionally at an early age (Spurrier in the USFL, for those who didn't know); they're both evidently gifted; they both ran their mouths a lot in their younger years; and they both became quick studies at tweaking Southeastern Conference rivals once they became head coaches in the SEC. More specifically, they loved tweaking the other side in the Tennessee-Florida rivalry. Naturally, there are some connections between the two men and their styles.

However--and this is where we really get down to brass tacks--surface similarities cannot replace, or be equated with, the larger and more precise realities of the circumstances in which Spurrier and Kiffin acted and spoke in colorful and controversial ways. Being rigorously honest and unerringly factual demands a lot of discipline and attention to detail, and it just so happens that the facts--largely, but not entirely--show that Steve Spurrier knew how to wage psychological jujitsu a lot better (and in an honorable manner befitting a ruthlessly competitive but fair sportsman) than Lane Kiffin currently does.

Spurrier, you see, developed his penchant for pot-stirring, rival-rousing, opponent-infuriating methods from a master: Sun-Tzu, the ancient Chinese philosopher whose precise lifespan is a subject of debate, but who left behind The Art of War, a seminal study of how to defeat an opponent in mortal combat. Spurrier read The Art of War, and for most of his career at the University of Florida, the "Head Ball Coach" exhibited the self-assured serenity that unnerved the fans of other SEC teams. Yes, this serenity was not in evidence whenever Spurrier would slam down a visor or a play sheet, but it poured forth in press conferences and other occasions when Spurrier would deliver a barb and not flinch from its consequences or effects.

Why is Spurrier substantially different from Lane Kiffin? Simply stated, the results speak for themselves.

Spurrier began winning at Florida as soon as he took over. The Gators were officially stripped of their 1990 SEC title, but history can't change the fact that when the league staged its 1990 season, the Gators had a better record in the SEC than any other team. This track record of success continued through most of the 1990s, which gave Spurrier the leverage and the credentials that won for him the ability to talk a big game. Spurrier has never been one to enjoy moral victories, it's worth pointing out; but if Spurrier ever tweaked a foe--and he did with appreciable frequency--he almost always pounced when he was the heavyweight in the fight, not the lightweight or the underdog with something to prove. Spurrier tweaked from a position of strength reinforced by results. This shows that he knew how to fight fairly, even if he fought quite aggressively.

To be rigorously honest and unflinchingly fair about all this, there were occasions when Spurrier clearly violated his own code and failed to meet his (and Sun Tzu's) standards: In 1993, Florida lost to Auburn, but won the SEC partly because Terry Bowden's Tigers were ruled ineligible for the SEC Championship Game. Spurrier was on the short end of the stick relative to Auburn, but that didn't stop him from making a widely-circulated quip--something about Auburn and coloring books--before the 1994 rematch between the two teams. When Auburn went into the Swamp and dealt Spurrier his first home loss as Florida's coach in an SEC game, the iconic Gator looked really bad. He talked big from a position of weakness, and then couldn't back up his claim.

That Auburn debacle was one of a few notable events from Spurrier's Florida career in which the Head Ball Coach carried himself with all the dignity of a horse's hind end. In the longer run of history, though, those kinds of moments represented the exception, and not the rule. It's worth noting that since he's come to South Carolina, Spurrier has become much more muted and has not spent recent seasons tooting his own horn. Why? Simple--because he knows that he hasn't earned the right to talk smack or twist the knife in a rival's side. Spurrier, you see, knows the score. Lane Kiffin, on the other hand, doesn't.

Sure, Tennessee fans must emotionally love the fact that they now have a man who's willing to throw back some attitude at the Gators after all the years of being poor-mouthed, but the unfortunate reality is that unless or until Lane Kiffin wins at the Swamp (as opposed to losing by 10 points) or does something to establish equality with the Gators, he can't yet crank up the volume with any degree of credibility. If the roles were reversed in this rivalry with Florida, and Mr. Meyer was the newly-hired Gator coach who talked about winning in Neyland Stadium, Meyer would be every bit the fool that Lane Kiffin actually is at this moment.

Plainly put, if Mr. Kiffin had won this game in Gainesville, he'd have had every right to crow. If Monte's son had an SEC title or a win over Florida already under his belt before this past Saturday's tussle, his collected statements and actions wouldn't have caused nearly as much of a stir as they ultimately did. If Lane Kiffin had produced a track record of substantial achievement as a head coach, his actions would be seen in a more positive light. If this 34-year-old sideline boss had opened his first Tennessee press conference by hoping for a close game this year at Florida, or for a win over Florida in 2011 or at a future point in time, the controversy wouldn't have spiraled out of control. Alas, Mr. Kiffin didn't do any of those things.

As was the case with Steve Spurrier in relationship to Auburn in 1993 and '94, Kiffin talked big from a position of weakness and then lost. It's only when a team "loses at a high level," and has already forged a body of work which merits respect, that its coach can tout a moral victory. This should be obvious, but it's entirely understandable that the fiery passions of youthful gameday exuberance would hamper a college football community's ability to see and apprehend an unvarnished and often inconvenient truth.

Tennessee fans, let's put it this way as I wrap up and leave you to slowly digest this column in its totality: Isn't it supposed to be a sin--not a true sin against God or morality, but a sin against the unwritten code of Southern football coaches--to talk a big game before you've done enough to earn stature, cachet and credibility as a man and as a member of a very select fraternity? I give you the example of former Georgia football coach Jim Donnan.

Donnan was constantly hyping up his teams before each individual season. He told his fan base in Athens that the Dawgs were going to climb the mountaintop and break through in the SEC East. He spoke of a brighter tomorrow, and how things were going to change for the better. He never delivered... never, at any rate, to the point where his UGA teams reached the SEC Championship Game. Donnan didn't coach poorly, it must be noted; UGA eventually did beat your Vols after many years of falling short, and in 1997, Donnan defeated Florida in what was the greatest single-game triumph of his UGA career. However, because he talked big before he won championships--championships he never ultimately attained--Donnan didn't receive a long leash from his fans. Mark Richt, Donnan's successor, knows how to take the humble route, and humility--in the hot-headed and violent world of college football--is most definitely a virtue, and an underappreciated one at that.

An essential read on a calmer, more measured perspective in college football appears here: http://tinyurl.com/n9f7jm

In closing, there are legitimate moral victories, and--on the other hand--false moral victories. There are times when a losing coach has a right to trumpet his methods and speak well of a day's performance, and there are times when one has to be muted, hushed, and entirely conciliatory. Results--real results, winning results --are not the be-all and end-all of college athletics, because there's a definite place in all of sports for moral victories. With that said, one does need to win and achieve at a fairly high level before one can then view moral victories as positive entities. Steve Spurrier and Lane Kiffin might seem like one and the same coach, but on a purely substantive level, they're very far apart.

It's pure coincidence, Vol fans, and not a pro-Florida or anti-Tennessee conspiracy hatched in the mind of one supposedly devious college football columnist armed with a computer keyboard: The facts of recent history plainly indicate that two of Florida's last three head coaches (Ron Zook being the exception) have earned more of a right to talk, and to shape proper public perception, than Lane Kiffin has. If the facts on the ground change, and Tennessee climbs back to the Rocky Top of college football, the calculus then changes as well... and most assuredly, football-based criticisms of Lane Kiffin's tactics will quite abruptly cease to exist.

It's really rather simple, good people of Tennessee: Just post some impressive results first, and THEN engage in a Spurrier-esque tweaking of the Gators, ribbing them and Sun-Tzu-ing their minds into a state of frenzied panic. If you win ballgames and establish credentials worthy of your program, you then earn the right to hound your rivals from Gainesville on morally, ethically, and situationally solid footing. In other words, there's a right way and a wrong way to fight... in football, in marriage, and in many other aspects of human activity.

Learn to fight the right way at the right time, after you've paid your dues. Steve Spurrier did that, Jim Donnan didn't, and Lane Kiffin evidently can't begin to sniff such pigskin wisdom, waiting to be found amidst the tumult and shouting.

Educate your coach, Vol fans, and make healthy distinctions about moral victories and the times in which they can be validly pointed to as measurements of on-field success and public-relations superiority.

Is that too much to ask?