Travelogue 942 – October 31

Weimar Days

 

As Trump and his ilk send their anonymous troops off to the battlefields of COVID-19; as Trump’s anonymous foot soldiers fight for the right to carry guns to polling places; as Trump’s raises a fist in oblique support of the Michigan hillbillies caught plotting the kidnap of their state’s governor, we are reminded that Americans are in a rather serious struggle for power over their nation and their future. Some old-time Democrats, like Senator Feinstein, who admitted defeat in the battle over Coney Barrett’s confirmation before it began, who hugged Lindsey Graham after losing, seem confused about the tenor of the times. They still find comfort in rhetorical bipartisanship and a collegial spirit that died when Republicanism became an experiment in feudalism. The lord of the manor is a bloated old fool, but obligation is iron-clad among the nameless. There’s no debate among equals in Washington, but staged pronouncements of the lord’s interests, a reading of proclamations in the town square.

 

Trump knows very well that every time he voices sly insults of Representative Omar or Governor Whitmer his nameless minions will issue death threats. Because he knows, it is a tactic. If I became aware that a thumbs-down gesture in public resulted in someone being killed, I would stop making the gesture. I wouldn’t stubbornly carry on, perversely arguing that I never asked anyone to interpret my gesture that way. Given that Trump is threatening public officials; given that his nameless foot soldiers swagger around with guns; given that his nameless legislators and judges openly advocate for a permanent rule of the minority; given that that rule threatens the lives of immigrant children, women, gays, and minorities; given that Trump’s nameless officers of the law are empowered to kill in the streets without cause; given the violence necessary to the rule of the minority, what remains for those in opposition, those who are losing votes to the machinations of the regime’s courts?

 

We lionize heroes of the resistance movements in countries conquered by Hitler in the late 30s and 40s, and well we should. But I wonder sometimes why earlier instances of resistance are comparatively forgotten. Could it be because many were leftists? I was looking into the years before Hitler gained power in the election of 1932. It was a bloody time. The Nazis were vying with the Communists for rights to put the poor Weimar Republic out of its misery. (A sad experiment, indeed. I feel for those early republicans with a small r. Timing was everything.) Between 1918 and 1922, there were 376 politically motivated murders. 354 of them were committed by the radical right, 22 by the radical left. This has generally been the breakdown through recorded history, and it’s likely to be what leftists in the U.S. will experience. I don’t think I’m endorsing German Communism by pointing out that adherents didn’t deserve to be murdered. Neither do BLM protesters deserve to be mowed down by moving vehicles. But as long as the police are willing to take off their nametags to support the minority party, we can’t expect much better.

Travelogue 941 – October 29

Pro Patria

 

Reading Caesar’s account of his campaigns, it’s easy to forget that people died fighting those wars. Battles are described in short order, a few short paragraphs to describe the strategic unfoldment of engagements. Individual casualties recorded by name are generals or patricians, or they are model soldiers, whose fates are somehow instructive.

 

This is common in ancient histories. Casualty numbers are a form of boasting, indicators of how resounding the triumph and how miserable the other’s defeat. The ancients were sticklers for the burial of fallen soldiers. It’s the one sign of respect accorded to all fighting men. Beyond that, it’s hard to say how the death of soldiers was looked at by society and the soldiers themselves. Was it romanticized? Was it anticipated, as the individual’s chance at glory? Was it shrugged at, given the generally short lifespans? Few are the Enkidus, Patrocluses, or Hectors, the fallen soldiers in ancient literature who existed to be grieved.

 

Since Mussolini, fascists have often made simple-minded appropriations of bits of ancient cultures: the spare monumental architecture and statuary in white marble, for example. In reality, the Greeks and Romans probably painted their statues in bright colours, and their architecture symbolized other values than the ones represented by fascist buildings. But they were symbols based on the symbols of symbols. Similarly, the fascists sought to assemble their own ranks of anonymous soldiers, armies of men who sought nothing but the glory of the state.

 

A few months ago, Trump took to calling people going to work during the pandemic ‘warriors’. Culture war is as close to combat as most Trumpistas want to come. The traditional foreign enemies of America have become summer bromances for Trump. Better to fight battles of righteousness against the Democrats, and when Democrats wear masks, the troops must cross en masse the minefields of disease.

 

Only days ago, the White House signalled it was giving up on combatting the COVID pandemic. The pronouncement was delivered in a predictably offhand way, in a TV interview with the White House Chief of Staff. Case numbers are mounting into a third wave bigger than the first two, but Trump recites in every appearance now, ‘we’re turning the corner’. These are signals that the populations is to be expendable. Anonymous death in the culture war is the new glory for those attending Trump rallies.

 

Next we’ll look at casualty numbers of a different sort from a different time.

 Travelogue 940 – October 27

We Admitted We Were Powerless

 

So another Supreme Court Justice is sworn in, while Mitch McConnell crows. As a reminder that this matters, two Trump Justices wrote opinions yesterday in a judgement that denied an appeal to extend Wisconsin’s deadline for accepting mail-in ballots (during a pandemic). A similar decision in April’s primary would have denied 80,000 citizens their vote. If they are successful with this effort in my home state, I’ll likely be one of those disenfranchised.

 

We all know this is minority rule. The Republicans don’t deny it. McConnell’s judiciary campaign, helping Trump appoint over 200 federal judges, is all about being the minority party in charge. What would be the urgency otherwise?

 

The writers of the Constitution were concerned about protecting the small states. The Republicans have deftly turned those constitutional protections against us - the senators from a minority of the U.S. population, for example, forcing an extremist Supreme Court Justice on the majority. They’ve also attacked the unwritten norms that protected people from abuses of power for generations, in displays like Rose Garden campaigning, norms that one might be forgiven for thinking shouldn’t have to be written down.

 

At the beginning of the confirmation process, Dianne Feinstein, the lead for the Democrats in the Senate hearings said there was nothing the Democrats could do. It was no Democrat who said that politics was the art of the possible, but I can think of a few Democrats who made a career of demonstrating it was true. I can’t imagine LBJ or Roosevelt (famous again for his court-packing episode) endorsing Feinstein’s position and standing idly by. The Democrats opted for delay tactics that were more theatrical than calculated for practical effect. This is the Clinton-Gore party, one that concedes, one that worries about keeping its hands clean, one that finds solace in being gracious losers.

 

As Republicans gloat more brazenly with each passing week, as they publicly speculate that the founders never intended a democracy, as they openly discuss plans to disenfranchise people, the question of resistance does arise again with more urgency. The opposition party’s complacency doesn’t seem to be founded on much: a strangely out-of-touch belief that people can’t be subjugated (despite 99% of human history as evidence to the contrary); a sentimental belief in decency and dignity; a short-sighted excitement in the game.

 

What does it mean to fight back?

Travelogue 939 – October 24

Which Way to Pharsalus?

 

I wonder about Caesar’s education. Like other boys of his class, he was probably taught at home first, with a focus on moral education and physical training. He would have been taught young how to swim and ride and fight. He would been shown how to receive visitors with dignity. At some point, a tutor would have been brought in. Ironically, we do know that one of the tutors for the future conqueror of Gaul was a Gaulish slave, named Marcus Antonius Gnipho. Gnipho also provided some lessons to Cicero, critic and rival to Caesar. As a young man, Caesar studied rhetoric in Rhodes. This was the final touch for a young patrician with political ambitions. Imagine if there were educational requirements for politicians in America. At times, it seems quite the opposite.

 

Notable how education began for the Roman child, with rigid moral and physical training. I wouldn’t know who to trust with a child’s moral education these days. I suppose that’s the brainstorm behind most home schooling. It’s not a comforting thought. Roman moral education, whatever we may think of it now, provided unity. It seems as though the motive for most organized moral instruction these days is quite the opposite, to create isolated communities of special people.

 

We are raised to value principles like equality and peace. That’s a sort of moral education, though not rooted in family, nor rooted in religion, nor accompanied by strict rules of behaviour, as the Romans would have had it. Our moral concepts are free-floating, non-denominational. We learn them in cartoons.

 

I find this combination of vague idealism for the young with an aggressive and racist capitalism in adult life to be a toxic brew. It makes for a brand of chaos that must be unique in history. Caesar may have been a dangerous man, but it was always clear who his enemies were. If his tactics could be surprising, his larger goals never were. If he killed Romans, it wasn’t at random. He hardly needed to resort to conspiracy theory and untargeted, general intimidation. His army pursued Pompey’s. War took place on the battlefield.

 

The Romans prioritized military virtues. There was little nuance in their world view: the Romans were born to dominate in a hostile world. They were surrounded by (in their eyes) effete older civilizations, like the Greeks, and aggressive barbarians, like the German tribes and the Gauls. Both types were constant. We forget sometimes that Roman history began with wars against the barbarians, much as it ended with them. Rome was sacked by Alaric and his Visigoths in 410 AD. That was the first time in 800 years. In 390 BC, the city was sacked by the Gauls. Circuit complete.

 

Is the world safer than it was in Caesar’s lifetime? There are Americans who are looking to foment civil war. Their disgraced candidate threatens to set aside the results of the election. Democrat Dianne Feinstein gives Lindsey Graham a hug, while Trump loyalists gather with guns. Who exactly are they proposing to shoot with those guns? Maybe we should consult QAnon. There’s no clear Rubicon. There’s no battlefield. There are barbarians, but there’s no gate.

 Travelogue 938 – October 20

The Colours of Reason

 

I’m forced to watch a lot of children’s TV. I can’t say I resent it. Some of it’s pretty funny. There’s much more variety than when I was growing up. One thing that’s consistent with my time, that long-ago era, is the colour scheme, speaking literally and emotionally. The mood is upbeat and always cheerful. The colours are fantastic: bright worlds are painted for our children in glowing rainbows and pastels. One watches and one feels wonder that there could be worlds like that out there, in the ethers, in the imagination, in the art studios … somewhere.

 

Those colourful panoramas have the power to trigger something in me, something so old and so buried under worldly experience that the feeling survives only a second. I puzzle over those fragmentary sensations, trying to preserve a remnant of them, like a sweet aftertaste. It’s bittersweet, awakening a wistful sadness.

 

The colour schemes correspond to an air of hope in those imaginary worlds, hope like oxygen. In those worlds, love conquers. Kid-like characters learn lessons about the world, learn about the power of cooperation and the power of knowledge. Every character is unique and has apparent potential. Resistance and conflict exist in order to be overcome. Even as we advance into YA fiction, and some battles are lost, the characters are ennobled by every setback.

 

I wonder sometimes if we do our kids any favours with these stories. Children’s stories were notoriously dark before the modern era. If you count classical mythology as pedagogical in nature, then we can say they were extremely dark.

 

I grew up in an era of unprecedented optimism. There were reasons for it, I suppose: the defeat of the deadly Axis regimes, which were rather easy to label as evil; the establishment of the United Nations; the dazzling advances in science and technology; the seemingly limitless growth of world economies. Even with an abundance of reasons for optimism, the frame of mind is a choice, and, with some hindsight, I don’t wonder that a generation that had suffered unduly made a deliberate choice, and with the power of a grit and determination strengthened by years of struggle. I think of my parents as I write this. We were going to be happy! Reason and the rule of law would guide this planet forever more! Children would be raised to be cheerful and hopeful and ready for a peaceful world.

 

I’m a product of this superabundance of hope. Have I been ready for the world as it turned out to be, for the world of international terrorism and diplomatic chaos, for conspiracy theory and Trump? I haven’t been swallowed up yet, but I have been trailed through life by disappointment. The world was consistently darker than I had anticipated. My childhood was dogged by this dissonance between conditioned expectations and experience.

 

As a boy, I thought I’d discover a world outside like the one reflected in the TV screen, where kids were sweet and eager to learn; where schools were sunny and cheerful; where everyone tried their best and worked together in earnestness; where everyone revered books and the teachers who explained them. I never quite overcame this handicap. It held me for years. I entered work environments expecting smarts and polish and sweet dedication everywhere.

 

Alas, humans are jokers, barely domesticated apes. I’m one myself. There’s a beauty to be found in that, of course, unless you were raised to believe in reason, and to see the manifestations of reason everywhere, like lambs with their lions and fruit on the vines. My father was an engineer. His devotion to science and reason would be hard to exaggerate. It was a sign of his generation, a generation who foresaw the dawn of an age of reason, heralded by a world burning in its passions. They had seen the destruction; they were believers in hope.

 Travelogue 937 – October 16

Voting by Fetish

 

And so Americans choose between the personal vs the rational, much as the Romans did in Caesar’s time. Do they vote according to personality or reason? The difference is that Caesar’s constituency was largely made of soldiers and the urban mob, people who understood their interests, people who didn’t have many advocates. The ruling classes in Rome had devolved into competing personal interests, much as the real rulers of the Republican party have, (think Koch brothers and their ilk). And what is Trump’s constituency? We’ve seen them at Trump rallies, seen them in candid TV interviews, the interviews that seem like satire. We’ve been introduced to the inbred minutemen who plotted to kidnap the governor of Michigan. We’ve seen the ghoulish couple who pointed guns at protesters from their manicured lawn. We watch them now, setting up fake ballot boxes in California with winks to the camera, as though life really were a never-ending frat party. We see the inoffensive white woman they want to size for Justice. Her brief at the moment is to say nothing about her intentions to attack civil rights and public health. Her agenda captures the right’s intellectual position neatly: cloak your motives, get set to attack people’s rights. The program is entirely negative. Immigrants and women and anyone that Obama helped, they must suffer. Anyone vulnerable, they all must suffer. Why? Purely because strength demands it. Their cynicism is like the sleep of Lethe; it can’t be bothered to disturb the sleep of reason. They reach for a principle once in a while: we protect the unborn; we protect the American worker, who is threatened by immigrants, threatened by China. But their attention wanders when the child is born, when the white worker is safe in her low-paying job that won’t cover expenses or healthcare. Those are complexities best left to the cruel ministrations of libertarian wizardry. “Life is harsh,” they say with a shrug. And we’ve circled back to their default position, which is a fetish for shows of strength. This fetish for strength makes the mind lazy. This fetish for strength doesn’t need reason. It is nihilistic and renounces hope. Catalogue the fetishists’ positions: relentlessly negative and founded on fear, relying on grievance, relying on ready hatred. They look to a fantastical past, as an ideal to protect. They don’t arm to protect people. They arm to protect delusions. There can be few more cynical movements in history. Their favourite conspiracy theory was dreamt up by a grifter who moved to the Philippines to design porn-sites. There is nothing of real value to find here, just the grotesque aping of strength, like the cartoonish gestures of the villains in silent films. The children cry. The teens applaud. The adults smile indulgently. It’s just a film.

Travelogue 936 – October 12

Clementia

 

Imagine Caesar shouting to his troops, “Make Rome Great Again!” Gauge the absurdity of that image, and you have a handy measurement of how far off the rails we’ve gone. If the comparison seems needlessly macho, be aware that this is Trump’s criteria. Everyone is a weakling or a loser, while he is the winner, and he will tell you in just those words. His magic power is the inability to be embarrassed. To those who are bankrupt in character, that shamelessness looks like strength. And that’s truly the extent of it; that’s Trump’s brand. He’s the guy at the party flexing a bicep. Those who question their impulse to laugh stick around and become followers.

America’s power would have staggered Caesar, even in its decline. Just as staggering would have been the court jester taken as king. Caesar’s adversaries for ultimate power were brilliant and fearless. The Late Republic bred a special kind of killer. Sure, the Empire had its crazies and fools, but the Republic burned its chaff thoroughly.

 

Trump would have held a particular cat-and-mouse fascination for Caesar, much like he does for Putin. I imagine the two of them brainstorming slogans. “Make the Sky High Again,” Caesar proposes. “Make the World Turn Again.” “Make Tigers Roar Again.” Try this experimental treatment, Donald, and we’ll start over.

 

That Caesar was tough was never in question. And it was certainly never his brand. Rome was great. There was little need to say it. Caesar was strong. So were dozens of others. That was not the case for supporting him. The branding was about other qualities. Caesar’s case was presented in many ways, and one way was the publication of his canny Commentaries, written to be his reports on military campaigns for the benefit of the Roman public. This was not “The Art of the Deal”, a bubble gum gossip column extended to dance length. This was a sophisticated piece of propaganda artfully composed for the ages. He showcased his brand, and one key element of that brand was Clemency. He portrayed himself as cool-headed and rational. He was the gracious winner and the calm loser. And, above all else, he was humane. He was humane with the barbarians. He was humane with the Romans who plotted his downfall. This was his most important message, perhaps more so than even “veni, vidi, vici”: “I am humane”. Examine this single chess piece for a moment, and you’ve travelled miles higher than Trumps’ escalator.

 

Next, we consider the quality of hope.

Travelogue 935 – October 10

The Strong Man

 

We know about Julius Caesar’s achievements, but do we understand his motives? It’s hard enough to understand how a contemporary Dutch person thinks; I’m not sure we’ll figure Caesar out. But I do think it’s safe to say that Caesar didn’t set out to be dictator for life and imperator. He was Roman patrician, and he pursued the cursus honorum faithfully. That was the traditional ladder of offices to reach high office. He imagined himself consul and proconsul one day, winner of the fierce competition among Roman aristocrats. One doesn’t imagine becoming grand master in chess by overturning the board, (fundamentally the Wonderland promise of almost every Republican since Reagan). The fact that Caesar did overturn the board doesn’t mean that the upset was his life’s ambition. That was a measure of his passion for the game that he felt was rigged against him.

 

Contrast Caesar’s example with the current president. Yes, I mean the one who registered as a candidate as an afterthought, as a tactic to gain leverage in his negotiations for a TV contract.

 

Caesar was no civic saint, driven by selflessness. He was proud and corrupt and greedy. He demonstrated he would stop at nothing to gain power. What we should find interesting is that behind that hunger for power were some ideas for what to do with that power. He had a sincere interest in governance. He was curious about the people he governed. He had ideas about how to make people’s lives better. He had ideas how to make the Roman government run more smoothly, even if many of his reforms were part of a campaign against the Senate. (Even his reform of the calendar was inspired by instances of senatorial corruption, exploitation of the ambiguity of the old calendar to manipulate elections and terms of office. Sounds a little McConnellish.)

 

One strong man is not the same as another. In a perfect world, we can do without all types, but let’s be clear what sort we’re dealing with. Let’s begin with a look at MAGA as a political program.

 Travelogue 934 – October 7

Commentaries on the Civil War

 

Though our Roman summer in Holland is long gone – it’s been raining for just about three weeks now, - I’ve carried on with my Roman literature project. Now it’s Julius Caesar. I’ve read ‘The Commentaries on the Civil War’; I’ve started re-reading the ‘The Gallic War’; I bought a textbook full of articles about his writings. This has turned into a big project.

 

Caesar is a fascinating historical figure. Years ago, I was challenged, as the history major at the party, to name the person who had had the biggest effect on history, and I came up with Caesar. I spent an inordinate amount of time in the days and years afterward thinking about that spontaneous, drunken answer to what is really a senseless question, and I’ve found my answer surprisingly defensible. So are dozens of others, of course. But here’s a truly remarkable character who did change the course of history. (And even changed the calendar.)

 

Studying Caesar seems appropriate while America struggles to deal with its wannabe strong man. But, in my humble estimation, there are more disparities between Caesar and Trump than there are similarities. And I don’t mean the toga. By extension, a lot might be said about the different historical moments they represent. I’m an amateur historian, at best, and so my opinions are probably worth about as much as Trump’s on the virus. But here goes.

 

Beyond the staggering vanity and ambition that both men manifested, I see very little to compare in their characters. Caesar was an intellectual and an accomplished orator from a noble family with an old and respected name. How many points of departure have I charted already? At age 40, he turned his attention to military glory and became one of the greatest military leaders in history. No draft-dodger. After fighting three years of civil war, ranging across the entire Mediterranean empire, Caesar took the reins of power and pursued reforms based on the populist agenda he had consistently pursued since he was a young man. For centuries, Roman leadership had generally fallen into two camps, one for aristocratic and senatorial power and one for more decentralized power. Caesar belonged to the latter camp. No doubt this path suited his ambitions as much as his ideals, but it appears his convictions were real, given his actions once he had power. ‘Convictions?’ Yes, that’s a word that has gathered some dust.

 

There’s more. It’s hard not to be astounded by the sheer energy and stamina of this man, if all the chronicles are accurate. This leads, in my mind, to the question of motive. What moves a person like Caesar?

 

"Nobody that's a leader would not do what I did," Trump said the other day. Aside from the tortured syntax, it’s a maddening statement, not least because it’s not entirely clear what he thinks he did. He contracted COVID-19. He left the hospital early. It doesn’t require Julius Caesar to provide a contrast. Maybe only the guy in the next bed, the one listening to his doctor and the one concerned about his family.

 Travelogue 933 – October 5

The One-Thing-After-Another Kind of Wisdom

 

Fall advances quickly. The sun’s retreat is perceptible day by day. It’s darker when we wake, and soon enough it will be dark when Baby and I go downstairs to get on the bicycle and head to school. I’ll need lights on the bike. Still there’s sunlight. We chat about the autumn as we cross to the bicycle. We count how many leaves have fallen so far, and we reflect on how chilly the air has become. I remember discussing the advent of fall with her last year, and still - even at her advanced age, - the seasons are mysterious.

 

An understanding that one thing follows another takes time to mature in the human mind.

 

My daily rotation of funereal lectures in the Zoom zone continues apace. Now advancing fall has carried us through the first of four terms, almost to its completion. Students fade even further from us among the ethers of remote learning, their voices arriving as though sent from across the galaxy. The communications are as garbled. They respond to simple queries in blunt utterances like ‘What?’, meant not to clarify but to challenge. In deference to all the light-years between us, I respond diplomatically. ‘Correct answer!’ I say, and I move on.

 

In truth, we teachers of teens understand that the most valuable wares we trade in are not the ones advertised in the name of the course, but are in fact those gathered under the repellent rubric ‘soft skills’, a group of qualities and skills that seem as depleted in the human character as ozone in the air. Those ‘soft skills’ centre around critical thinking and communications. They are as often cited by business leaders at job fairs as they are pushed aside by curricular committees because they are so darn difficult to measure in multiple-choice exams.

 

So here we are. I design lessons to be revolving review sessions. Course requirements must be reviewed relentlessly. Just today, six weeks into the term, a student interrupted an exercise to ask when the final exam was. I pass the question to another student, who had the privilege to recite for us that there was never a final exam for this course. They would be grade according to portfolio. Most of my feedback on writing assignments consists of rote repetition of the assignment instructions. Most protests on exam questions are rebutted by a review of the question instructions. It’s an odd sequence: we finish with instructions. We draw circles to the beginning.

 

A true understanding of sequence takes a long time to mature in the human mind.