Travelogue 948 – November 26

Thanksgiving

 

This is my Thanksgiving. There’s no turkey, but there’s family. There’s no table full of treats; there’s no football; but there’s the comfort of being inside together on a gloomy fall day. We have our cosy evening routine together, quiet and humble.

 

On American Thanksgiving, family should be together. On Thanksgiving, we should share what we’re grateful for. For my part, I ponder gratitude very often. I know that’s different than being grateful. But it is an intriguing moral quality. Today it seems to me it’s an exercise in contrast. The Pilgrims faced a harsh world, but they took a moment to recognize what they had. At least, that’s the narrative we’ve inherited. If we hold a place in the calendar for thanksgiving, do we still see a harsh world out there?

 

The world’s been a little harsh on me. Not the starving-in-a-New-England-winter variety of harsh, just the coughing and sniffling variety, but still, it doesn’t seem fair that I battle this same cold every November. Every time I get out of bed and start working, I suffer a slow relapse. This drags on for weeks.

 

That’s what we do. We’re the species that picks ourselves up, dusts ourselves off, and starts all over again. That’s our virtue, Darwinian resilience and survival. The headlines are a wonderful portrait of it, a country enduring Trump’s criminal pathology and selfishness for two more months in the fragile hope of a new day; a world surviving wave after wave of COVID and finding the strength to problem-solve and to think about each other. This is a very functional form of gratitude. It’s an exercise of solace and of generosity. It’s taking a risk on a world might not turn out to be a horrible place.

 

Gratitude is more than recognizing the generosity of others, or the generosity of Nature or God. Gratitude is generosity itself. Grateful people give. Grateful people are gracious. They aren’t preoccupied by what they are owed or what they deserve.

 

Graciousness is humble. In 2000, I was disappointed in Al Gore for conceding as early as he did. I see things in a different light today. I see a generous spirit, someone that didn’t give up to despair. Many, many of us have graciously admitted our powerlessness in the face of COVID-19. We have listened to each other, tried to take care of each other. Where we failed, we picked ourselves up again. We spared a thought for our neighbours and family. And we struggled over better responses where we could have despaired and blamed others (China? God? Soros and Gates?), when we could have donned the sackcloth and wailed.

 

That’s it. That’s our Thanksgiving: looking to tomorrow with a humble faith that there’s some good there waiting.

 Travelogue 947 – November 23

In the Shoe

 

We had no choice but to admit Sinterklaas into our house this year. Baby Jos came home from school one day determined to receive the man … and his gifts. On the fourteenth, Sinterklaas made his entry into the Netherlands. This is what he does every year; he travels from Spain in mid-November to set up his seasonal base here.

 

It was a sign of the times that we couldn’t leave our houses to greet Sinterklaas. Last year, Baby’s school left the school on an expedition to greet him at the harbour. We received a short video from one of the parents who had attended, the kids cheering along the wharf as Sinterklaas waved from his small barge. It was an occasion that Baby spoke about for a long time afterward and, indeed, still remembers vividly.

 

This year, Sinterklaas’s arrival was streamed. Of course, we couldn’t figure out the link. We watched on the telly. By the time we got the right channel open, Sinterklaas had already arrived, and he sat in state at the head of some staircase in the Hague, cheerfully receiving delegations from around the Netherlands. His assistants, the clownish ‘Piets’, gathered the gifts and took them inside. Each delegation had some characteristic gift, cheese or baked goods from their region, and many offered performances by some children. Sinterklaas was a good sport, not at all tired from his journey and enjoying all the visitors in the long caravan.

 

Sinterklaas is not Santa, the Dutch will tell you. And they’re right, though the two figures have similar historical roots. Sinterklaas doesn’t live at the North Pole. He comes earlier to relax in the Netherlands. He is a more public figure. He enjoys crowds. He has his ‘Piets’ to take care of him wherever they go. And he is less covert about his mission. We greet him into the Netherlands in the light of day, and he leads a parade.

 

I’ve been surprised and very entertained by Baby’s enthusiasm for Sinterklaas. She’s a believer! She draws pictures of him. She has coloured a beautiful picture of him arriving in his steamboat. After the old man’s ‘intocht’, or entry into the country, she set one of her shoes inside the front door and explained to us that Sinterklaas would be bringing gifts. This is the Dutch tradition, a gift every morning in the children’s shoes. Of course, no one had explained to us was that the gifts don’t start immediately, but closer to the holiday of Sinterklaas, which is the 5^th of December. So now our girls have been receiving gifts every morning for more than a week already, and we have to keep going until the 5^th! Sly girl.

 

Their excitement is so infectious that I don’t mind the hassle of stocking up on gifts. They run to look in their shoes first thing every morning. There’s something so powerful in the delight of a child.

Travelogue 946 – November 12

In Equal Measure

 

There are times to celebrate. Little Ren started at school yesterday. For days, she had been excited to attend. My heart melted every time she smiled about it. The morning finally came. We dressed her up and we all left the house together. Usually, she stays behind and waves good-bye to her big sister, but today they were going together. She was shining.

 

Little Ren will have her challenges at school, just like her sister did. Life never stopped being uncertain. If we celebrate, we don’t pretend to certainty. We celebrate Biden without thinking he’s perfection. We celebrate the election victory knowing that Republicans are actively trying to snatch it away. We play the fool because we’re joyful.

 

Lately, Little Ren says she loves something, or she says she doesn’t love something. “I don’t love that toy.” All the softer words, like “like”, have been dropped for the moment. It makes for passionate discourse. I’m with her on that. I love her innocence.

 

It might be said that the diehard supporters of America’s soon-to-be-ex-president have innocence and passion. They love their man. They don’t love losing.

 

I’ve struggled since the outgoing president was elected to understand how people vote. The democratic system pre-supposes rational thinking. But the neo-con movement has wonderfully bypassed that mental process. It famously moves people to vote against their own interests, as it does, for example, when convincing the working class to elect people who stand against unions and higher wages and universal healthcare.

 

My new theory is that people vote for images in their mirrors. Voters may not be adulterers and grifters, like the soon-to-be-ex-president, but they see in him their own rebelliousness against norms. They say, “I would do that, too,” when the press excoriates the man for dodging taxes and being awkward in Europe, for indulging in conspiracy theory and making light fun of other people’s failings. Others watch Biden and they identify with his thoughtfulness and affectionate nature. They have a certain understanding of responsibility, thinking that personal behaviours must be adapted when given any form of leadership.

 

There’s a joy in being a part of Little Ren’s new life. We naively celebrate each new step, knowing that life provides lots of missteps. Joy and wisdom co-exist. We choose each in equal measure.

Travelogue 945 – November 8

Modest Hope

 

Our youngest daughter is turning four soon, just before the Dutch holiday of Sinterklaas. Because at four she’ll be old enough for school, she’ll start attending part-time next week. This is what the Dutch call ‘wennen’, or an adjustment period. We took Little Ren to the school the other day, and she met her new teacher. She returned home excited about her new life. She will be attending with her big sister, who will be in the group one year ahead of hers.

 

Every day now, Little Ren asks whether she’ll be going to school. ‘Not yet,’ we say, happy that she’s looking forward to it. She was not a fan of daycare, and she was quite sad some mornings that she had to go. Now she has hope again.

 

It could be that America has some grounds for hope again, after four years of rather intense gloom. It’s a modest sort of hope, tempered by the reminder that 48% of the population would still vote for darkness and ignominy; tempered by the daunting amount of reconstruction to be done; tempered by the tepid Democratic returns in Congress. But hope must sit beside reality on the city bus; otherwise, it’s not hope but delusion.

 

I noticed an interesting passage while re-reading Caesar’s ‘Gallic War’. He starts Book Two explaining that the Belgae in the north were becoming restless. Caesar cites a number of reasons why, saying some were apprehensive about the Romans and some were nervous about the Germans. ‘Others,’ he writes (according to the translation by Carolyn Hammond,) ‘were of a volatile and unstable disposition – the sort of men who delight in changes of rule.’ It does sound very familiar, though this year’s rebels are agitating to stop the change of rule, praying at polling stations and carrying signs saying, ‘Stop the Count’. (Right-wingers are the masters of the self-own. Stop the count to save our democracy, they can chant without any sense of irony.) Somehow, it’s comforting to know that all the ages of humanity have had to deal with this pest of human nature, the wilfully primitive.

 

One can be distressed about them. One can reach out to them. One can barricade; one can run. Inevitably, their behaviour just can’t be tolerated. When Hitler came along, modern Europe was still relatively new to democracy, particularly the sort with universal suffrage. People were puzzled by the shockingly crude use of intimidation and prejudice. They were scared; some were tempted to be impressed. They reasoned with them and laboured over compromises. It didn’t work. You play laissez faire with these people, they eventually play scales on your bones. There’s no nice-guy check on a fascist movement. And now, as relieved as we may feel, we have to pause and remember, our demons are still out there.

 Travelogue 944 – November 2

Almost Great Again

 

Reason is hope. Reason constructs systems like democracy and republics. The human race spent centuries developing the political systems we live with today. They are imperfect, but they are edifices of reason. They were built with an eye to the future. People who fight for democracy, or those who look to protect democracy, are imperfect people who are caretakers of what reason created for future generations.

 

Caesar was not one of these people. He was a figure whose ambitions could not be bound by the republican system. Ironically, I think it was a system he cherished, but it was a system already crumbling under the pressures of empire. I don’t believe he was an honest man, but the system wouldn’t have tolerated an honest man. The stakes were too high, the power struggles deadly, and the amounts of money involved to sustain power were astronomical. Therefore, the only way to realize ambitions were military. We don’t want Caesar. As brilliant as he was, he was a harbinger of the decline of the best political systems that the ancient world had developed.

 

Strangely, we seem to crave something worse than Caesar. Caesar was, at least, a brilliant and strong leader, who had a clear grasp of what the state needed to survive. If he couldn’t protect humane systems, he could protect the empire and the potential for peace. He applied reason to the problems of his time. Better would have been cooperative efforts, but the Senate would not have it.

 

Instead of Caesar, we seem to like the Mussolinis and the Stalins and the Assads and the Putins and the Bolsonaros and the Erdogans and the Trumps, the bland missionaries of self-indulgence, the prophets of conspiracy theory, the opponents of reason. It’s no mistake that these people, in contrast to Caesar, who took care to protect his reputation as an intellectual, turn to the obscurantists of conspiracy theory. They are afraid of debate. They deny progress. Trump and his ilk will wear MAGA hats to the very end, proclaiming that America is almost there, perpetually on the verge of greatness again. Keep tracking us on social media, they will say. We will let you know when we arrive.

 Travelogue 943 – November 1

The Resistance

 

Among this morning’s headlines were a story from Hong Kong and a story from Texas. The news from Hong Kong has been jarring in recent years. On the one hand, it aligns so well with stories of oppression from all over the world, but there’s an otherworldly quality to it, a cognitive dissonance. It comes down to the ferocity of the resistance. Here is a population that has been fighting for democracy for years now, and their energy never seems to flag. It’s astonishing, particularly when you consider the regime they are up against. These aren’t drunk guys with Confederate flags in their trucks led by a flabby real estate salesman. This is the steely Communist Party of Xi Jinping. I’m afraid for the opposition every time I read about them. But they are an inspiration. I feel sometimes like the American resistance is exhausted and no longer entirely sure what they believe in. They can agree on hot-button issues. And most Democrats will agree that the Trump movement is ‘threatening democracy’ But I’m not convinced that a ready majority opinion could be found about democracy itself. I sense most would lose patience with the question. A good number would prove as suspicious of democracy as the opposition, certainly of traditional American democracy. The right finds democracy distasteful but loves the Constitution. And the left? Well, as they are currently being beat about the head and shoulders with a rolled-up copy of the Constitution, I’m not sure they’ll flock to its defence. I really don’t know.

 

Though the country was founded in a fight for democracy, I think many people find the idea quaint. Democrats are compromisers. You fight for Marxism. You fight for nationalism. But democracy? That’s what is astounding about Hong Kong’s fight in our time.

 

In Texas, Biden and his team were treated to a Trump-style welcome after Don Junior sent out a social media call to action. It was one of those wink-wink, chummy messages that pretends to naiveté. A bunch of goons in trucks surrounded Biden’s bus and delayed it until it missed an engagement. At least one of the Biden entourage was nearly run off the road.

 

It’s this casual relationship with violence that I find most unsettling. I’m quite sure that Don Junior would have felt nothing if someone had died in a car accident. And I mean nothing. From the Trumps, I can imagine a cold Communist Party fury no more than I can imagine regret. They lack all affect. That is why they are so cherished by their base. These people are fatigued. They are tired of moral choice. They are tired of so often finding themselves on the wrong side of the age’s moral questions. They want the relief of mocking the sincere and the suffering alike, and they want the relief of being told it’s okay. These people don’t have the courage of their cruelty. They don’t stand at the bars of the cages at the border, smiling to see the children’s misery. They must consume reports by fellow travellers that assure them it’s all a terrible exaggeration. That exaggeration somehow proves they were even more right about the dubious policy than they had thought. There’s no room for the slightest hesitation: “Gee, what if there were even a small chance that children were suffering?” Just as wearing a mask is intolerable. “Gee, even if one person were saved, wouldn’t it be worth a moment’s slight discomfort?” Nope.

 

It will take generations to figure out this fatal nihilism. It’s a riddle. I believe there’s one conclusion that’s unavoidable: you don’t aspire to nihilism. It happens to you, when all the cocaine has scorched the natural receptors for serotonin, for example. It leaves one with a flattened sensation of life. With no cognitive measure of the value of life, there’s no measure of the significance of death.