The Shadow Falls

Between the idea
And the reality
Between the motion
And the act
Falls the Shadow
So wrote T. S. Eliot in his poem The Hollow Men.

The speculators are back, flipping property. The real revitalization—repairing and renting the homes—will have to wait.
So wrote Alyssa Katz in her article There Goes the Neighborhood in the September 2009 issue of The American Prospect magazine.

There is an amorphousness in the processes of modern societies that was not there for the vast majority human existence. It is that murky, ill-defined area between decision and act. which when institutionalized (think government or corporations), is responsible for much of what goes wrong in our societies. Because of it we are much less sure of how our decisions will eventuate. We consume vast amounts of our resources in this gray area.

Ever since civilization began to appear there has been the gap between what G. W. Bush called the deciders and the rest of society. However, it was quite clear what was the king's or the priest's and what was that of the ordinary person. There was little “grayness” in the difference although there was in the use the king or priest made of his resources. Nowadays however, with huge populations and complicated technology that generates a near impenetrable fog, (some would call it a black hole) mankind has been put adrift in a fog of its own making.

I think the recent rash of anger experienced by politicians as they returned to their constituents, while much of it may have been triggered by the bigots of religion and race and loud-mouthed sound biters, reflected an effort on the part of much of this country's citizenry to penetrate the grayness which confronts them. Who is responsible for our situation? How did it happen? How will it be remedied? These questions are fundamental to people at this time and search as they may they basically get no answers. As Katz points out, massive amounts of public debt incurred to keep people in their homes by reducing their mortgage payments have been waylaid by the institutions that government chose to do this job. They have been largely consumed or made less effective by the grayness. This is among the reasons that progressives much preferred FDR's approach of creating jobs so the necessary remedy is made explicit to the people. The remedy does not trickle down through the very institutions that caused the problem in the first place.

This shadowland is the playground of the devious and manipulative among us. It provides the ability to intercept communication between the governed and the governors and makes for decisions and agreements made in secret. It is the root cause for the continuing call for accountability. Why, for instance, do the wealthy have no three strikes law for fraud or are sentenced to minimum security prisons or house arrest when the common burglar is sent to the harshest of overcrowded jails?

One of the greatest threats in an era of increasing instability is that a “savior” in fascist garb will come riding out of this fog of confusion and increased alienation with a clear and simple message, usually rooted in the society's myths and prejudices. One need only examine the cultural myths and bigotries Hitler and Mussolini appealed to in order to acquire absolute power.

Finally, all of this is compounded by humanity facing global realities it has not faced in 10,000 years and this time we know it in advance.

When one writes in the above terms one is expected, in this wildly optimistic society, to present some sort of remedy. However, every possible remedy seems fraught with its own perils. It is tempting to say, as some have, that our societies are too big. They must be reduced in size so that citizens have at least some acquaintance with those that govern them and the mechanisms employed in governing, but how is this to be done when we have a technology that is global in scale and generates wealth and power on that scale?

There are those who say we need to remove much of the technology we have created and live much closer to the land and elements, which were the cradle of our existence for the vast majority of our species' existence. But even if we tried, there is not enough land and resources left to provide an “acre and a horse” for each family, We are, in short, living on the edge of chaos lost in a miasma of deliberate ambiguity and focused on ourselves rather than our species.

Bob Newhard

American Lumpen or the Politicization of Ignorance

There is, I believe, a developing political movement of the uneducated by choice. By this I mean a flaunting of ignorance for political purposes with the intention of appealing to the ignorant as being just like them. Joe the Plumber and Sarah Palin are prime examples. To be ignorant is to be trustworthy.

Despite the fact that the founders of this country included a high incidence of intellectuals aware and engaged in the philosophy, science, economic and political thinking of the day, our country turned against intellectualism early in its history and it became fashionable to condemn intellectuals as “elitists.” Richard Hofstadter remarks this process in his book Anti-Intellectualism in American Life. Adlai Stevenson was so branded in my own time.

I suggest that the current form of politicized ignorance began with Richard Nixon's sending the Republican Party south to get the popular constituency it needed. This was done deliberately by a corporate America that had already moved the New England textile industry south to take advantage of cheap labor and anti-union state governments using a typically American contradictory euphemism, right to work laws. Hence we have the anomaly of the poor and middle class Southern whites in the service of the wealthy Northerners. Only in America!

The South, especially the Deep South, has been an intellectually backward part of this country since its founding, mainly because of racism. This continues today principally because Southerners are trapped by the guilt of pervasive racism. Because of this they remain very defensive. In effect they have no place to go intellectually. They cannot accept the human race as such and hence are not free to explore and understand the complexity of our species. The ascendency of the South in the Republican Party has made anti-intellectualism an unstated plank in the platform of that party. I should add that it is in the interests of the corporations that control the Republican Party to encourage rampant ignorance because people can more easily be seduced by advertising, both commercial and political, and by appeals to their emotions.

This process has resulted in one of the two major parties of this country promoting candidates who believe in creationism, deem global warming a conspiracy of the United Nations and a “Birthers” movement denying that President Obama was born in the United States This is more than folly, it is dangerous. A society with this number of people unhinged from reality becomes exceptionally vulnerable to manipulation. It confuses fact with belief and feels free to create “facts” that suit their motives. This is the kind of social mentality that permitted the rise of fascist regimes in Europe. I believe we can see this kind of ignorance in action in the current Republican-orchestrated ruckus at town hall meetings by Democratic Congressional representatives. This is the kind of bully boy tactic that the Nazis employed. In this respect it is also instructive to note that a prime mover of these attacks, Rush Limbaugh, has accused Obama of being a fascist. This kind of assertion by those who practice fascist techniques is done to preempt use of the term by applying it to their opposition first. Notice it is not the usual “commie” demonizing of the Republican past. The fact that these ludicrous, devious, misuses of language can be so effective is a measure of the degree the American public is removed from reality and thereby so profoundly gullible. That we are entering the throes of fascism is underscored in the article Is the U.S. on the Brink of Fascism? found at http://www.alternet.org/module/printversion/141819

Culturally, this can, I believe, be traced in significant part to the ascendency of the role of advertising in our society. The pervasiveness and insidiousness of 24/7 saturation of advertising, the application of advanced psychological knowledge to its development and the vast amount of fiscal resources available to it, have produced a citizenry increasingly incapable of distinguishing fact from fiction and therefore prone to accept the emotionally satisfying rather than the noetically verified. That this society is the most powerful on the planet does not bode well for our species.

Robert Newhard

Postscript: Bill Maher has an interesting take on the abysmal level of American ignorance at http://www.huffingtonpost.com/bill-maher/new-rule-smart-president_b_253996.html?view