paulmuses

THE GOOD, BAD, UGLY AND HOPEFUL

“Why doesn’t American politics work better?” When I talk to classes or groups, this question is asked more often than any other. “What do you mean by work better?” I ask. “Well, you know, work out their differences, work together, get things done.” “Get things done,” I repeat, and add, parroting Lincoln, “doing things for us we can’t do for ourselves.”

That’s the ugly in American politics, too many modern challenges, including COVID 19, seem beyond government’s capacity to manage, let alone solve. The ugly story is connected to two additional stories, the good and the bad, and the three together will give you a shorthand way to understand American politics and see a way forward. There is a way forward and that is the hopeful story.

THE GOOD

We need government to solve problems. But you and I also need choices, for how society’s problems ought to be solved. I want businesses to shut their doors to lessen the spread of COVID; you believe the economic and other costs of closing businesses are too great. Most solutions require trade-offs and democracy is superior to its authoritarian alternatives because it offers citizens choices. The clearer the choice the better. In 2020, Democrat Joe Biden and Republican Donald Trump presented America’s record 158 million voters exactly that.

When I was growing up in the 1960s, I knew my mom voted Democratic and my dad Republican. But I don’t think they disagreed about anything political other than their party ID. Paul and Dody Gardner supported the Vietnam War, opposed the protesters, accepted the necessity of the Civil Rights Act of 1964, and worried about giving more money to the poor. When it came time to vote, they carried their agreements into the voting booth, and voted for different parties.

In the sixties America was full of division, with the assassinations of President Kennedy, Malcolm X., Martin Luther King, Jr. and Bobby Kennedy. Street protests against Vietnam imprisoned Lyndon Johnson in the White House leading to his decision not to seek re-election in 1968. But America’s inside-the-tent politics – its two major parties – did not accurately reflect its outside-the-tent divisions.

America’s Republican Party included plenty of liberals and its Democratic Party conservatives, from the south. Liberal Republicans supported the 1964 Civil Rights Act and conservative Democrats did not. In 1968, Republican presidential candidate Richard Nixon developed a southern strategy, including racial code words such as “law and order,” to appeal to southern conservatives opposed to civil rights legislation and a northern strategy, including supporting affirmative action and environmental policies, to appeal to northeastern liberals.

Until the mid 1960s, America’s two political parties worked pretty well together because neither took a decisive stand on America’s racist policies. Once the 1964 Civil Rights Act passed under the leadership of a Democratic President Lyndon Johnson, America’s two parties would morph over the next six decades into the two perfectly sorted parties that exist today.

The Democratic Party would become the party of inclusion and equality on controversies related to race, gender, sexual orientation, and immigration. The Republican Party would be the party of saying NO or slow down. Ronald Brownstein refers to the voters who supported Barack Obama, Hillary Clinton and Joe Biden as the coalition of transformation. He labels the supporters of Republicans John McCain, Mitt Romney and Donald Trump the coalition of restoration.

THE GOOD: IN 2020 AMERICA’S TWO MAJOR POLITICAL PARTIES OFFER VOTERS DISTINCT VISIONS FOR WHAT KIND OF COUNTRY AMERICA SHOULD BE. AMERICA’S POLITICAL DIVISIONS MIRROR ITS SOCIETAL DIVISIONS.

THE BAD

America is an evenly divided country. It is true that in two presidential elections, Donald Trump lost the popular vote by 10 million votes. But America’s Presidential election rules favor small, rural states. The candidate that wins the most votes in a state wins all of the state’s Electors.

Even though Joe Biden won the 2020 popular vote by 7 million votes and the Electoral College 306 to 221, 44,000 votes in three states – Georgia, Arizona, and Wisconsin – out of 158 million votes cast, separated a Biden victory from a tie vote. Even though Donald Trump in 2016 lost the popular vote by 3 million ballots, he won the Electoral College by an identical margin and a change in 77,000 votes in three states – Michigan, Pennsylvania, and Wisconsin – out of 137 million ballots, and there would have been a President Hillary Clinton.

The blue and red map does not lie. America is an evenly divided country and it is an increasingly angry country. Its two parties give us a clear choice on the most difficult of all political controversies, what kind of country do we want America to be? But this is where America’s election rules begin to let us down. These rules favor two dominant parties because the candidates of third parties have no chance of winning office. In elections for the House and Senate, there is only one winner and that winner must receive a plurality of the vote.

Not even scraps for the candidate who can get 10 or 20 or even 40 percent. The Democratic and Republican Parties are the only game in town. Support for more parties is higher than ever, with more than 50% of Republicans and Democrats wanting more choice. Many Americans intuit that two dominant parties exaggerate our differences. A choice of two reduces the complexity and nuance required to manage our way through our difficult problems. More important, and the bad, a choice of two reinforces the bane of all societies, the human proclivity to tribalism.

THE BAD: AMERICA’S ELECTION RULES AND SORTED TWO PARTY SYSTEM PRESENT AMERICA WITH TRIBALISM AT ITS WORST, THE HUMAN TENDENCY TO DIVIDE INTO US VS. THEM.

THE UGLY

Americans are evenly divided into two well sorted parties. The Democratic Party is America’s reform party, urging the country toward its promise as a large, multi-racial democracy that extends rights and privileges to all. The Republican Party is America’s conservative party, emphasizing traditional perspectives, and a cautionary approach to change.

What unifies Americans is their shared disgust for how government works. This is the “why can’t they get things done?” response I get in my talks, usually uttered with a combination of frustration and wonderment. The WHY to this question is the ugly part of the story.

The American Founders did not like political parties and built a governmental system that would depend upon politicians working together. Separation of powers and checks and balances were built into the system forcing each national government institution to share power thus giving each part – the House, Senate and Presidency – a veto over the other. For long stretches of American political history this sharing power system worked reasonably well because one party dominated national politics. For example, from the 1930s to 1980, the Democratic Party controlled the House and Senate most of the time. This meant the congressional Republican Party had the incentive to cooperate because they rarely could win enough seats to control. Single party dominance = bipartisanship.

Since 1980 each party has controlled the House and Senate roughly half the time. This means THAT in any given Congress BECAUSE the minority or out party sees a reasonable chance of taking back the institution in two years it has little incentive to cooperate. In 2009, why would Republicans help President Obama craft the Affordable Health Care Act if they could run against ‘Obamacare’ and win back the House and Senate, exactly what they did in 2010. In 2021, evenly divided parties means bipartisanship is irrational. Because America’s system of government requires cooperation, the system is stymied in its main task of “doing for us what we can’t do for ourselves.”

THE UGLY: IN 2021 EVENLY DIVIDED PARTIES MEANS BIPARTISANSHIP IS IRRATIONAL. BECAUSE AMERICA’S SYSTEM OF GOVERNMENT REQUIRES COOPERATION, AMERICA’S GOVERNMENT IS STYMIED IN ITS MAIN TASK OF “DOING FOR US WHAT WE CAN’T DO FOR OURSELVES.”

HOPEFUL

Americans are resilient. In the midst of COVID – the fear, sickness and death – more Americans voted in 2020 than ever before, a record 158 million. Since 2009, millions of Americans have organized on the right and on the left, from the Tea Party to Black Lives Matter, to take to the streets in mostly peaceful protests. Americans have not given up on American politics. And their two dominant parties provide clear, different and compelling answers to the question Americans have argued about from the beginning, “who are we?” Unfortunately, America’s evenly divided two-party system does not work well with its governmental structure that requires a sharing of power. And Americans know that. How long will they accept gridlock?

If politics is to help a country of 330 million answer the “who are we” question in a way that most of us can accept, we need more than two options, more than two parties offering alternatives. On any political issue, but especially an issue of national identity, the best politics gives its citizens a more nuanced and complicated way to think about their challenges. Two parties reinforce our human tendency to divide into tribes. Four or five offers us a chance to find common ground with others. Most democracies in the world – including all countries that became democratic in the 20th and 21st century – understand this and so crafted election rules that produced multi-party systems.

The single most important change in America’s election rules that would give America a multi-party system is ranked choice voting. Wikipedia provides an excellent description as does Lee Drutman in Breaking the Two-Party Doom Loop: The case for Multiparty democracy. Drutman tells the stories of how Maine and New Zealand moved from single seat, plurality elections to ranked choice voting. It took each about a decade and the reform efforts were a combination of elite leadership and grassroots organizing.

RANKED CHOICE VOTING AND THE JANUARY 6 ATTACK ON THE AMERICA’S CAPITAL (AND DEMOCRACY)

Adopting multi-winner ranked choice election reforms will also help America manage its extremists. The mob that attacked the American Congress on January 6 demonstrated by its violence and symbolism that it was outside the norms of American politics. We learn more everyday about the involvement of many of America’s far right extremists and groups. Many believe President Trump has empowered these groups. That they find solace and comfort inside one of America’s two major parties. The rules of America’s politics have given these extremist groups and their sympathizers power beyond their numbers. Thus you have half the members of the Republican House delegation voting to overturn the election of Joe Biden hours after this violent assault on Congress.

At Luther I taught a course on terrorism for more than 15 years. One of the things I learned from our study of of terrorist groups, from the Irish Republican Army to America’s Klu Klux Klan to Al Qaeda, is that these groups’ political goals are shared by many who would never engage in violence. For many of those in DC last Wednesday, accepting the election results means their grievances and resentments will no longer be aired by the most powerful person in the world. What are those grievances? I think a combination of cultural, demographic, and economic changes in America that reduce their status.

These folks are not going away. In fact, if America continues to become the kind of country I want it to be, a truly equal multi-religious, multi-racial and multi-ethnic democracy, that is not the country many of these people want. America’s very progress toward its Declaration of Independence and Preamble to the Constitution aspirational goals make it vulnerable to the kind of backlash we witnessed on January 6th. How does a modern democracy manage this inevitable conflict?

America’s current election rules and its two party system have given this anti-diversity, anti-tolerance group significant influence in the Republican Party. For this group, represented in ends if not means by the mob that stormed Congress, the election loss in 2020 is impossible to accept. How does a modern democracy manage this group?

One answer is taking place right now, inside the Republican Party. The anti-Trump forces have a bit of wind to their back by the almost universal condemnation of the January 6 attack and for many the close connection between the words of President Trump about a fraudulent election the violence on the 6th. This together with the recognition that over Trump’s term the Republican Party lost the House, Senate and the Presidency may lead to a more moderate Republican Party. Even if this does happen, there is no guarantee that another extremist element might take over one of America’s two main parties in the future.

Changing America’s election laws to a form of ranked choice voting with multi-member districts would encourage the development of four or five parties. With the choice of multiple parties, the American extremes can be heard, may even win seats in Congress, but are very unlikely to ever dominate politics. Giving these folks a voice allows us to see them, to hear them, and to manage them. This is certainly a better alternative than to risk again the chance that tomorrow’s extremists will again gain functional control of one of America’s two major parties.

CONCLUSION

A multi-party system will not solve America’s problems. But the real world experiences of countries that have adapted this system suggest multi-party systems encourage compromise and discourage negative advertising. Increasing comity and decreasing negativity are exactly what America needs. There is a proven way forward for our country. Educate yourself; talk with your neighbors; support candidates and referendum in favor of ranked choice. There is a way out of this mess.

America’s election rules in combination with its governing rules do not serve American well in the 21st century. The problem is not America’s politicians but its election rules. As America grapples with its growing diversity and as it struggles to bring its aspirations in line with the realities of many of its citizens, it needs a politics that will not exaggerate its divisions. Ranked choice voting with multi-winners leading to a muilt-party system is a straightforward and proven remedy.

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I recommend three books for follow-up reading: Ezra Klein’s Why We’re Polarized?, Lee Drutman’s Breaking the Two-Party Doom Loop, and Frances Lee’s Insecure Majorities.

AND OF BEING A GARDNER?

Last week Spotify brought my parents back to me through The Ray Conniff Singers’ We Wish you a Merry Christmas album. Dorothy Mae Thomas married Paul John Gardner on August 13, 1948. I came along on September 20, 1949 followed two years later by Peter and three years after that Pat. I am a proud member of the Gardner clan.

Today, Spotify delivers music to us through a fat hot dog shaped speaker we bought in Romania last spring. In 1962 delivery men hauled up our 60 foot drive-way a stereo of the sort pictured to the right. 50 years later – just before our mom entered a Memory Care facility – my brother Pat would pull this sucker down the drive-way, to be picked over by metal scavengers.

I accommodate many identities: partner to Rebecca, son to Dody & Paul, father to Ben, college professor, retiree, friend to Ed & Carol, Democrat, liberal, and American. In this blog, I want to reflect upon what it means to be a member of a family and how that might throw some light on what it means to be a member of a nation. I will begin with two stories.

NO SEATBELTS

In the summer of 1955 my mother’s mother was driving with five year old me in the front seat and my mother in the backseat with my two year old Peter. My grandmother’s car is not equipped with seat belts and so no one is secured in place when another car slams into the left side. The force of the collision ejected me out the windowless right passenger seat to a soft landing on a boulevard and Peter through the windowless back seat onto a hard landing on a curb.  My grandmother and mother end up with minor injuries, as do I, while my brother Peter’s left leg will require several operations.  He still walks with a limp today.

BUT THERE WERE OTHER KINDS OF BELTS

Throughout the 1950s & 1960s as the three Gardner boys were growing up our dad, on at least three occasions I can remember, threatened his belt as punishment for some wrong-doing. I once climbed up on a chest of drawers and pulled it down as I jumped off. Hearing the crash, dad ran into our room and once he saw we were alive and uninjured started his belt routine. This included: clenching his tongue, moving both hands to the belt buckle,  and retracting the tip from the buckle. I don’t remember my dad ever pulling the loosened belt out from its loops. The belt-pause-routine likely saved our butts. But the fact that my dad – a gentle, kind and decent man – would threaten to use a belt suggests where American culture was at that moment, as the cartoon* makes clear.

TODAY’S GARDNER CLAN AND BELTS

No Gardner adult child has ever threatened to use a belt on their kids. Every Gardner adult child has developed the habit of strapping on a seat belt.  

The Gardner label moves on but the content of it is changing all the time.  What is the essence of being a member of the Dody Thomas and Paul Gardner clan? In The Lies That Bind: Rethinking Identity, Kwame Anthony Appiah writes that we ought to think of identity as a verb and not a noun.

“Identity is an activity and not a thing. And its the nature of activities to bring change.” I like the idea of thinking of my Gardner identity as always evolving. This gives me ownership, to stamp my own imprint. So too for my brothers who add their own particularities to our clan identity. Time for one more Gardner story.

About thirty years ago Pat and I were playing golf at Davenport, Iowa’s Duck Creek public golf course. We teed off on the 1st hole that borders the 9th. I hit a tee shot that sliced into a group coming up the 9th fairway. Angry, one member of this group went up to my ball and hit it back to us.

This ticked me off and so I ran toward him. He reciprocated and advanced toward me. And he was bigger, I could see that the closer we got to each other. With golf clubs in hand – hadn’t I inherited my dad’s belt-pause? – when we were about 10 feet apart I felt my younger but much bigger brother Pat at my side and heard him to say to the other guy “if I was you, I would put the club down.”

Pat and I are different in so many ways, including our politics. He is red America and I am blue America. But on that golf course our Gardner identity trumped our political and other differences.

WHAT IS THE ESSENCE OF BEING AN AMERICAN?

What do these Gardner stories have to do with being an American? Like the changing content of the Gardner label, America moves on. Today, seat belts in America are mandatory and have become routine. We look back at the ‘no seatbelt age’ as if it was the Stone Age. Sadly, parents still beat their children, but the cartoon above makes most of us cringe. That’s because beating our children with a belt or any other weapon has became unacceptable.

Just as being a Gardner is a verb and not a noun, the same is true of being an American. Americans are always recreating their country. This dynamism, this evolving America, is the background for so many of America’s political brawls.

I just watched one of my favorite movies, Miracle, about the 1980 American Olympic Hockey Team’s victory over the Soviet Union’s team. The film demonstrates how America’s differences, for a moment, were overwhelmed by the emotional connection so many had to their country.

This brings me to my final point. There is a reservoir of good will among the members of the Gardner clan, despite our differences. We are committed to sharing our lives as Gardners.

I believe there is this same reservoir of good will among the America’s large, diverse and boisterous clan. America’s differences come from America’s guaranteed freedoms that encourage us to go our own ways. Just as Pat and Paul were encouraged by their parents to carve out their own lives.

Pat’s conservative-red-state-world-view irritates the hell out of me. I am sure Pat would say the same about my liberal-blue-state-ideas. The essence of the Gardner clan is not sameness, it is a commitment by its members to a name that signifies traditions, stories, and a common life together.

The essence of being an American is not the disagreements we have with our neighbors but, according to Anthony Appiah, it is “sharing the life of a modern state…”

TOGETHER

*A friend, Don Fisher, emailed this cartoon to friends with the comment that although he and his wife Laurie cringed at its meaning he decided to send it along anyway. I am thankful he did.

I was once a 6th grade student. And then I became a 6th grade teacher. I learned something about freedom from each experience.

The Decorah City council passed Ordinance 1257 on Friday, August 21, 2020. The ordinance began with 17 WHEREAS’ listing a variety of justifications that lead to a NOW, THEREFORE, followed by these words: “All persons present within the city of Decorah shall wear a face covering that covers their nose and mouth when inside a business building or public space…”

When I was a kid, I would occasionally day dream about how great it would be to live alone on a deserted island. That’s before I saw Walt Disney’s 1960 movie Swiss Family Robinson after which I still wanted to live by myself, but worried about pirates messing up my island.

THE STUDENT

I remember the first time I had that fantasy. It was in 6th grade and my teacher was Sister Mary Robert Cecile. Sister demanded detailed work. She made us put JMJ – Jesus, Mary & Joseph, – at the top of every homework assignment page. No JMJ there would be the words “do it again, Paul.” Two pages of homework every night, with proper headings, and the JMJ.

Beaten down with days of “do this” and “do that” something must have happened on the last day of 6th grade because Sister kept me after school. I hear that Sacred Heart School in Davenport is no longer there, replaced by a parking lot. But I am still standing at the window in the 6th grade classroom on the second floor alone with Sister Robert Cecile watching Bus #2 slowly move through the playground not to return until August.

I thought “Mom, dad and Sister Robert Cecile will never stop telling me what to do.” So they won’t be on my pirate-free island and I will be able to drink as much orange Hi-C as I want, never, ever have to eat peas, and no homework. My biggest problem was other people. If I could get rid of other people, I would be free.

Mom, dad, and Sister Robert Cecile are dead. But there are still plenty of people telling me what to do, including the Decorah City Council. Instead of Sister Robert Cecile telling me to put “JMJ” on the top of my homework, the Decorah City Council demands that I wear a mask. If freedom means “being able to act without constraints,” I am less free today than I was on Thursday, August 20, the day before the mask ordinance.

The ‘6th grade kid part of me’ still resents any demand made upon me by other people. Its bad enough when family and friends limit my options but when it is government coercing me to pay taxes or my bank requiring a minimal number of checking account transactions, the deserted island image creeps back into my consciousness. But the adult part of me who spend 46 years in front of classrooms now shoulders aside that 6th grade kid.

THE TEACHER

My first classroom was a 6th grade class in 1972 at St. John’s Elementary School in Burlington, Iowa. I started on December 1 and replacing a teacher driven into early retirement by a teeming class of 40 students. The principal who hired me was looking for someone to bring order to this class. I am guessing she did not talk to Sister Robert Cecile.

Up to that point in my life, I had never really thought about order or even given much consideration to how a group of individuals is molded into a functioning community. I had been a part of groups all my life – family, parish, neighborhood gangs, Cub Scouts, and 6th grade – but only from the perspective of me, the individual. Now that I was in charge of one of these groups, another 6th grade, I had to think hard about how to make this group work. I faced Steve, especially Steve D., but also Greg, Beth and Kathy none of whom wanted to be told what to do.

I quit every night during that long first year. Steve D. especially drove me crazy. Not only did he do whatever he wanted during school, after school from across the street he would give me the finger. The game changer was a conversation I had after school one Friday with Sister Mary Ellen Schulte who taught Math and controlled the classroom across from mine. “How do you do it,” I asked? “No secret,” she said. “You have to show them that you love them and then you have to firmly tell them what they can and cannot do. And by firmly I mean you must start out hard and then you can loosen up. You cannot go the other direction.”

I put Sister Helen’s ideas into action over the semester and slowly but surely my 40 students began to become a community of learners. It was not easy but I began to get through even to Steve D. I took no crap from him but he knew I liked him. I saw more than a little of me in Steve D.

I began to develop a teaching philosophy that emphasized firmness, clarity, and compassion. I wanted students to know exactly what I expected – firmness and clarity worked in tandem to establish an orderly learning environment – and that I cared about them as individuals, the work of compassion.

MY TWO 6TH GRADES

I imagine being back in my 6th grade classroom on that last day of class. I look at that little boy and understand the island fantasy built upon a genuine yearning to decide what is best for me. But then I turn my gaze to Sister Mary Robert Cecile, erasing the blackboard and putting her desk in order. She knew Paul’s freedom to do what he wanted limits not only the freedom of others but also his own future freedom.

I see the Decorah Mask Mandate ordinance as a civic version of Sister Robert Cecile or me explaining to our 6th grade classes why members of the class have to act in a certain way for the benefit of others in the class and for their own benefit.

None of us want to wear a mask. None of us want government or a private business to tell is we have to wear a mask. But there are members of our Decorah, Iowa and American communities dying of COVID.

Death ends life on earth and thus is the ultimate unfreedom.

And other frustrations life throws at us.

In this blog, I will tell you two stories and describe how stoicism has helped me manage life’s frustrations. I believe it can help you, and Ginger.

GINGER”S STORY

“I alternated between feeling angry, sad, and numb during the experience, and also felt trapped, because this was a potential identity theft issue and I felt powerless to get it resolved.” These are the words of my friend Ginger who was put on hold three different times over two days for a total of about two hours. Thankfully, the matter was eventually resolved but, says Ginger, “it took an emotional toll on me.”

“Please be advised that we are experiencing higher than normal calls. We apologize for the delay.” Who among us has not heard a version of this from some company that has taken our money for some service that is not, well, working out too well.

We all have frustration stories that arise from “unresolved problems.” My frustration story started with a letter I received eight years ago from from America’s Internal Revenue Service.

PAUL’S STORY

It was an innocent enough looking envelop, not thick, that contained one page. As I started to read, my eyes locked into the number, 25,000, and the words “you owe $25,000.” “How could this be,” I thought? Almost in a trance, I found my recent tax returns, and stomped out to the car, with one thought, “to go see my H & R Block & Bank of the West advisers ” a few blocks west on Decorah’s Water Street.

Backing out of the garage, I paid no attention to whether there was a car traveling down Williams Avenue. Fortunately, there wasn’t and so I proceeded half a block to Water Street. Stopping briefly, I lurched the car into the street narrowly missing cars in each lane. I remember the image of Charlton Heston playing Moses in the Ten Commandments parting the Red Sea. I was Heston/Moses traveling down Water Street with cars and people parting to let me get to my destination.

My Bank of the West adviser spotted a two decimal mistake in the tax audit of savings we had used to pay for our son’s college education. H & R Block sent this information to the IRS and settled the matter. However, my trance-like response to this frustration bothered me. From the moment I left the house that day, especially while I was in my car, a 3000 pound lethal weapon, there was no separation between my anxiety and me. I thought “there has got to be a better way to manage the frustrations of life.”

STOICISM AS A SOLUTION TO LIFE’S FRUSTRATIONS

The Stoic philosopher, according to Marcus Aurelius, practices to “become an athlete in the greatest of all contests – the struggle not to be overwhelmed by anything that happens.” The IRS letter had overwhelmed me. Surely, worse things will happen. How will I handle them? Three insights from Stoicism have helped me manage frustrations. I believe they can also help Ginger and you.

Learn to recognize one’s automatic thoughts

When things happen, most of us immediately begin to tell ourselves stories about what has happened. The first story I told myself as I read the IRS letter was “how can this be happening to me?” With that thought came an emotional surge, that sent me out the door, into the car, and my Moses-inspired trance. Through practice I have learned to judge those thoughts with the intent of separating myself from what Stoics call “faulty judgments” and “irrational impulses.”

How do I do this? Three mental devices work for me. First, whenever something frustrating occurs, I pause knowing the first thoughts and feelings may not be helpful. Second, I imagine there is a part of me doing the ‘pause’ and observing my thoughts and emotions. Three, I recall the IRS/car/Moses incident from this observer point of view that tells me the place I do not want to be. These three devices work to give me the distance to decide what to do next and make it less likely I will make a “faulty judgment” or act on an “irrational impulse.” In my mind I replace Charlton Heston’s Moses with Ben Kingsley’s Ghandi.

Learn to distinguish between events we can and cannot control

Ginger had to talk with someone from her insurance company; she had to dry her clothes. The IRS’ $25,000 decision, mistaken or not, was beyond my control until I reasoned, not emoted, a solution. The Serenity Prayer is a popularized version of learning to distinguish events we can and events we cannot control.

God, grant me the serenity to accept the things I cannot change, 

courage to change the things I can, 

and wisdom to know the difference.

Any day now I will hear about whether my application for another Fulbright award to teach in Romania fall 2021 has made it over the first hurdle. I remind myself daily this decision is beyond my control. These reminders do not immunize me from the disappointment or sadness that will come with a no. These are normal negative feelings and stoicism is no antidote against them. However, reflecting on how I did the best job I could regarding the application helps me at the same time accept that the decision at this point is outside my control.

Learn to anticipate the worst.

Two years before I received the $25,000 IRA letter, I took out a $75,000 line of credit to pay for an addition to my house. Three years before I paid cash for a new car. What’s the point? I am solidly in the American middle class and learned to save from my parents. Concurrent with the “faulty reasoning” and “irrational impulses” after the first reading of the IRA letter was a feeling of panic prompted by the thought “I do not have $25,000.” Could I borrow the $25,000 if necessary? Of course, just as I had borrowed $75,000.

The stoic way encourages us to “mentally rehearse in the face of anticipated adversity.” This means what life throws at us will never surprise us. When Ginger told me about her hold adventures, I gently suggested the next time she called her insurance company she mentally prepare by assuming the worst, an hour or more on hold, put her phone on speaker, and do something else. Yesterday, to prepare for the email from Fulbright that will come any day, I wrote down in my journal the words “We regret to inform you…” And imagined the experience of reading those lines. Interestingly, and as I played out the scenario of not getting the Fulbright, my mind naturally sought out the advantages of that bad news, pointing me to other paths.

The ultimate goal of stoicism, according to Robertson, is to develop a high frustration tolerance, “an ability to accept the fact when things do not go as we desired.” Many mistakenly believe stoicism makes people passive or indifferent to what goes wrong in life. That is not my experience. Stoicism helps me manage my reactions to what goes wrong. Sometimes that leads me to ask what can I do better to reduce the likelihood of this bad outcome. Other times it directs me to accept what I cannot change.

Ironically, stoicism helps me feel more in control of myself, even as it teaches that I have little control over so much that happens. Control what I can and let the rest go.

*I have taken the material on stoicism, including quotes, from Donald Robertson’s The philosophy of Cognitive Behavioral Therapy: Stoic Philosophy as rational and cognitive psychotherapy. An easier and cheaper read is Robertson’s Stoicism and the Art of Happiness: Practical Wisdom for Everyday life. Years ago the writings of James Stockdale introduced me to stoicism. Most memorable is Courage Under Fire, about his experience as a prisoner of war in Vietnam and how stoicism helped him survive.

1982

“Life’s not fair.”
That’s what I thought in late spring 1982. It was a Friday, after lunch, and I was exiting an elevator on the 16th floor of Patterson Office Tower at the University of Kentucky, when I ran into Lee Sigelman, Department Chair of Political Science.

Lee told me the department had just decided to limit financial aid to PH.D. program graduate students to three years. I was finishing up my third year at Kentucky after arriving in Lexington in 1979 with an MA from Iowa State. I had completed all the course work, had passed the qualifying exams, and was one year into a dissertation that would take another year to complete.  

Earlier on Friday, I had turned down a phone interview for a three-year position at Illinois State University thinking I could stay at Kentucky to finish the dissertation. The Department’s policy up to that point had been to find money for an additional year for graduate students making steady progress. When Lee told me about the new policy, I thought “that’s not fair.”

I went back to my little graduate student cubicle and called Sherry, the Illinois State Political Science Department’s PA, to see if we could re-schedule the interview. Sherry Stiegerwald, who would become a good friend over the three years I would spend in Bloomington/Normal, Illinois, chuckled, said “yes” and so later that afternoon I had the interview and the following Monday would accept a job offer.  I would learn a few months later that Sherry’s ‘chuckle’ came from her knowing just how desperate the Department Head Hibbert Roberts was to fill this position this late in the school year.

2020

I think of all the people I would not know had Lee and I not talked outside that elevator door on that Friday afternoon in 1982. An ‘unfair policy’ set in place a chain of people, places, things, and experiences that have brought me to this chair, typing these words, on this MacBook, sitting next to that chair Rebecca will be sitting in when she gets up around 7AM. Looking back from 2020 is so different from looking forward in 1982.

It is easy to think of life in categories. “Life is unfair” is one of the ways we label something that captures a bit of the truth in the moment. But it is only part of the truth, even in the moment. Looking back to that “unfair” moment in the late spring of 1982, its momentary truth is overwhelmed by the people, places, and things I would not have experienced were I to have stayed at Kentucky for another year.

Yesterday

Rebecca and I power-walked through Decorah’s Palisades Park. Two older humans swinging their arms up and down the winding road through Palisades wanting to finish up in time to hear Jon Lund, Director of Luther College’s Center for Global Learning, Zoom talk on “Twenty Years of International Students at Luther.” Back at 409 East Water Street with one minute to spare, Paul opened up his computer only to discover Jon’s talk is next week. “LIFE IS NOT FAIR,” darted across my mind.

FOLLOWED BY:

LIFE IS; THAT IS WHAT MATTERS.

AND

LIFE IS ONLY UNFAIR WHEN IT IS OVER

How our memories help us today.

THE PAST: THREE MEMORIES THAT LINGER

A Monday morning in 3rd grade. He walks in the door of Sacred Heart grade school and down one flight of stairs. At the bottom of the stairs and just ahead is the girl’s bathroom. That’s scary enough to him. To the left and down another flight of stairs is the gym that doubles as a lunchroom. Lunch, can he make it to lunch? Today his 3rd grade class will practice the cursive L, both lower and upper case. All weekend he has worried that he will not be up to writing the cursive L.

The kitchen table in 6th grade. He is sitting at the table with the geography book open. “Who, what, where, when, why and so what?” is the assignment. His complexion is yellowish as he has been home with Hepatitis for a week. English, math, and religion books cover the rest of the table. But it is the Geography assignments that overwhelm him. All those W’s. His mother stands behind him yelling “how stupid are you?”

A first date, at 16. The date started pretty well. He pinned the corsage to Sharon’s fishnet green dress. The fishnet part threw him a bit but got it attached in the ‘right’ place, without sticking here. But on the way to Davenport Assumption’s 1966 homecoming dance in his parent’s car, he heard a pop followed by a rumble from the back right end of the car. He had never changed a flat tire and had no idea what to do. He walked to the closest house and asked for help and 10 minutes later they were on their way.

On the way home, at the corner of Davenport’s Locust and Brady Streets, they stop for the light. Tom Jones’ Green Green Grass of Home is playing on the radio. He looks over at Sharon sitting about two feet away, in that green fishnet dress, with the corsage still hanging-in there, and thinks “I HAVE NO IDEA WHAT I AM DOING.”

THE CONTEXTS

I started Kindergarten at 4 and my mom always said I was not ready and she wished they had waited a year. Throughout elementary and high school especially, I remember feeling overwhelmed by anything new, like learning cursive L’s.

The kitchen story, so much to add that explains my mother’s frustration. I was the oldest of three boys and my dad was away a lot on business. He is not part of my kitchen memory and so I assume he was out of town that night leaving Mom home-alone with 11 year old Paul, 9 year old Peter, and 4 year old Pat. Other memories from 6th grade – parent trips to talk to my teacher, Sister Robert Cecile, multiple trips to the cloakroom for punishment of one thing or another, and being kept after school on the last day of class – suggest I was not an easy kid. Most important, years later I heard my mother, after one of her own mistakes, mutter to herself, “don’t be so stupid.”

Sharon was the daughter of my first boss who owned a Baskin Robbins franchise in Bettendorf, Iowa. We worked together and that is how we got to know each other. A few months after the first date, Sharon called me from work and asked if I could take her home as her parents were out and she could not reach them. It was late at night and she did not want to walk the mile to her house alone. I took her home and we sat and talked on the stairs of her split level house. No corsage, no fishnet green dress, no flat tire, just two young people finding out they had a few things in common. Sharon became my first girl friend and we would date for two years.

THE PRESENT

How can memories from our earlier selves help us today? For me, the three memories I have described stick with me. Frequently, one or more are triggered by present events. For example, yesterday I started the process of signing up for a Sirius XM radio streaming service. I have wanted to do this for months but kept putting it off. As I was tooling around Sirius’ site an image popped into my head of a forlorn 8 year-old me walking into my 3rd grade classroom on L-day. The kitchen event quickly followed as did the first words “The old house looks the same as I walk down the lane,” from Jones’ Green, Green Grass of Home.

Each memory reminds me of one of the default ways I have moved through the world, as someone not quite up to the challenges that he will face today. Part of me is that 8 year old faced with the cursive L, the 11 year old unable to complete his geography homework, and the 16 year old clueless on a first date. Reflecting on these memories, especially from a 3rd person perspective, as an observer of ones self, enables me to understand my reticence in the presence of new things. I am 71 by way of 8, 11, & 16. However, I am also 8, 11 & 16 by way of 71. My 71 year old self knows I learned to write lower and upper case L’s, passed 6th grade, and enticed Sharon to give me another chance.

Memories uncover our self-imposed limitations that follow us along our life paths while life experiences deflate the power of those limitations. Memories remind us of the impossibilities of life and the assurances that somehow, we do come through on the other side.

*I got the idea for this blog when I read about Only Yesterday, a 1991 Japanese film. The film is about a 27 year old Japanese woman who uses memories from her past to meet the challenges of the present. She is 27 by way of 5. I am 71 by way of 8, 11, & 16.

A reflection on the historical barriers to the American presidency.

President-Elect Biden will be 78 when he takes the Presidential oath of office on January, 20, 2021. He will be the oldest of America’s 46 presidents. Who was the second oldest?, you ask. President #45, Donald Trump, 220 days into his 70th year on Inauguration Day in 2017. Counting Mr. Biden and Mr. Trump, 11 of America’s 46 presidents have been over 60.

Is 78 too old to be President of the United States?

America’s two youngest presidents were Teddy Roosevelt and John Kennedy. Roosevelt was 42 and Kennedy 43. A year ago 37 year old Pete Buttigieg was my choice to lead America’s Democratic Party.

Is 37 too young to be President of the United States?

Joe Biden will be America’s second Catholic President, sixty years after Kennedy broke that barrier, and 93 years after Al Smith became the first Catholic major party candidate for President.

Is Joe Biden too Catholic to be President of the United States?

Kamala Harris will be America’s first female, Black, and Asian Vice President.

Is Kamala Harris too female, too Black, or too Asian to be Vice President of the United States?

I suspect there are some Americans who would answer ‘yes’ to one or more of these questions. America’s Constitution weighs in on age and religion, stating 35 as the minimal age for President and that there be “no religious test for public office.” It says nothing about maximum age. America’s history weighs in on gender, race and ethnicity, which is why Vice President-Elect Kamala Harris combines those three ‘firsts’ 232 years after America’s founding. The same is true for religion and why it took 172 years for a Catholic to win the presidency, despite the “no religious test” clause.

Besides being bested by Joe Biden to become the Democratic Party’s nominee for President, what do Bernie Sanders, Michael Bennet, Marianne Williamson, Tom Steyer, and Michael Bloomberg have in common? A hint, they share this identity with former Vice Presidential candidate Joe Lieberman, running mate to Democratic Party presidential candidate Al Gore in 2000.

Are any of these Americans too Jewish to be President of the United States?

And what about Pete Buttigieg married to husband Chasten?

Is Pete Buttigieg too gay to be President of the United States?

Too old, too young, too Catholic, too female, too Black, too Asian, too Jewish, and too gay? I don’t know about you, but to me asking any of these questions seems sort of un-American. Not un-American in the sense that each was or is still a genuine barrier to becoming America’s president. In that sense, each was very American.

What’s un-American is how each question is really an affront to the greatest words from America’s greatest Founding Document, the Declaration of Independence, written and contradicted by the Slave-Owning-Thomas Jefferson.

We hold these truths to be self-evident, that all men are created equal, that they are endowed by their Creator with certain unalienable Rights, that among these are Life, Liberty and the pursuit of Happiness.

That we keep asking these questions is not really a surprise. America’s contradictions are obvious to anyone who takes the time to look carefully at its history. The contradictions are brought to light by the very ideals we say we believe in. America is both, the ideals and the contradictions.

What’s heartening to me is that more of us answer ‘no’ to the questions listed above or even better, don’t even think to ask them.

Is Joe Biden too old to be President?

One of the first calls President-Elect Biden received was from 83 year Pope Francis. Biden has faced none of the public worry that a Catholic president would be too beholden to a pope that Kennedy confronted in 1960. Prejudices die hard and then fade away.

The Francis – Biden call was just a conversation between the octogenarian leader of 1.3 billion Catholics and the newly elected septuagenarian leader of 330 million Americans.

How can we use our shared anxiety to lessen our anger at the other side.

“A Frazzled world holds its breadth while the U.S. chooses its leader,” shouted the New York Times Saturday morning. Seventy two hours is a long time to hold your breadth, so I don’t suggest you and I DO that. Besides, we may not know Tuesday night or even Wednesday morning.

“Americans Surge to Polls: I’m going to vote like My life depended on it,” roared another NYT’s headline. Almost jumping out of my seat I hear myself cheering, “yes, the blue wave is coming.” You? Oh yeah, you, on the other side of the stadium, without your mask on, prodding your unstoppable red team down the field.

SHARED ANXIETY

What are you and I supposed to DO as we travel together toward Tuesday? We’re both on edge, anxious, looking for signs that our side will win or not win. Tucked cozily in northeast Iowa, this morning I awoke to a howling wind, coming out of the northwest, YIKES, “out of red state South Dakota.”

“A bad sign,” I thought, and then checked to see if my six blue signs in the front yard were still standing. Battered , beaten, and frazzled from months of Iowa weather, there they were, still upright, as if they had just read the latest FiveThirtyEight polls. And then I looked across the street at your sign, hoping to see that the wind, now blowing from blue state Minnesota, had latched onto your BIG sign, wrenched it from the ground, sending it to blue state Illinois or soon-to-be-blue Wisconsin. Alas, there it was standing tall, as if it had just read the latest Des Moines Register polls.

I want my side to win on Tuesday. I do consider the 2020 American presidential election the most important of my lifetime. I’m betting you feel the same way. Our political differences are real and deep and lead us to want a different America. If this was just about you liking strawberry and me liking chocolate ice cream, then maybe our anxiety levels in the days leading up to Tuesday would be lower. But America’s 2020 election is not about ice cream preferences but about what kind of country America is and should be. If you and I share nothing else, we do share anxiety. What can we do about that?

ACCEPT AND LEARN FROM YOUR ANXIETY

We should accept our anxiety as natural and a sign the stakes are high. Anxiety only attaches itself to things that matter. Thus, it can teach us something. Don’t run, ignore, argue or repress it. It is not your enemy.

Ask it to sit down and talk to you about what is on its mind. I have learned to respect and listen to my anxiety. By personifying it, I lessen its power over me. The more I have come to accept and learn from my anxiety, the easier it has become to understand that each human being I meet each day is probably anxious about something or very likely many things. Even you and your different vision about America and your support for THAT candidate.

Befriending my anxiety not only creates distance from it and me, it creates a distance between OUR differences and my anger at you. It does not reduce our differences, they are real and heartfelt, otherwise we would not both be anxious about Tuesday. However, once I turn and face my anxiety and take it seriously and learn from it, I naturally come to see you as an equal person. How could I not? Anything that helps me understand me, helps me understand you. And if I understand you, it is impossible to hate you. If I don’t hate you, I am less likely to fear you.

If I don’t fear you, I come very close to welcoming your membership in this wondrous cacophony we call American democracy.

Perhaps you can do the same.

Yesterday I zoomed with 45 people. Our group’s age range was 50 to 94. We talked for 90 minutes about the upcoming American presidential election. Think about THAT.

Not the topic or the devices or the virtual platform. Instead, think about the people in any Zoom gathering you have attended. Think about yourself. And give yourself a pat on the back. A year ago most of us had never attended a Zoom meeting. Today, virtual get-togethers have become part of our routine.

Weddings, funerals, concerts, reunions, classes, happy hours, yoga sessions…virtually anything can be virtual.

Last March we were in Timișoara, Romania where I was a Fulbright Scholar at the University of West teaching two courses to Romanian students in the American Studies Department. I had met my classes two times before the University made the decision to go ‘virtual.’ I remember thinking two things. This COVID shut down won’t last very long before the world returns to normal and while it does last I will send my students question prompts and we can use email and Google Drive, two technologies I was comfortable with, until the world returns to normal.

I had never taught an online course nor used a virtual platform. Zoom conjured images of Mighty Mouse flying through the air and not a technology I could use to connect with my students.

Of course, the world didn’t return to normal, and so after about a week of resistance I learned to use Google Meet for our class sessions. Today, Google Meet or Zoom is well within my zone of comfort.

The world throws COVID at us and everywhere I look I see individuals, families, businesses, local communities, states and countries responding in a resilient way. Every day is filled with moments different from what they would have been before COVID. None of this is meant to lessen the tragedies of COVID, the deaths, illnesses, and the never-to-be-gotten-back-chance to say good bye to a loved one.

Most of us don’t think very much of ourselves, at least some of the time. We put on a good show but we know ourselves too well to be very impressed. When I was an undergraduate student, taught by faculty with MA’s and Ph.D’s, I thought those academic credentials were outside my notion of what was possible, for me. Years later, after earning both, I have tended to downplay each, thinking if I could do it anyone could. It is easy to forget how hard we are on ourselves, how much we need to see clearly our beauty as well as our ugliness, our uniqueness as well as our mediocrity.

After yesterday’s Zoom session, I was filled with a sense of wonder, even re-directing some of it at back at myself. Look around you, and include in that looking yourself, and see, really see, all the ways you have adapted to this pandemic. Do the same for family and friends. Include that neighbor, you know, the one with the sign for the ‘other’ candidate!

We all deserve a pat on the back.

A modest rebuttal to these unpleasant days.

A CONVERSATION

On Saturday, Rebecca and I walked into a Decorah gift store to check out a throw blanket for a couch. As we wandered masked-up around the store, we noticed the only other customer talking with the salesperson behind the counter. Neither wore masks. Both were young women.

A few weeks ago the Decorah City Council passed a face-covering ordinance that applies to most local businesses. The measure passed 6 – 1. I thought about this mandate as we took a throw blanket we liked a few steps to the counter. The conversation went as follows, with each person speaking without defensiveness, in calm tones.

• Paul: If you don’t mind I’ll be standing back here because you’re not wearing a mask.
• Salesperson: That’s OK.
• Rebecca: Unless you can just put a mask on?
• Paul: I thought the city ordinance said you had to wear a mask.
• Salesperson: I have a medical condition.
• Rebecca: Yeah, that same thing is true at Fareway, with a couple of employees having a medical condition. Since you have a medical condition you might be at a higher risk.
• Salesperson: I just don’t don’t want to live in fear..
• Paul & Rebecca: We don’t either; that’s why we wear masks.

THE ESSENCE OF POLITICS

There it is. In a nutshell. The essence of politics. Politics is always about difference & conflict. In this case, it is opposition between two different but reasonable expressions of what one should fear. Rebecca and I fear getting COVID or getting it and spreading it to others. The salesperson fears a life constrained by one’s fears. In this post, I will not describe the merits of each perspective, one I share, the other I oppose, but only will suggest the value of acknowledging the reasonableness of each and the importance of not seeing one’s adversary as an enemy.

TWO STORIES

Last week Rebecca traveled back to Clarinda to go on a 30 mile bike ride with about 15 Clarinda friends. She felt safe as her friends all protect themselves from COVID through masks, social distancing and isolation. Their destination on Taco Tuesday was a bar in a small Iowa town. When the group arrived at the bar, they discovered one group member had made reservations inside, on this 97° day. No one inside the bar was masked, nor was the server.

Yesterday Rebecca and I decided to return to Decorah’s B-Fit kettle bell workout studio, for the first time since January. B-Fit follows a strict protocol regarding cleaning and distancing but we knew people did not wear masks during the workout. To our knowledge, there had been no COVID cases connected to B-fit since it reopened in April. We weighed the pros and cons and decided the health benefits of these workouts outweighed the COVID risks.

Rebecca drove 646 miles to join her bicycle-riding friends. Despite seat belts and other safety features of a 21st century car and bicycle helmets each trip was fraught with danger. The same is true for returning to B-Fit workouts.

“I JUST DON’T WANT TO LIVE IN FEAR”

To the store salesperson, wearing a mask is giving in to fear. To Rebecca, not getting in her car and driving on country roads, to truck-filled Interstates 35 & 80 would be giving in to fear. To Rebecca and I, not going back to B-Fit until a vaccine was available, and we are 100% sure we will not get COVID, is letting our fears limit our lives.

Are masked Rebecca and Paul really so different from the mask-free salesperson? Of course, we are differ on the mask issue. And perhaps our salesperson friend is supporting the ‘other’ candidate. If that is so, we may differ in other ways, really important ways. Our differences are real but not the only reality.

OUR DIFFERENCES ARE REAL, BUT NOT THE ONLY REALITY

And we ought not let our differences define each other as the enemy. Perhaps a first step down another path is to uncover inside ourselves a bit of what we find distasteful in that human being across the counter. It is possible, as James Baldwin puts it

To create ourselves without finding it necessary to create an enemy.

It is so easy to think of that salesperson behind the counter as an enemy. Baldwin knew this, about other counters, about lunch counters in Birmingham. He knew the very human temptation to define ourselves against the other.

Lincoln knew it as well. Which is why in his Second Inaugural he offered the words below, to the people and leaders of the Confederacy, once actual enemies who were now defeated friends, once again part of the United States of America.

With malice toward none, with charity for all.

Baldwin and Lincoln, complicated men who knew better than most the human cost of hatred, offer us words of wisdom, from their times, to ours. So that our time does not become like theirs.