https://www.theatlantic.com/ideas/archive/2019/07/what-makes-a-true-conservative/594889/) While I only see eye-to-eye with Wills on a few things, I have long appreciated his thoughtful and critical eye when it comes to culture and politics. He is one with whom I can respect even as we vigorously disagree. Or as they used to say: we can disagree without being disagreeable.
Such is no longer the standard by which popular or political culture operates. Rather, we now exist in a swamp of vulgarities. The mire has been bubbling up for decades, to be sure, but its ascent to acceptability as the new normal has been accelerated by Trump and his regime. "It’s all vulgarity, coarsening, semi-criminality” Wills contends - and frames his concern like this:
The norms, that is, what are normal and what are normative, cease to be normal. And cease to be normative.” His point is that Nixon, for all his crimes, evaded norms; he didn’t challenge them. He didn’t dispute them. He didn’t degrade them. In fact, he was ultimately done in by them. Donald Trump promised when he ran for president that he would overturn our norms, Will has said, and that’s one promise he’s kept. "It’s amazing to me how fast, and we saw this in the 20th century in a number of ways, how fast something could go from unthinkable to thinkable to action,” Will recently told MSNBC’s Lawrence O’Donnell. “And it doesn’t seem to me it’s going to be easy to just snap back as if this didn’t happen. It happened. And he got away with it. And he became president. And there will be emulators.” (Because) you can’t un-ring the bell. You can’t unsay what he has now said is acceptable discourse in the United States.” (ibid)
From my perspective, Wills is right both about the coarsening of public discourse and the normalization of destructive and degrading attitudes. And not merely on the political right - but throughout the body politic - right, left and center. As i was scrolling through my FB notifications yesterday, I was startled to read a meme from a local intellectual announcing that: ALL MEN ARE ASSHOLES. My shock was not at the scatological reference, however, but at the certainty of the comprehensive nature of this crude condemnation. A flood of reactions coursed through my head and heart including these three:
+ Certainly all men have assholes and most of us have acted like assholes some of the time. That some of us continue to do so repeatedly though is not proof that all of us remain in that camp. Such an ad hominem assault is both ethically and intellectually bankrupt.
+ What if the gender of this broadside had been reversed? Or rendered even more offensive by using some of the ugly and hate-filled words that reference a woman's anatomy? Would that be acceptable? True? Useful?
+ And then why post such bullshit on Facebook? As a person of faith the Tweets of DT are not our standard. The one we know as Messiah said, "If you have an issue with a sister or brother, take to them in private." Not Facebook. Or Twitter. I know we all do stupid things from time to time. I know I have - and will likely to do again. In the past, for example, I have unwittingly written some one-dimensional comments about Jewish spirituality. They were not intended to be hurtful but they came out that way. Thanks be to God a few of my Jewish and Christian colleagues called me out on them. Helped me clarify and correct them, too. That's what people of good will do: we own the log in our own eye before speaking privately to our friends about the splinter in theirs - but we do speak out. Wehner makes this point in his interview and pushes the envelope with Wills when he writes:Trump’s supporters on the right “misunderstand the importance of culture, the viscosity of culture, and I think they are not conservatives, because they don’t understand this,” Will said. “Nixon’s surreptitious burglaries were surreptitious; that is, they were done in secret because they were unacceptable to the country, and once exposed, they were punished and the country moved on. What Mr. Trump has done is make acceptable, make normal, a form of behavior that would get a third grader sent to the principal’s office or to bed without dessert.” Will argues that Trump’s agenda, to the degree it pleases conservatives, is what any Republican president would have done. “So the question is, What does Trump bring that’s distinctive?” Will said. “And it’s all vulgarity, coarsening, semi-criminality.”
For almost two years, I have not written much about the policies, actions or vulgarities of the current regime except when it comes to their atrocious actions against immigrants. I have also largely opted-out of participating in the partisan politics of my area, too. My limited energy has gone into small acts of cultural resistance and renewal: making hope-filled music throughout our region; learning how to wait and pray as part of the rhythms of Mother Earth; listening to the spiritual quest of beloved colleagues and friends; participating in local poetry conversations that empower people of all ages to find their true voice and share it out loud; offering music, love and presence to my friends at L'Arche; taking time to love and cherish our grandchildren;writing and reflecting on ways to honor the holy in our ordinary existence.
And I will continue to do mostly these things because this is how I can embody the "10 foot rule" of engaging the world that is within my grasp. It is where and how I can embrace sisters and brothers with encouragement, tenderness and respect. It is small. And slow. And often invisible. But let's be clear: there is also a need to speak out. Humbly, to be sure. Tenderly, too. But with precision and hope as well in order to rebuke those who abuse their power, to encourage those who are powerless and to evoke an alternative to the vicious vulgarity that has become the new normal.
One expression of this speaking out is the public presence of William Barber and the Moral Mondays movement. (go to: https:// www.commondreams.org/ news/2019/07/29/it-doesnt-have-be-way-faith-leaders-rally-detention-center-demanding-end-inhumane) The same holds for the work Carrie Newcomer and Parker Palmer are doing throughout the US with their Growing Edge events (https://www.newcomerpalmer.com/home) And locally let me lift up the Word X Word gatherings (http://wordxwordfestival.com/index.html)
All is not bleak. After our recent visit with our grandchildren, I also came across this that gets it right:
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