Resistance and Renewal: Thinking Our Way Out of Dark Times
Continuing my multilayered answer to the question of how America became Trumpian, my last reflection concerned the elements of political order as presented by Francis Fukuyama as a model to understand the decline of the political order in the last four decades that culminated in the election of 2016.
In this reflection I want to go deeper into the human condition and our potential for evil as evident in the actuality of human cruelty. I am guided by two of my continuing mentors: the Jewish German American political thinker Hannah Arendt and the French resistance philosopher Maurice Merleau-Ponty. Both lived and reflected much on totalitarianism as the antithesis of democracy.
Arendt’s later works, those coming after her Eichmann in Jerusalem (1963), depicted personal and collective evil in the neglect or refusal to think. Merleau-Ponty’s later works, after his Structure of Behavior and Phenomenology of Perception, shifted attention to the “invisible” context or “spiritual” background of human engagement of physical things in the world.
Here are the contours of their argument:
1. There is a distinction between thinking for truth which is in the province of common sense, science, and knowing by attending to things in the world that are sensible and thinking for meaning which is in the province of religion, aesthetics, and philosophy by experiencing the non-sensible aspects of human activity in the world.
2. Human being is embodied soul, corporate consciousness, part of the visible sensible world and the invisible nonsensible world, in between subject and object, neither one nor the other but both which allows humans to be incorrectly treated as one or the other, but correctly as both intertwined. The separation, instead of distinction, of body and spirit is the crucial fallacy — which also grounds the fallacy of the separation, instead of distinction, between thinking for truth or knowledge and thinking for meaning or beauty.
3. Human fulfilment consists in bodily persons expanding consciousness. Consciousness is structured as in between a self and other selves (intersubjective), in between past and future (temporal), in between persons and things (intentional), and in between the real and the ideal (transcending). An expanding consciousness is in growing presence with all these poles — self/others, past/future, persons/things, real/ideal.
4. Intersubjectivity (i.e. empathy), the sharing of soulful bodies through language and other symbols, is the foundation of morality and politics. The personal and collective appreciation of good and evil, including conscience (moral consciousness) and judgment (collective consciousness), are discovered in the events of personal behavior and collective action. The limits or lack of empathy constitute the failure of personal conscience and collective consciousness, i.e. ethics and politics.
5. Thinking is the dialogue that the person has with oneself in privacy after a dialogue with others in the world, that is, in return home from the forum. It is a reflection, even a doubting, of all that has been expressed in word or action. It is a critique of the convenient truths and the conventional morality in preparation for tomorrow’s entry back into the assembly with others. It is the two-in-one experience of conscience that tells me what I must say and do to live with myself. When I simply take the way of agreement without reflection, I may find it easier to live with some people, but not with myself.
6. Character, which is often another name for “soul” whether for an individual or a society, is constituted by activities that become habits of conscience and consciousness. Meaning requires a sense of faith without objective evidence in the human prospect, no matter if or how it is expressed in a belief system. Without meaning and faith, I personally and/or collectively act for nothing and no one except my own survival and enrichment. But if I am in the habit of thinking, I will find out that I cannot live with myself when I act with others.
7. A person who does not think has no soul and, and suffers limited, declining, consciousness.
And that is how Arendt appraised Eichmann. She witnessed the man who was the main organizer and engineer of the Final Solution, the murder of thousands of men, women, and children as very intelligent, very educated, very dutiful, a good family man. He was obedient to his Leader and authorities. He was no monster. No sociopath. Not insane. He knew what he was doing. He knew its consequences. He was moral, carefully following the Law of the nation and claiming to follow the Kantian categorical imperative given by God and Nature. He was able to deny responsibility for murder as he carried out his responsibility to the law and authority.
He had no conscience, no desire to argue with himself as he expertly carried out his orders. This according to Arendt is the worst kind of evil. Worse than the evils of killing, violence, and domination for personal gain, vengeance, momentary advantage, contest or war. The “banality of evil” permits cruelty, senseless pain, and loss without thinking. Without thinking, there is no apology. No desire for forgiveness, no need for reconciliation, no possibility of rehabilitation. It is the complete negation of humanity and the utter denial of meaning.
I consider Donald Trump as a man without a soul, a man who does not think, a man without conscience. As Arendt says, in this evil the self, one’s own and others, is not involved or considered. It is a “nobody” who acts. To him he behaves perfectly and logically. I make my assessment without blaming, shaming, or naming, and certainly without fearing or hating him as evil.
Nevertheless, I resist with all my power his policies that I see hurting people I love and the nation as a whole. I despise these policies that do not meet my criteria and hope for a beloved community, one not bound by violence or permitting cruelty to any person even criminals and enemies. Nevertheless, I don’t know if he has the ability to be responsible.
He shows little ability for recollection, reflection, or reparation. He shows little sense of humor which involves laughing at and so confessing one’s own foibles and mistakes. He never expresses sorrow nor asks forgiveness. To do so he considers a weakness. He never admits his anger and payback to those who cross him. He seems to see people on competing sides as either winners or losers. He seems to have no feeling for children and families separated in cages at the border. He seems to have no feeling for young immigrants brought into the country as children. He seems to have no feeling for persons cut out of the safety net. I do not know if he is responsible since I acknowledge that his behavior meets the marks of mental illness — clinical narcissism and social pathology. So perhaps not as evil as Eichmann who, in Arendt’s reporting, had the opportunity to respond but totally abdicated responsibility.
While I doubt that Trump is responsible, whether for genetic or environmental reasons, I still want to shield myself, my loved ones, and my nation from him in any way I can.
Most critical thinkers understand the thinking deficiency of President Trump in studying his campaign for the presidency and the 3-year exercise of his presidency. What confounds most thinking people are his followers and enablers and most recently the senators and traditional Republicans who do not stand up to him as he undermines the elements of political order — rule of law, democratic state institutions, and accountable government. I can think of five kinds of these enablers: 1) those who consider politics as a talking game, a kind of hobby, a kind of sports competition, not essential to human existence to gain and exert power to change policies. 2) those who want to identify with those they identify as winners in life often because they see themselves as losers. 3) those who are angry at and resenting winners, educated elites, publicly supported minorities and outsiders reaping success at the cost of the silent majority, less educated, and disrespected left-out. 4) those who do not think by blaming others, by abdicating responsibility, by grasping memes and stereotypes, and by choosing a strong man who will take care of them. 5) those who choose to hang out with the Trump mind, those who measure success and winning in terms of domination, control, and wealth.
What makes the analyses of Arendt and Merleau-Ponty not bleak, but grounds for hope is that they direct us personally and collectively towards the solution — which is contained in the very condition and existence of humanity. All persons, unless severely disabled, have the ability to think. Because we are finite and mortal, because the new are born and the old die, because we are born into the world shaped by the past but able to innovate into the future, we can take responsibility to achieve the world we would like to have. But that of course requires innovative thinking and concerted action. Conscience and ethical politics.
Arendt summons the ghost of the Socrates (before Plato’s accounts) as a model of thinking. She summons another spirit to extend thinking to action and politics. It is the spirit of Jesus of Nazareth (before his followers made him the Christ or God).
Jesus, in the earliest writings of his sayings and life before they were incorporated into a theology and gospels starting with Paul, wandered around Palestine like an ancient philosopher speaking in public places during the day and then going into private places in the evening to meditate and pray. His primary message which he spoke and modeled was to love neighbors, strangers, sinners, and even enemies, to do good to all but especially those who need it most. He clearly identified with the poor and those left out of power. He was humble (humus means close to the earth) having no permanent place, owning little if anything, and very much aware of others and their needs. He seemed to relish the breaking of bread and drinking wine, i.e. sharing meals, with the folk.
Arendt points out that Jesus, a Palestinian Jew, took the ethics of the old scriptures much further than before and thus criticizing the prevalent morality of eye for an eye. But also, he radicalized the Hebrew ethics of welcoming the stranger and loving your neighbor with his teaching on forgiveness. Forgiveness is the way past the impasse of vengeance and extends to those who hate and kill you. He sought forgiveness for all persons accused of wrongdoing, the adulterer, the tax collector, the Roman legions, the prodigal son, thieves and prostitutes and all those afflicted with evil passions and spirits. They know not what they do. Except, as Arendt points out for those who commit the unforgiveable wrong, a skandalon which seems to be an offence against the “least of these,” the vulnerable, the children, and the community. For such persons it would be if they were cast into the sea with a millstone tied around their neck or for whom it would be better if they had never been born.
Jesus, she claims, went further than Socrates who said that it would be better if I suffered wrong than if I did wrong to another, which is a more negative judgment of wrongdoing, by teaching and practicing doing good. Arendt further claims that Jesus brought out a faculty of human being that was further codified by Paul. This is the faculty of free will available to every human person; will is the ability to act rather than be acted upon, i.e. being an agent rather than a recipient of behavbior. The ability to choose, following upon the exercise of the ability to think, offers the possibility of judgment and the taking of responsibility that leads to action over reaction and to a break in the seemingly natural order of violence to preserve and enrich life, that is, to work miracles. Doing good is the working of miracles, the faith that moves mountains as well as souls.
Conclusion:
This is my sixth exploration into my journey into the Why and How we got here in these Dark Trumpian Times. It consists in a late discovery with early mentors of the mind or spirit in personal and collective human being in the world, the invisible in the visible.
My first exploration was a dialogue with political economists regarding the expansion of the global corporate economy and its effects for both abundance and inequality. The second was a exchange with the historians of America who uncover the tradition of racism, xenophobia, and supremacy that has become a dimension of American growth — wired like DNA into the body politic. The third was a discussion with the students of cultural traditions including religion and philosophy and the history of ideas that have provided foundation and legitimacy to the American heritage. The fourth was a hearing with the students of the cultural and institutional traditions in modernity that have grounded our age of anger and resentment. The fifth dialogue was with those who study the political order and detect the elements for its growth and decline.
Since I like to consider myself a thinker in the tradition of Socrates and an activist in the tradition of Jesus, I look to these ideals for insight. This means I identify with them and with their followers with whom they identified. I intend to take on their spirit, their soul, their character, their style of being in the world and hang out with others who do likewise whether or not in the academies, temples, and public spaces often in (hopefully constructive) critique of these institutions. I intend to do so with full appreciation of my limits in corporeal consciousness in the here and now, locally and beyond boundaries.
My prescription can be conveyed in the old “See, Judge, Act” of Catholic Social Teaching, the “Mindfulness” of Buddhism, and the faith of a Mahomet Gandhi or Martin Luther King. I see that we are increasingly busy, challenged to find time to think. Yes, we are occupied at school and work. We are learning constantly by taking in information on TV and social media. We take positions. We assume identities. We work hard to be successful. We grasp for entertainment. But do we think? Do we examine our positions? Do we scrutinize our identity? Do we verify the information we gather? How do we define success? Do we think critically? Is our faith a commitment to pursuing truth and meaning or is it merely accepting the beliefs we have been given. And do we act in private and public in conscience or for expediency? Can we truly live with ourselves as we act in relation to others? That is what Arendt’s Life of the Mind and Merleau-Ponty’s attention to the Invisible in the Visible means to me.
The good news in these dark times is that the ability to think and to act is available to every human person, that new people are being born, and that all of us can be reborn by thinking anew. The Beloved Community is a future aspiration, but it is also a reality here and now in our aspiration. Resistance and Renewal are not only possible. They are here and now present in those who think and act.
Bibliography:
Arendt, Hannah. The Life of the Mind, 1981. Responsibility and Judgment, 2009.
Merleau-Ponty. The Visible and the Invisible, 1968