Literature’s Near Demise is Everybody’s Loss

                Literature’s Near Demise is Everybody’s Loss

               Published in Marietta (GA) Daily Journal, 1/28/18

            Those who think they don’t like literature should think again.  For instance, show me your favorite song and I’ll show you your favorite poem.  Or if you don’t like songs, you probably like letters, instruction manuals, the Declaration of Independence, or magazines.

            Why the disdain for literature held by so many Americans?  Perhaps it’s because the first Americans were a frontier people.  When the Jamestown settlers hit the coast in 1607, they didn’t form a book club, circle up, and read.  They cut down trees, built cabins, and raised crops.  We should be grateful, though, that William Bradford of Plymouth Colony began recording what colonial America was like.

            If ancient Greece was Man Thinking, ancient Rome was Man Doing.  The first Americans were, culturally, both Greek and Roman.  The American colonists bequeathed us not only a Roman ruggedness and a distinct work ethic, but also a Greek bent for writing things down and preserving them. 

            No, we don’t dislike literature.  We simply dislike some of the forms literature takes.  Maybe the reason so many claim to dislike literature is that they equate it with poetry and fiction only.  America’s first literature was neither.  It was written speeches, sermons, and political documents. Our earliest fiction appeared almost two centuries after colonial times.

            We also negatively associate literature with school.  Effective schooling requires a good measure of self-discipline.  So does reading.  Also, words in a book don’t dance around as do those on a screen.  They sit still.  It’s good that they do.  Still words, like still pictures, allow thought and examination.  But seduced by gadgetry, we opt for the quick and easy.  Smart phones, that is.

            Back to poetry.  If you think you dislike poetry, Google the song “El Paso” by Marty Robbins.  Hear its story line of a man’s love for a woman.  It’s a “western” story-poem.  Note the song’s rhyme.  Zero in on its vivid word pictures: “Rosa’s Cantina,” “the badlands of New Mexico,” and “the wicked Falina.”  Enjoy the song’s poetic elements, then write me and tell me you’ve never enjoyed poetry.

            If country and western music (poetry) doesn’t ring your bell, hearken to England’s William Wordsworth, the 19^th century nature lover who should appeal to any reader weary of Atlanta traffic.

            In “Tintern Abbey” Wordsworth reveals a deep nostalgia for boyhood when “Like a roe,” he “bounded o’er the mountains / By the sides of the deep rivers and the lonely streams / Wherever Nature led.” 

            Further on, “Nature never did betray the heart that loved her / For she can so inform the mind that is within us / So impress with quietness and beauty, that the dreary intercourse of daily life / Shall ne’er prevail against us.”

            Ok, Wordsworth is lofty.  But Bocephus (Hank Williams, Jr.) isn’t.  Try “If heaven ain’t a lot like Dixie, I don’t wanna go / If it ain’t got a Grand Ole Opry like they do in Tennessee / Just send me to hell or to New York City / It’d be about the same to me.”

            Somewhere between these two wordsmiths stands the gallant Lincoln, known for his way with words as well: “With malice toward none; with charity for all; with firmness in the right, as God gives us to see the right, let us strive … to bind up the nation’s wounds.”

            Literature isn’t just for escape, but for engagement. Historically, it has been a “ram’s horn” calling us to ideas and ideals that have enriched civilization.  Escape can be found in television’s diet, but beware: most of it is morally poisonous and intellectually vacuous.

             Technology’s effect on literature has been dire, diminishing the life of the mind.  For civilization’s sake, let’s allow our Wordsworths and Lincolns to inspire us, and let Bocephus’ humor lighten our load.

Has progress in technology equaled progress for the human race?  In large part, yes.  But technology isn’t a place where minds and hearts can meet and collaborate.  Literature is.  Stories, poems, letters, essays, and histories hold the cure for far more societal needs than we realize (knowledge of our grandparents, values, cultural norms).

            Technology hooks us on emails and instant messages.  Literature trains us in clear sentences and genuine communication.  What we are calling connectivity is actually distraction.  That great blessing, the internet, has led to very little genuine communication.  Our constant connectivity has become a curse on family life and a killer of true communication.

            How we need to read and talk!

Roger Hines

1/24/18 

Donald Trump: The Nation’s Mirror Populist

                        Donald Trump: The Nation’s Mirror Populist

               Published in Marietta (GA) Daily Journal,1/21/18

            Let’s see: Russian collusion, the evil Steve Bannon, mental instability, vulgar language, and now a porn star connection.

            What will Trump-haters sling at the President next?  How much longer can the national media keep their rapid heartbeat in check without exploding?  If anybody’s stability should be called into question, it’s the television commentators who cried, literally, on election night in November of 2016 and warned us that economic depression and nuclear war were coming.

            All we’ve ever heard about the stages of grief is being altered by Trump-haters.  The first stage of grief is denial.  Your loved one didn’t die.  You’re just dreaming.  But no, your loved one did die and you’ll eventually face the hard truth.

            But in the case of Trump’s election, denial continues fourteen months later.  It’s obviously mixing with the second stage, anger.  How could this happen?  What has America come to?  Incredibly, anti-Trumpers have also edged into the hatred stage, one the grief experts never told us about.  Denial, despair, denunciation.  This mixture of emotions is not good.  Suicide watch for Trump-haters might be in order.

            The real problem of Trump-haters isn’t Donald Trump himself.  It’s the 63 million Americans who elected him.  But the haters can’t see this.  Since they cannot fathom that 63 million Americans would vote for Trump, they practice transferral, dumping all of their hatred on Trump alone.  That many voters in their right minds would never vote for Trump.  They will realize by 2020 what they’ve done.  They don’t really support him.

            Ah, but they do.  They support him because he held up a mirror to America, unveiling hypocrisy.  For instance, it’s nice to see Hollywood types and TV “journalists” finally showing concern about vulgarity.  Where have they been?  Political liberals and Hollywood titans have always been bedfellows, producing and promoting movies and lifestyles that are v.u.l.g.a.r.  But that’s different, they claim.  Private or personal vulgarity is one thing; public vulgarity is another.

            Nope.  What we do in private is what we are.  Turns out Donald Trump is holding up a mirror to all of us.  We needed it.  LBJ, Nixon, and Obama all talked ugly.  The liberal cry of the ‘60’s was “Tell it like it is.”  We now have a non-smoker, tee-totaler President who does just that.  Behind his verbal blasts are a transparency and an absence of pretense Americans have never seen in a politician, with the possible exception of Harry Truman.

            Haters are doing to Trump what earlier ones did to Churchill, Truman, and Reagan.  Like Trump and FDR, Churchill was of the upper social class and was considered a traitor to his class.  So down to earth was he, so given to populism, that his enemies labeled him “insane.”   Those labels stuck and an ungrateful nation kicked out of office the man who had victoriously led them through a world war.  America’s media can’t seem to make labels stick on Trump; consequently, a new accusation and “crisis” every week.

            Truman, a haberdasher, and Reagan, a B-rated actor, were both “of the people.”  Both were re-elected.  Lovers of democracy understand populism and resist the bum rap given it by the media.  Trump is a populist.  He likes ordinary people and they like him.  He recently re-stated that rich people never liked him or his father, but cab drivers and construction workers did.  That’s populism illustrated.

            “Dumb,” non-reader Trump was smart enough to outsmart 17 seasoned candidates in the Republican primary.  He did so because he held the mirror up to things his opponents would not:   porous borders, smothering regulations, and the failed gospel of globalization.  Trump’s candor brought him to office.  It will most likely return him to office.  The new, recent self-righteousness of the left will not deter him.

                        Charges that the President is a “dope” serve only to pull his deplorables closer to him.  His restless quality and verbal grenades probably won’t cease, but does anyone think Trump voters didn’t know what they were getting?  Will the continuing good economic news not increase his base?

            Trump is pragmatic and “non-ideological” as is our changing world.  The isms of the past century (Nazism, Fascism, Communism, and probably Globalism) have had their day.  What matters now is economics, that is, jobs and food.  Ideology matters less, competitiveness more.  Guess who realizes this.

Trump doesn’t present grim prospects for Republicans in 2020.  His faithful deplorables will look forward to seeing egg on the face of the media – again - three years from now.

            The media’s reign of error may be over.

            “Vox populi!”

Roger Hines

1/17/18

Since When was Nullification Unspeakable?

                         Since When was Nullification Unspeakable?

               Published in Marietta (GA) Daily Journal, 1/14/18

             “Nullification” has become an objectionable word.  It hearkens back to Martin Luther King’s description of George Wallace’s lips that were “dripping with the words of interposition and nullification.”

             King made a valid point about the confirmed but later repentant racist governor, but let’s not illogically leap to the position that nullification itself is evil.  Selfless men and women more than once have interposed themselves, risking life and possessions in order to advance freedom.  What were the founding fathers doing if they were not nullifying the harsh, legal power that England held over them?  Simply put, the colonies seceded, and with Jefferson’s ringing sentences in the Declaration of Independence, they set a new course which we now look back at and celebrate.

            Nor were southern states out of line when they took identical action.  Drawing from the Declaration’s very first sentence, the Confederates believed that “When in the course of human events, it becomes necessary for one people to dissolve the political bands which have connected them with another, … a decent respect to the opinions of mankind requires that they should declare the causes which impel them to separation.”  

            Only 85 years after the Declaration’s ink dried, Jefferson Davis declared his cause on the floor of the U.S. Senate which he was about to leave to lead the Confederacy.  A short time later, Davis would put it this way to one of Lincoln’s emissaries: “We don’t want your territory.  We care naught about seizing the government, or taking your capital city.  We only desire to be left alone.”

            Confederates were, in essence, nullifying the U.S. Constitution.  Their argument was “We joined, and we can un-join.  The Constitution was a compact.”  Many colonists opposed breaking from England and many southerners opposed breaking from the Union.  At any rate, we know the outcome of Jefferson’s actions as well as those of his namesake, Jefferson Davis.

            Such history, such uncertain moments in our past give “nullification” its scary overtones.  Even so, there is good reason today to consider the efficacy of nullification, that is, the right of states to nullify federal laws that clearly violate the Constitution, laws that produce federal overreach, strangling regulations, and downright tyranny.  That reason?  We are in a post-constitution era that ignores the Constitution.

            If the charming and persuasive Ronald Reagan couldn’t stop the federal government’s growth and increasing power, if Republican control of all three branches can’t or won’t, and if Donald Trump doesn’t, it’s time for the states to do what the Constitution clearly allows in Article V.  The federal government will never restrain itself.   From 1789 forward, federal power with its suffocating, unauthorized meddling in every area of our lives (see the 10^th amendment) has increased, despite the protestation of Jefferson, Madison, Calvin Coolidge, Reagan, and shamefully few others.

            Republicans are the best at lip service, but little better than Democrats at action.  Richard Nixon gave us the EPA.  George W. Bush pushed every school classroom closer to Washington, providing an example of the federal government’s seizing power not granted in the constitution (again, see the 10^th amendment, but first Article I, Section 8).

Does nullification sound radical?  No more radical than our unrelenting departure from Jefferson who first used the word “nullify.”  Ordinary citizens with small businesses can only watch in horror as the EPA and the IRS tighten their bureaucratic grip on businesses, families, and individuals.  I have a close friend who was badgered for years by the EPA over, among other things, the upkeep of a “beauty strip” (grass between the curb and the sidewalk) in front of his business. 

            As it turns out, our “checks and balances” have neither checked nor balanced.  Particularly is judicial power unchecked.  Need we mention government spending and bureaucratic fiefdoms in virtually every federal department and agency?  Think FBI for right now.

            There is help, but whether or not it’s on the way is the question.  Since 34 states are already preparing the way for a convention of states, surely one of their proposed amendments will clarify that the states do have rights. “States’ rights” is not a seditious term.  “Sanctuary cities” is.

            Probably what keeps us from reading our near-sacred Constitution is its ornate 18^th century language.  So sad.  So dangerous.  It paves the way to freedom, but we have allowed professional politicians to trash it.

            Again, read Article I, Section 8; Article V; and the 10^th Amendment if you doubt me.  I’m begging you!  Things are getting wobbly.  It’s time for ordinary people to do something.

Roger Hines

1/10/18

            

What We’re Not Teaching Our Children

                   What We’re Not Teaching Our Children

               Published in Marietta (GA) Daily Journal, 1/7/18

            Man cannot live by bread alone, yet how to get bread is currently the centerpiece of education.  The central aim of education today is careers or jobs.  Time was when education provided broad learning and taught us the meaning of life.

            If this sounds lofty and otherworldly, that’s because it is.  But in the recent past, education was more centered on big, significant questions such as how to be excellent, how to achieve, and advance the common good.

            In other words, schools once taught philosophy. It wasn’t always called philosophy.  It was most often clothed in and transmitted through literature.  It was exemplified, of course, by parents and teachers who understood that their young charges needed some direction in life, some understanding of what matters most in life and of what inspires people to do and be their best.

  Consider the following chapter titles in a tenth grade literature textbook copyrighted in 1964, the titles indicating the subject matter of the poems, stories, and essays in each chapter: “Challenge,” “Principles,” “Love,” and “Death.”  Ponder the following chapter titles in a 1977 American literature (11^th grade) textbook: “The Examined Life,” “The Transforming Imagination,” “The Life Worth Living,” and “The Large Hearts of Heroes.”

            Lofty?  You bet!   But lofty, or things transcendent, is exactly what youth are starved for.  I know.  I’ve looked into their eyes for five decades.  They have not changed.  Still today their hungry eyes don’t hunger for jobs (bread).  They hunger for meaning, purpose, and a measure of joy.  This doesn’t mean they don’t understand that to eat, we must work.  It simply means their fundamental need is not bread.  Their need is to dream, to imagine, and to catch hold of something bigger than themselves.  That’s what Edison did.  And Socrates, Steve Jobs, Gandhi, Jackie Robinson, not to mention the non-famous who have simply lived life well.

            Reading about movers and shakers or little known heroes is beneficial.  But who wants to read anymore?  Fast moving screens are far less trouble, especially when you can hold them in the palm of your hand.

            Concomitant with our growing disdain for literature is the loss of manliness that is occurring throughout Europe and America.  If the West is to outlast the gay revolution and all the transgender trendiness, it must re-discover what it means to be a man and a woman.  It’s past time for people of reason and common sense to raise holy heck about social trends that are pulling our children and youth away into absolute insanity.

            In 1973 Gloria Steinem remarked that a woman needs a man like a fish needs a bicycle.  In 1991 Anita Hill accused Clarence Thomas of sexual harassment.  Steinem, through articles and speeches, spread the feminist gospel, denigrating men.  Hill, for all her passion in her charges against Thomas, criticized the women who accused Bill Clinton of sexual misconduct. 

            Further evidence of sexual chaos is the recent claim of a Miss Universe contestant that during  pageant rehearsals Donald Trump made her feel like an object; she who had already paraded half-naked all the way to the Miss Universe finals.  No loftiness there.  Craziness. Schools and universities are not resisting craziness. They’re fostering it. Parents now bear all the burden of steering their children right.  Schools used to reinforce what parents taught.

            What we are not teaching our children is that life is temporal.  Is it foolish to tell a 15 year old that he will probably live less than 95 years and that it’s wise to plan those years?  Is it cruel to speak of death and the brevity of life, to raise philosophical questions such as Why are we here?  What is morality?  Why is virtue a good idea?

            Most teenagers are eager to deal with such questions.  Yes, they need to be introduced to the world of work, to develop a skill that will bring them bread and joy.  But they also need to know how to face life, to practice self-restraint, to embrace anew “our fellow man.”

            Such is philosophy, that is, the simple love of wisdom.  It is wise to point our children to something bigger than a big house and a big car.  There are too many big questions that need answers and too many well-fed people who are still hungry.

            Our sensate, exhausted culture is in a centrifugal descent.  With our institutions – government, schools – faltering, parents must again lead the way and teach their children well.  The future of the nation demands it.

Roger Hines

January 1, 2018

           

             

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