Qoheleth and the Chasing After Wind, 2016 Style

I've been laboring the past week or so to consolidate my thoughts, and give a spiritual explanation for the very concrete political issues that we are facing. I've written much that I've decided to put aside for now, but that I'll probably try to incorporate into future posts. But it's all rather unwieldy and disjointed, which means that I'll need more time to reflect on these things before really being able to articulate where I'm coming from. But if I were to try to encapsulate what I'm thinking, I would use the words of that ancient sage of the Old Testament Qoheleth: 

I have seen all things that are done under the sun, and behold, all is vanity and a chase after wind. (Ecclesiastes 1:14)

A reading of the entire book will give you an insight into my thinking on this, but at least take a look at the first chapter. 

Elsewhere in that chapter we are told that generations pass, but the rivers continue to run to the sea as always, indifferent to our existence. We are just the latest inhabitants in a long line that have come and gone since creation. Anything we think is new was done already by generations long past. It's just that we have no memory of these things, and the sad truth is that future generations will have no remembrance of us. I believe that this communal amnesia can be true in any society, but is especially acute in one like our own which has willfully abandoned tradition and rejected the transcendent. 

In this we are actually faced then with a double dilemma: We are disconnected from a sense of history or tradition on the earthly level, but we are also cut off from a sense of the eternal. We are slaves of the present moment with nothing to guide us but the capricious dictatorship of our own emotions. All is a visceral chasing after the wants and desires of the moment. The present obsession with gender identity, for instance, is the result of a culture which has no reference point beyond five minutes ago, trapped in a self contained universe the size and consistency of a walnut shell. We are our own measuring stick of reality since there is no history, no tradition, no eternal outside our shells to consult. We are each the universal Magisterium of a personalized orthodoxy, and woe betide the person guilty of heresy against our personal dogma.

We know somewhere inside that this isn't right. We have a feeling somewhere in the deep recesses of our consciousness that we are being played; that we are being kept anesthetized by a chasing after technological gadgets. With head phones or ear buds firmly embedded, eyes pasted to the screen or vacantly staring into the mid-distance, these gadgets keep us cut off from active participation in the society by audio-visual narcotics - both soft and hard. The constant input from various media platforms feed us what we should think and how we should feel. This is simple stimuli though, fueled by raw emotion, not real substantial content. These entertainments keep us amused for a moment, but there isn't anything that forces the mind to think or question. Like a junkie we know that these electronic drugs are killing us, yet we're convinced that we'll die without them. 

The crisis we face right now is that our political culture, like the rest of it, is also disconnected from temporal history and transcendent values. Religion, for its part, has been reduced to politics and politics has been made a religion. I'd say ideology has replaced religion, but I'm not sure we're that sophisticated these days. There is nothing wrong with politics, in its proper place. And it's not that it is necessarily subordinate to religion as an institutional reality (that's a different debate, I think), but it is subordinate to God and the values that flow from His eternal wisdom. Since our politics are disconnected from a sense of national tradition and eternal truth we are, again, left to the whims of the moment. 

The discontent that has contributed to the rise of both Donald Trump and Bernie Sanders is rooted in that almost subliminal sense that the powers that be have been taking advantage of the present spiritual and historical disconnect to keep the masses chasing after the high tech wind, diverted by dead end self examinations, thus rendering us easier to control. Both men are appealing to some desire to recapture the vision of what being an American means, and Mr. Trump, at least, appeals to the idea that this is or was a Christian nation. Mr. Trump has no ideology accept raw nationalism, and Mr. Sanders' rage against the system is clothed in socialist principles, but his is still an emotional call to arms. Both men are charismatic in their own way, yet otherwise lack the standard resume of someone seeking the presidency, and that's the reason why they are making such an impact, and Mr. Trump as secured his party's nomination. 

Because so many have flocked to Mr. Trump  and Mr. Sanders doesn't mean that they are right to do so, or that these two people represent the best antidote to the current crisis. But Ted Cruse, along with any number of other contenders on his side, and Mrs. Clinton are the established order as far as many people are concerned. They are one's who have controlled the levers of power and are perceived as having led us down this path to begin with. They are being rejected because of this "insider" status, not in spite of it. 

Some commentators are critical of the respective party faithful for having abandoned the reasoned, conventional approach. It is argued that they are reacting out of anger (which is at least partially true), or they are nostalgic for a white dominated America of the past (more than implying racism), or they are sexist against Hillary Clinton (which I find unpersuasive). There are many different other reasons I've heard as well, most rather conventional, much rather condescending: all a chasing after the wind. Because the people are turning over the system doesn't mean that they are wrong to be angry and fed up, or that they shouldn't demand something other than what the respective party apparatus is putting forward. But with no intellectual or spiritual roots grounding their anger, the electorate is grasping for the first charismatic leader they hear who's been able to tap into their discontent: Messieurs Trump and Sanders keep it simple, they keep it visceral. Their rejection of the establishment isn't just lip service, even if they're really not equipped to back it up once in office.  But the desperate voter isn't thinking that far ahead, and so the chase for wind continues. 

End of Part One

21st Century Bread and Circus Democracy at Work

I vote, but I don't publicly endorse political candidates, so don't expect to find me throwing my two bits in here for anyone running for county clerk, let alone president. That's not what this is about. I just want to give a few thoughts on why we are through the political looking glass heading toward an electoral rabbit hole.

If you are one of those life long Democrats who saw the results out of Indiana Tuesday night and think the general election is a lock for your side, and the Republican Party is dead, hold off on making hotel reservations for Washington on January 20, 2017, as well as getting that Mass Card that reads RIP-GOP. I'm not saying Donald Trump is going to win. In fact I have to agree that Hillary Clinton should be considered the favorite at this point. It's just that nothing has gone the way it's supposed to this cycle, and we'd be fools to think the campaign is going to suddenly revert to business as usual now.

Add to that that Hillary Clinton hasn't been able to shake Bernie Sanders, someone who wouldn't get 5% of the vote if he wasn't a septuagenarian social democrat running on the coattails of the Occupy movement.

I'm not sure my attempt at irony worked there, but of course, in a normal election year Senator Sanders would have announced his candidacy, as he did, on April 30, 2015 and bowed out before the the trade deadline (July 31, for you non-baseball fans out there). This was Clinton's turn, and there wasn't even supposed to be completion. The Democrats were treating this as if she was an incumbent who, unless the party's not sure of his or her ability to win a second tern, normally runs for the nod uncontested. But Sanders keeps on bitting at Ms Clinton's ankles, in spite of the fact that his chances at forcing a contested convention, never mind winning the nomination outright, are beyond slim to none.

The big question is why. Why did the GOP nominate (presumptively) Donald Trump, a celebrity business man with no political experience? Why have the Democrats been unable coalesce fully around Clinton, a former first lady with legislative and cabinet experience who's been seen as the their sure thing candidate for 2016 since the day after election day 2008?

There are many plausible reasons we could come up with: I'll point to three possible ones:

1) Both Sides Tried to Fix the Nominating Process. 
I'm using the term fix in a very loose manner. I'm not suggesting that anyone cheated or broke rules, just that the rules were set to ensure an outcome. The reality is that the respective parties are essentially private entities that can choose their nominees any way their rules committees want. For historical reasons they've decided to make it a more open procedure, using the trappings of a democratic process. But that shouldn't blind us to the fact that there is still much maneuvering behind the scenes and both parties, this year particularly, wanted to make sure that their preferred outcome came to pass. The Democrats wanted to ensure that Clinton got the nomination, and the Republicans wanted to make sure Ted Cruz didn't. Both establishments got what they wanted, but at a price.

The suppressing of competition, an asymmetrical apportioning of pledged delegates through the primary process and early wooing of super delegates by Clinton made it hard for anyone to upend her through the voting process alone. But the truth is that she's really not that well liked, even within her own party. The solution was to limit the number of competitors, with any perceived threats, like Joe Biden and Elizabeth Warren, pressured to stay on the sidelines. Bernie wasn't taken seriously, but proved to be hard to shake because of his outsider status and social democrat rhetoric that appeals to millennials, among others. But for a rigged system, the race on the Democratic side would be much tighter. I have to ask, if Clinton is having such tough time closing things out when the nomination is being all but handed to her, how is she going to fare in the fall when she's going to actually have to fight for it?

The Republicans tried to fix things in more subtle ways, behind the scenes with donors and party officials pulling the strings, but none of them saw Donald Trump coming. If there weren't enough options on the Dem side, there were too many among the GOP. Trump, the best known of the "outsider" candidates stood out among the crowd of established politicians running, captured an early plurality of popular support and never looked back.

By the end, the party was stuck. They didn't want Cruz, an ideological conservative who's disliked by many of his colleagues, but none of the establishment candidates like Jeb Bush or Marco Rubio were able to garner enough popular support. The 17 original contenders didn't whittle down fast enough for support to shift to one clear challenger to Trump, and by the time it got down to Cruz v Trump it was too late. Depending on who you listen to there are just as many "Anyone But Cruz" people among the GOP establishment as there are "Anyone but Trumsters." So, they were successful in blocking the movement conservative, but now they have a nominee they can't control, who could not only lose big, but could actually cause the dissolution of the party itself.

2) The Mistrust of Institutions and Rejection of Tradition has Come to Fruition.
It's no great insight to say the the American people don't trust institutions or establishments. This has been true since at least the 1960's. From churches to the government to big corporations such institutions are seen as greedy, corrupt, uncaring and out of touch with the needs of the common person. But we have pretty much elected men and women to public office who are products of the very political-governmental establishment that we don't trust. Both Sanders and Trump represent breaks from that establishment. Sanders may be a senator, but he's served as an independent who caucuses with the Democrats, with radical bona fides that make him impossible to confuse with a party boss. Trump has never held public office, having dealt with both parties in his business life, while keeping enough of a distance so as to avoid the perception that he's in bed with either side.

Add to this mistrust of institutions a rejection of tradition. We are living through a time of rapid social change, especially on the morality front. The legal recognition of gay marriage coupled with  the wide spread rejection of the same social institution by heterosexuals represent major departures from cultural and religious attitudes that go back millennia. Because our nation is so young Americans have never had a good sense of tradition. I think there are other, even stronger reasons as well, but it would be too much of a digression to get into right here. The bottom line is, that appealing to the wisdom of the ages, or established rules of logic is not going to work in convincing their supporters  that neither Trump nor Sanders may be qualified to be president. All they know is that the professional politicians and bureaucrats have been in charge for too long, and a real change is in order. Institutions and traditions have failed us, so the thinking goes, and we must chart a new course freed from the encumbrances of the past.

3) Donald Trump is Not a Fringe Candidate in the Minds of Many Voters
David French wrote an interesting piece in National Review Online, giving his three reasons for the rise of Trump. One was that because of the divide between popular culture and political culture, presidential candidates are not well known to the general public before they actually run. They may be household names around the breakfast table in a news junkie's kitchen, but to consumers of popular culture, who increasingly are not paying attention to hard news, they are cyphers. Candidates have a relatively short time to create an image in the public's mind, and this image is fragile, easily defaced by the opposition. Often it's the negative image that sticks.

But in the case of Donald Trump, he's been in the public eye for over 30 years. The general public "knows" him, even though they probably wouldn't know their congressional representative if he shook their hand. You can call Trump a racist, narcissistic, demagogue fascist who tortures kittens in his spare time all you want. The average guy or gal on the street has already made up their mind as to who he is, whether good or bad, and nothing the press or electronic mass media (other institutions the public increasingly mistrusts) say is going to change it.

To the political class Trump is a fringe candidate, and the Constitution does have provisions to protect us from potential despots taking power. The Electoral College, along with the "natural born citizen" clause in the Constitution, were meant to prevent some fringe, and possibly foreign, would-be dictator from sweeping upon the scene, stirring up the emotions of the people, and winning the presidency with, say, 33% of the vote in a three or four way race. In such a case where no one wins enough electors the election switches to the House where a compromise candidate is chosen. I think this is an under-appreciated constitutional mechanism that shouldn't be overthrown lightly.

But the hard truth is that Trump is only fringe to the political class. For most people he's a successful real estate developer, TV personality and author. His name is written in superhuman sized letters on buildings across the nation. He doesn't speak like a politician, in polished, well crafted speeches, but off the cuff in words that can be blunt and crude, but hard to misinterpret. In the popular culture he's not fringe; he's a very mainstream presence, and for those weary of the "party line," mistrustful of the establishment, he's just the solution to a failed system.

In Conclusion
A common thread running through all this, as far as I can see, is that there is a disconnect in American life. There is an establishment, and it has tried to keep the public distracted with music, movies, video games, role playing games, websites and apps that draw us into an inner life devoid of outside contact with the human or divine. We are fed our "rights," especially where our personal autonomy and identity are concerned, but there is no talk of corresponding responsibilities. We are kept perpetually distracted, not really meditating on the deeper meaning of reality. Better yet, we are convinced that no such meaning even exists. We should be satisfied knowing that our rights are respected, that we can be pleasured with random stimuli and sensual excitement whenever we want. Then the establishment is free to rule with the consent of the distracted, but comfortable, masses.

But it didn't work this time. It's not that people woke up, so much as the establishment's very machinations and manipulations ended up working against them. They create and destroy media personalities on a whim, but one more cunning than themselves turned the tables on them. They want a big, all encompassing government presence, but they also want their mansions and stock options. Then a true socialist came along, who doesn't see the Occupy movement as a tool but a means, and they're thanking their lucky stars that their procedural firewall has held, so far.

What we are seeing is what happens when any reference to a transcendent reality (I mean God, if you didn't catch that) is taken away. There will be a rebellion eventually, even if the rebels aren't sure what they're trying to over throw. There is a spiritual huger that human politics and culture, popular or high, alone can't fill. We know that, so we're rejecting the status quo, and trying something, anything, other than what's been done before. One side is rushing to a cult of personality created by the popular culture establishment , the only culture they know. The other is clinging to an ideology learned in a schools system controlled by the establishment left. In a way the establishment built this monster itself, and is about to get eaten by it. They try to appeal to reason, to precedent, to the founding spirit, but it's like talking Swahili to a Laplander. These concepts are meaningless in a culture mistrustful of institutions, that place more value in emotions than logic, and has no appreciation of traditions. Everything begins and ends in the individual, in the moment.

God opens us to something bigger than ourselves. The God of Abraham, Isaac, Jacob and the Apostles opens us to the idea that God is here now, but has been walking with us as well, guiding us to a destiny. We move forward into something new, with a firm sense of who we are, who we have been, and with a firm purpose that transcends the emotions of the moment. We are lacking that purpose and sense of the transcendent right now, and we are paying a steep price.

Without an outside standard rooted in God, and the Gospel of Jesus Christ, we are doomed to replace one failed system with another. We will replace one soulless establishment for another, get one cult figure in the White House in place of another. As long as it's all about the here and now, about the material or even emotional well being of the individual without reference to community and God, the relief will only be temporary, if at all.