Duck Soup

I have been feeling especially busy lately, little time, it seems, to get into a good writing mode. Yet, of all things, I have off and on been picking up Roy Blount, Jr's little book about the Marx Brothers classic movie Duck Soup. I like his approach, almost a kind of DVD commentary, but much, much more discursive. He basically watches the movie and reports on what he sees and thinks about. He thus shares with us his favorite parts of the film and as he does so reflects on the people and the incidents that the flashes on the screen make him think of.

I have always loved Duck Soup, apparently for the same reason that Blount does. Because it is so utterly anarchic. It is one of the freest, most improvised, most outrageously absurd movies ever made, with little logic or plot, but a lot of energy, ridiculousness, and charm. It is now famously the movie that Woody Allen's character in Hannah and his Sisters wanders into when all he can think of is suicide and it cures him of the blues once and for all, sending him straight into the arms of one of the sisters. How silly! How perfect!

But wait! Is Duck Soup quite as absurd and as outlandish as it first appears? This is a movie made in 1933 about two countries relentlessly and foolishly going to war over an insult or maybe two. A slap here, a slap there. And abruptly the insistence that "this means war." That's the basic story. Is that so different from our own time or the period around 1933 as Hitler and Mussolini rise to power or, perhaps most pointedly, the events that push the great European powers into endless and destructive conflict between 1914 and 1918? Hardly. In fact, the clever people who wrote Duck Soup had all of these conflicts in mind as they constructed the script. They wanted to write a hilarious movie, but they also wanted to underscore all the absurd events that seem to force countries to go to war with each other. They were doing nothing less than writing an anti-war movie. They were doing nothing less than expressing their own dismay with how foolish people can be and reminding us perhaps that it doesn't have to be this way.

Of course, the Marxes are forces of nature. They are hard to tie down, to quiet down, to put down. Because they always have another comeback, another way to make somebody else look silly. There is a scene with the wonderful actor Louis Calhern as the president of the rival country, Sylvania, that wants to make war on the country Groucho is now head of, Freedonia. And in this scene Chico and Harpo have supposedly come in to help him, but all they do is annoy him, delay him, and impede him. They cut his necktie and the tails on his coat. They pull out a revolver and shoot at a recording that one of them has just thrown into the air as if rigging a skeet shooting event. They stamp his papers and his forehead, they staple his official documents and his fingers, they bruise him and abuse him until he is literally delirious. It is silly and even cruel, but it is also completely unhinged. To see something that far out, that removed from reality on a movie screen of any kind, even if it is a computer screen, is to see a form of disorganized genius that we have largely lost. We have become a little too mature and, well, sophisticated for the Marx Brothers.

Finally, there is that most modern of characters, Groucho, the man who for some still resonates, because he always has another wisecrack, another retort meant to keep the other person from gaining an advantage. And in the case of Groucho this is all done verbally, with nary a hint of violence. Groucho's character doesn't want war. What he wants instead is a license to insult, to make the other guy look ridiculous. And if he can't take it, then he would just as soon go to the neighboring town in the next county and insult him. 

Using language to impress, to cajole, to seduce, to diminish, to prevail over someone else, that is Groucho's idea of a good time. And it should remain exactly that, a good time. No one's ego should be so fragile as to need to retaliate with violence. That is Groucho's point and in a very real sense the point of this whole brilliantly harebrained movie.

The Early Childhood Education Imperative

Once again, the New York Times has printed a superb op-ed by Nobel Prize-winning economist James Heckman. Heckman continues to make the best case for universal public early childhood education. There just isn't any doubt any more that this is a good investment for children and for society at large. Please read Heckman here and then send a message to your Congressman about the need for more funding for early childhood education. It is one of the surest bets going.

And, if you like, you can read my own post about Heckman from February 16, 2013 on this blog. See below:

There is a Nobel Prize-winning economist named James Heckman who has been at the University of Chicago for many years during which time he has labored mightily to make the strongest possible case for the economic and social value of Universal Early Childhood Education. He led the team that reanalyzed the data of a famous longitudinal study called the Perry Preschool Project which originally seemed to show that high quality early childhood programs didn't make much of a long-term difference, especially when relying on cognitive measures such as IQ. But what Heckman found using econometric tools he created is overwhelming evidence that early childhood education is correlated with long-term changes in such positive social behaviors as persistence, focus, and collaboration that lead to much higher than expected economic success, family harmony, and vocational stability.

Heckman has convincingly demonstrated that:

High quality Early Childhood Education is strongly correlated with positive social behaviors that lead to economic success.

The poorest families have the least access to high quality Early Childhood Education.

By increasing the availability of high quality Early Childhood Education to children from low income families, the return on investment from economic growth and in reduced costs for special education and incarceration is at least 7 dollars for every 1 dollar spent. 

With the support of high quality Early Childhood Education, very young children can better develop key aspects of their characters that include: drive, cooperation, attentiveness, self-discipline, and delaying gratification. When these qualities are combined with nurturing key cognitive abilities, children not only do better in school, they do better in life.

In other words, early childhood education pays big dividends. The evidence is therefore more than strong enough to support President Obama's proposal to make Early Childhood Education a priority.

All of which leads indisputably to one conclusion. We have a wonderful opportunity to invest in our future by fully funding Universal Preschool Education. If we do it, the result will be one of history-making proportions. If we don't, we will be destroying the futures of many of most vulnerable children and in the process losing an important chance to create a society that as Jimmy Carter used to say is worthy of the generosity and compassion of the American people at their best.

Obsessed with Words

Sometimes it seems I am obsessed with print. When I'm not juggling a book or two, I'm trying to catch up on a handful of periodicals that often devote significant space (if not all of it) to book reviews. And when I'm not reading these things, I'm digging deeper into the New York Times to make sure I didn't miss anything essential, usually from their opinionator columns or from, well, yes, that's right, the Book Review. It almost seems as if I am really obsessed with important texts I can't possibly get to, at least for now, but that must be placed on some mental list of must-reads for that future time when I will have the leisure to leaf through some weighty but important 300-page tome about, say, scarcity and what it does to us.

In other words, while I do feel a need to be reading all the time, which is part of the obsession I have tried to capture above, what I'm really sort of tortured by is the book that got away. You know, that book I should have been reading, not so much because I can talk about it at cocktail parties, since, actually, I don't go to any cocktail parties, but that book which will finally and definitively supply me with all the answers to all those knotty questions that the world keeps posing to me and, of course, lots of other people as well. 

You know, questions having to do with the best ways to finally eliminate hunger, poverty and disease. Or questions about what it means to live a truly nonviolent life. Or questions about how to make the best possible case for why a liberal arts education is a good thing even though it may not lead to a high salary and secure employment. And, sure, questions, too, about how to figure out which play or movie to see that will result in the best use of my time given my family's limited budget.

I guess what I'm saying is that I read primarily to become a better person, maybe not in a personal and everyday way, but more in a moral and what's at stake for the world way. In essence, I am always trying to figure out how to live, and I look to books to help me make sense of this.

Maybe. Maybe that's why I read. No, no, let me put that another way. That is definitely one of the reasons why I read, but it may not be the main reason. I read now more than ever for a surprising reason, a reason that has gripped me in the last few years and even now takes me by surprise. I read primarily because I like words. I like how they look and how they sound and what they do when they are pushed up against each other. I am especially attracted to writers who do interesting things with words, though I don't read writers who separate sound from sense. I'm still looking for a good story and some good lessons about, well, you know, about how to live, but I want it done in an artful manner, but not too artful. I don't want it to be arty that is. I want it to be artistic and interesting and even kind of daring, but not so different that I become lost and disengaged and unable to stay awake.

Books don't usually put me to sleep. Unfortunately, I am more likely to fall asleep watching movies and plays, because I still lack that ideal guide who will lead me to all the shows perfectly matched to my tastes. In the case of books, I don't mind difficult texts. I like having to reread sentences, especially if they're really good sentences. Then I like to underline them and consider them more closely and say them out loud to see how they sound. When words are good, when they cogently capture some wonderful point, there isn't anything quite as satisfying. Which is not to say I could sit around reading individual sentences all day long, because most really good sentences need a context, a narrative to make them work. So I just love it when I spot a good sentence inside something really interesting that I'm reading, because it makes me think about how good sentences get formed and pushes me to try to compose two or three.

But it's hard to write good sentences, as you can tell from what you have just read. There probably isn't one really good sentence in this whole piece. Which drives me to go back to my books and my magazines, so that I can find one really terrific sentence to make my ongoing obsession for more print ultimately worthwhile.

Hunger and Food Bank Warehouse

Karen and I and a group of 27 Wagner College students spent our day at the New York City Food Bank Warehouse today. The New York City Food Bank is one of New York City's most highly rated and effective charities. It serves about 60 million meals a year and has worked tirelessly to advocate for public policies and state and federal legislation to keep poor people from going hungry, far too many of whom are young children.

What is especially impressive about the Food Bank Warehouse is its size - 90,000 square feet in all - as well as its efficiency - everything is carefully inventoried and catalogued - and as a result the Food Bank knows exactly how much food they are receiving and how it is being distributed to the various boroughs of New York City. And given the size of the warehouse and its unbelievable system for stocking enormous amounts of food - we saw shelf upon shelf of macaroni, sardines, and canned fruit - there seems to be almost no limit to the amount of nutrition the Food Bank can provide. And yet, even though the Food Bank serves 60 million meals a year through its exhaustive network, the need for meals is 4 times as great as what can be provided. This is a source of frustration and a goad for Food Bank workers to labor even harder, but the Food Bank cannot solve the problem of hunger alone. Only comprehensive federal programs that ensure every person has enough to eat can finally make the problem of hunger a thing of the past.

In the meantime, organizations like the Food Bank will always be essential. And what the Food Bank now does is nothing short of putting in place a scientific and highly systematized approach to distributing food. They know where the shortages and greatest needs are and using a kind of triage approach are able to work closely with a wide range of neighborhoods to ensure that the need does not overwhelm the neediest families and communities.

During our trip to the Food Bank Warehouse in the Hunts Point section of the Bronx, we toured the warehouse and got a sense of the immensity of their effort. It was staggering to step into the various rooms - some refrigerated and even freezer-like - to see how much food they have stored there. It was not unlike the scene from "Bicycle Thief" when we get a glimpse of the endless piles of linens that have been returned to pawn shops and placed on these shelfs that touch the ceilings of impossibly high storage rooms.

Once the tour was over, they put us all to work. Our job was to transfer macaroni from huge bins called pallets - each pallet is over a thousand pounds - into 3 pound plastic bags that were then placed in boxes that altogether hold 10 of the 3 pound bags. These boxes can then more conveniently be transferred to food pantries and soup kitchens for distribution, since few emergency food outlets can handle very large boxes of food.

The work turned out to be fun and fast moving and the more we did it the better we got at transferring the food to the three pound bags. The students felt a pride in doing this kind of work and in collaborating to make the work as fun and as efficient as possible. By the end of the day, they had transferred 5 pallets of food into small bags, which translated to making it possible for 3000 additional people to have access to meals.

Even though it was a trek to the Warehouse and the work was enervating, the overall experience was one of satisfaction. We did work that will help people put off hunger, which will allow them to do better on their jobs and support their children in doing better in school. These were good outcomes that we were helping to bring about and we were proud to contribute. We also know that our support of the Food Bank helps it to continue to attain its mission of ending hunger in New York, by feeding hungry people and by advocating for policies that ultimately make widespread hunger an impossibility. We have a long way to go, but the Wagner students' efforts are testament to how much just a few people can do to make a difference for thousands of others.

We hope that our experience at the Food Bank Warehouse will lead to other such opportunities and to Wagner College students gaining a deeper understanding of the roots of hunger and what can be done to finally eliminate it once and for all.

Betting on the Future

I was intrigued by an op-ed that appeared in the New York Times on Sunday, which turns out to be a brief synthesis of a new book by historian Paul Sabin about a wager between doomsday biologist Paul Ehrlich and conservative economist Julian Simon regarding the world's environmental future. Ehrlich, whose 1968 blockbuster "The Population Bomb," had predicted dire consequences for many parts of the world if population growth and environmental degradation went unimpeded, predicted that the price of five precious metals - chromium, copper, nickel, tin and tungsten - would rise precipitously. Julian Simon predicted that the cost of these metals would stabilize or even decline owing to technological innovations and the inducements of the free market. In 1990, Ehrlich conceded and sent Simon a check for $567.07, which presumably was the difference between a $1000 bundle of the five metals when they first arranged their bet and their actual value in 1990. Simon was right. The price of the metals was considerably lower despite an increase in the world's population of almost a billion people.

Simon was also right that human ingenuity should never be underestimated, especially when it comes to making big bucks from the fluctuations in the price of commodities like these metals as influenced by new technologies and complex but trackable market factors. Simon, in other words, was siding with human cleverness and creativity and found that this faith was not unfounded.

However, as Paul Sabin points out, Paul Ehrlich may have lost the bet in the short term, but his early warnings about overpopulation and the limits of environmental sustainability were far ahead of his time, and his questions about the trade-offs associated with unlimited growth - the barrier reefs that are eroded, the bird populations that are decimated, the public parks that are encroached upon - make one wonder whether such sacrifices for the sake of unchecked economic expansion are worth the price. Just taking into account the unprecedented levels of carbon dioxide that now contaminate the atmosphere and the bizarre and dangerous climate patterns that are increasingly part of our everyday lives, one can't help concluding that Simon's obsession with a short-term gain is exactly the dynamic that has gotten us into so much trouble in the long run. Ehrlich's prediction that India was a lost continent may have been rash, but it was made in the context of environmental policies that showed no respect at all for ecological balance and that now may be leading to the very apocalypse Simon was so quick to malign.

For all of our sakes, let's hope that the truth is somewhere in between what Simon expected and Ehrlich predicted. But the conservative adulation for Simon and his championing of unfettered capitalist markets is not just premature, it is downright dangerous.

Theatre Examples

I wrote about the power of theatre in a recent democratic engagement post, but did not give any examples, as my most loyal reader noted, of how theatre has become the site "where we work out many of the perplexities of everyday life." Furthermore, I did not explain how it has become "our collective conscience writ large and writ bare for all to tear down or build up" and can act as the best public space for articulating the civic philosophy that animates our thinking and spurs on our actions. I went on to say, again without examples, that theatre matters as no other art form does. It shapes how we see ourselves, including our very identities, and without it we are diminished as thinkers, creators, and doers. 

So my challenge at this point is to offer examples of how theatre does this. One example that comes to mind is Larry Kramer's "The Normal Heart," a play from the mid-1980s about the early days of the AIDS epidemic, and how desperate people were to understand what was happening to their community, while also retaining their humanity and their need to reach out to others, regardless of what some saw as great risks. We recently saw a revival of this play, and there is no way in a few words to capture the passion, the love, and the sheer desolation of people diagnosed with a fatal disease they did not understand. But the compulsion on the part of the protagonist of the Normal Heart to speak out loud about the suffering he saw around him and to call on people to rally around one another makes this a vivid and lasting document of a most distressing period.

Clybourne Park is another play that comes to mind, a recent Pulitzer Prize winner, that tells the story of a Chicago neighborhood in two periods, first in 1959 and then 50 years later in 2009. It is a story about race and racism, about gentrification and historic preservation, but it is ultimately a story of the lengths people will go to to hold their communities together, even if this means excluding people solely because of their color, because somehow you think it is in your best interests to do so. The people in this play are not racist in the usual sense, but they are so trapped by what the culture seems to want they cannot see or think straight and therefore are willing to do great damage to themselves and their loved ones to uphold property values and keep a community "whole." It is also a play about how time, 50 years in this case, can so completely change the situation that the original dilemma about racial contamination seems quaint at best, and idiotic at worst.

A third example is a play we recently saw by Horton Foote at the Signature Theatre. It is a play called "Old Friends," and it is about a old southern family and how obsessed the family members are to preserve their wealth and their pride and how startling in character and respect the exception to this rule proves to be. Foote shows us people at their worst and at their best and in the process offers a portrait of a community in which the whole range of human emotions and possibilities is on display. We are in the course of the play both appalled and delighted by what we witness and all of this is accomplished through portraits of individuals that are, on the whole, balanced and true.

My final example is Shakespeare's "Romeo and Juliet," which we recently saw in modern dress and which relies on the premise that the two families are divided by race - the Capulets being Black and the Montagues being White. This premise adds interest and contemporary relevance, but the fact remains that the main part of the action, the tension between undying love for a romantic partner and the responsibility to do what a parent desires, remains as strong as ever. The two lovers come from feuding families and their parents want them to select different mates, but all they can see is that they love one another beyond all reason. Their fate as star-crossed lovers, so innocent and so utterly unaware of the mores of their society, remains as poignant as ever. Their parents' objections, which represent all of the rules and expectations of a civilized society, come across as destructive and impertinent, and ultimately serve as the tragic basis for the loss of the two beautiful lovers.

I could go on, and I will admit I may not have made the case as well as I would have liked, but my passion for theatre as the site for hashing out our most searing cultural conflicts remains as strong as ever. Of course, there is nothing like a lovely musical. But great plays that excavate the issues that matter most to us are one of the things, at least for me, that continues to make life worth living.

Why Theatre?

It is through theatre that we are offered the most excruciating human situations to navigate, the most challenging conflicts to adjudicate, the most troubling and confusing incidents to unravel. Theatre gives us life situations in concentrated form to chew on, wonder about, stumble our way through.

In other words, Theatre is the site where we work out many of the perplexities of everyday life, ranging from how to live to how to bring up our children to how to die with dignity. It is the place where we contemplate the right to kill another person and the right to insist that killing of any kind is always wrong. It is our arena for deciding what matters most to us and what can be set aside, at least for now. It is our collective conscience writ large and writ bare for all to tear down or build up. I really do think it is our single, best public space for articulating the civic philosophy that animates our thinking and spurs on our doing.

Theatre matters as no other art form does. It shapes how we see ourselves, our very identities, and without it we are diminished as thinkers, creators, and doers. Theatre defines the issues of our time and in the process defines how we see ourselves and others. It is a kind of public school of what the possible and impossible present themselves as, and it challenges us to become better selves than we ever thought possible.

Richard Wright's Portrait of White Supremacy

I am reading Richard Wright's 1945 narrative "Black Boy," and I am struck once again by the unremitting cruelty that is so common under White supremacy during the 1920s and 1930s. Regardless of where Richard turns, he runs up against the most oppressive and painful racism imaginable.

In an encounter with a group of drunken white boys, he is asked if he wants to drink from a flask. He answers, "Oh, no," and a whiskey bottle is suddenly smashed between his eyes, bringing stars and a near loss of consciousness. The White men making the offer shout out, "Nigger, ain't you learned no better sense'n that yet? Ain't you learned to say SIR to a white man yet?" The complete lack of concern for Richard's welfare becomes part of his challenge of navigating the uncaring world of White supremacy.

Working at an optical company in the deep South for many weeks, eager to learn the optical trade and to make a decent living, but constantly assigned to the most menial tasks, Richard finally goes up to one of the skilled workers and asks to learn. The retort is sharp and short: "What are you trying to do, get smart, nigger?" Seeking out another skilled worker for guidance, Richard is scolded, "Nigger, you think you're white, don't you?" No matter who he talks to or seeks out for mentoring, the answer is always the same. Who do you think you are? Some uppity nigger? You should just be satisfied to be where you are. Ambitions like yours are dangerous. They only lead to trouble.

In time, the Whites where Richard work trump up a conflict that puts Richard at risk. They show no regard for his well being, for his welfare. They focus on making Richard as nervous and as anxiety-ridden as possible. They make up stories, they manufacture conflicts, all designed to place him in the worst light possible. His firing doesn't matter. His suffering doesn't matter. His economic situation is irrelevant. Ensuring that he is on the hook, that his well being is hanging by a thread, this is what the practitioners of White supremacy most desire.

When Richard finally quits his job because he cannot stand the hatred and the uncertain cruelty any longer, he refers to himself as an unfeeling "non-man" who feels only vaguely human. He had lost touch with his humanity, which is exactly what the practitioners of White supremacy sought. They wanted him to lose himself, to be uncertain and weak in a world of overwhelming prejudice and unstoppable oppression. Lost in a sea of hate, Richard turns away, obsessed with a desire to escape the South and desperate to find a place where he had a chance, however slim, to become his full, creative, and truly magnificent self.

What leaders do...

What leaders do, when they are at their best, is to help others become leaders, too.

What leaders do, when they are at their best, is to give others at least as much credit and recognition as they receive as leaders.

What leaders do, when they are at their best, is to follow others thoughtfully when that is the right role for them.

What leaders do, when they are at their best, is to keep learning from those around them.

What leaders do, when they are at their best, is to support other people's growth, even as they also look after their own.

What leaders do, when they are at their best, is to build a culture in which people are constantly learning from each other.

What leaders do, when they are at their best, is to show unremitting passion for doing important work in collaboration with others.

What leaders do, when they are at their best, is to appreciate and honor their co-workers.

What leaders do, when they are at their best, is to dwell on assets and strengths at least much as they do on weaknesses.

What leaders do, when they are at their best, is to give everyone around them the opportunity and motivation to lead.

What leaders do, when they are at their best, is to insist on excellence, while also insisting just as adamantly that co-workers have the resources and support they need to actually achieve excellence.

Minimum Wage Revisited

Since it's Labor Day, let's revisit this whole minimum wage issue that was brought up on this blog a couple of days ago. Along with many other progressive commentators, I continue to be very worried about how low the U.S. minimum rate remains. It results in poverty-level salaries that make it difficult for people to put enough food on their tables, let alone have the resources to afford decent healthcare or be able to send their children to college. 

There is an intriguing piece in the online Atlantic, however that suggests the minimum wage rate in the U.S. compares more favorably than one might think to other Western nations. When you take into account the cost of living in these countries, then the $7.25 an hour rate in the U.S. comes in at an adjusted $7.10 per hour, whereas the highest adjusted rate can be found in Luxembourg at just a little over $10.00 a hour. Australia, which enjoys a very generous unadjusted rate of $16.00, falls to an adjusted rate that is less than $10.00. France's adjusted rate is almost identical to Australia's. So it turns out there is less of a difference between the U.S. and other wealthy countries than it first appears.

Yet, as the Atlantic is quick to point out, these adjusted rates do not take into account other factors, such as the cost of healthcare and higher education. And since in most of the countries the U.S. is compared to, healthcare is free and higher education is far less expensive or even free, the minimum wage gap once again widens considerably.

The Atlantic concludes that the U.S. looks just a bit better using these comparisons. But my sense is that when you compare, say $10.00 an hour to $7.00, and acknowledge that in France and Australia, the minimum wage workers have all their healthcare costs covered, well, that's a hell of a difference, probably on the order of $5.00 or $6.00 difference, maybe more.  This differential is exactly the amount that many people believe should become the basis for an increase in the minimum wage. That is, the minimum wage in the U.S. should now be at least somewhere between $12.00 and $14.00 an hour. Reassuringly, of course, once the Affordable Care Act really kicks in, this additional difference will lessen, though this will vary by locale and job type. In any case, an unnecessary and easily remediable burden on the low-wage American worker will remain.

To sum up, then, whatever light the Atlantic was trying to shed on this issue, we return to the original conclusion. The minimum wage in the U.S., by any standard or comparison, is too low, way too low. An artificially low minimum wage hurts people. It puts undue financial pressure on workers and their children. It keeps them and their children from eating well or getting the healthcare they deserve. The time has come to give the most serious consideration to significant increases in the minimum wage. It is in all of our interests to pursue this.

The Whole Dream of Democracy

"The whole dream of democracy is to raise the proletarian to the level of stupidity attained by the bourgeois." -Gustave Flaubert

I have been reading an absolutely stunning novel from 1984 called "Flaubert's Parrot" by Julian Barnes. The premise is to examine Flaubert's life through the explorations and reflections of a retired and widowed physician who is obsessed with Flaubert as artist and person. Which is ironic on many levels, as Flaubert thought his work should stand entirely on its own, without reference to details from his personal life. But the protagonist in Flaubert's Parrot, who is keenly aware of Flaubert's preferences, nevertheless ends up compiling a kind of catalogue of the novelist's personal quirks and opinions.

One especially fascinating reference is to Flaubert's attitude toward democracy, captured succinctly by the epigraph above. This is, of course, a familiar perspective, that democracy is a form of government in which the blind lead the blind, more or less, into mediocrity. As it turns out, Flaubert had a vague preference for some kind of oligarchic rule by a few well seasoned wise men. But in the end his attitude toward politics was a cynical one in which deliberations about public goods almost always lead to the perpetuation of the status quo from which those very oligarchs would most benefit.

The problem here, I think, is that creating high art and maintaining a decent society are two very different things, with quite different criteria for success. I don't quarrel for a minute with the idea that Flaubert was a writer of the highest order, whose painstaking choice of the right words, sentences, and paragraphs set him apart from most other writers. His literary standards were impeccable, and one of the reasons we still read him with satisfaction was his insistence, like all great poets, on committing himself to a final result that puts the best possible words in the best possible order.

But maintaining a humane, democratic society is a very different project. It is by definition messy, unstable, even a bit chaotic. Any effort to take account of the interests of the multiple constituencies that make up a democratic community is going to lead to tensions and conflicts that are not easily resolved and thus give the appearance of indecisiveness. This is the nature of the beast. My sense is, though, that we, on the whole, we have done surprisingly well at acknowledging and balancing those different interests.

Of course, we are far short of a democratic ideal, and we continue to favor the privileged over the least well off, as has been noted often on this blog. But in my view it would be worse, much worse, if we relied on some kind of elite board of decision makers akin to Plato's guardians. And to the extent I am right, this is where we want to avoid the tendency to give artists more influence than is healthy. Flaubert, as great as he was as a writer, is no more qualified than even the lowliest citizen to make judgments about the kind of society we should have. It is therefore at our peril that we rely on public intellectuals during civic deliberations whose biases and particular ways of seeing the world often distort their vision regarding the needs of a whole community.

We need the Flauberts, of course, to represent a certain category of citizen but no more so than the Smiths or Gonzalezes or Changs, who also know best what their neighbors most require to become their best selves and to thrive as persons and as contributors to the democratic project. Too often, to the Flauberts, with their daunting artistic standards, this project appears to be an immense illusion. Perhaps it is. But it is an illusion well worth maintaining, just in case it can lead us to something finer and more in keeping with our better angels.

Dogs and Civic Engagement

You used to be said that the best way to initiate a romantic encounter is to get a dog, because dogs always attract attention and interest, and once you have that it's just a short step to going out for a dinner and a movie.

The same can be said for civic engagement. If you want to connect with your community, to get to know people in your neighborhood, and to start doing something worthwhile with others, the best thing you can do is start walking your dog regularly. You'll meet lots of people who love dogs and want to hang out with them, and before you know it, they'll be hanging out with you as well. And, hey, while you're at it make your first project together a public dog run so that while all the doggies are running and jumping at each other you can be hatching all sorts of interesting plans to improve the community. Before you know it, you'll have more community projects to follow through on than you can handle, and more than anyone you'll have that wonderful dog of yours to thank.

Supporting the Working Poor

Labor Day weekend is coming up and along with it dreams of getting away for an extra long weekend with few worries or cares to burden us. For many, many people in this country, however, lack of employment and low wages are constant concerns, taking their toll on families everywhere and preventing them from enjoying a holiday that is truly care-free.

Of course, the causes of this problem are complex and multifaceted, but it is pretty clear that one of the strategies at our disposal that could help a great deal in reducing the plight of the working poor is to raise the minimum wage. The federal minimum wage is currently $7.25 an hour, somewhat higher in some states and localities, but this is what prevails in most places. For a 40-hour work week, a $7.25 an hour wage translates to $290 a week or $14,500 a year. You can perhaps skimp by on this as an individual, depending on where you live, but this is tantamount to poverty wages for a family of 2 or more. It just isn't sustainable without extra support and a generous allocation from SNAP (Supplemental Nutrition Assistance Program), better known as Food Stamps. In fact, we know more confidently than ever that the best ways to fight poverty and hunger are to raise the minimum wage and to fully fund SNAP. Yet it often seems we are moving in the opposite direction, as if it were the fault of the people who work so hard for a living despite their ability to command a living wage.

We hear often about the problem with raising the minimum wage, how it can actually depress employment and undermine economic growth, but it turns out that the evidence for this is surprisingly slim. Moreover, don't we owe it to people who work incredibly hard in fast food restaurants and Walmarts to be able to count on a salary that allows them to live at least somewhat reasonably? Having a decent apartment, relatively unworn clothing, and nutritious, healthy food is hardly a lot to ask. But even these things are impossible without a greatly increased minimum wage.

This tendency to defend policies that make a few people rich, while hoping ingenuously that somehow the wealth created will trickle down to benefit everyone, seems on the face of it to be absurd. There just isn't any evidence that it works even for the middle income worker. The evidence for trickle down is still flimsier for the working poor. So why do we cling to it?

Primarily because we simply don't care about poor people. We want them as far removed from our lives as possible and thus, because they are so detached from our everyday realities, their welfare becomes quite irrelevant to our own well being. They just don't matter to us. How do we make them matter?

Through stories, I think, of what it is like to be a worker who works hard but remains poor. A few years ago, the fine journalist and New Yorker editor, David Shipler, wrote a book called "Working Poor: Invisible in America" in which he recounts the stories of people who are struggling to make ends meet but who nevertheless work long hours and are, in fact, reliable, loyal workers.

Here are the words Shipler uses to introduce his book: "The man who washes cars does not own one. The clerk who files cancelled checks at the bank has $2.02 in her own account. The woman who copyedits medical textbooks has not been to a dentist in a decade."

"This is the forgotten America. At the bottom of its working world, millions live in the shadow of prosperity, in the twilight between poverty and well-being."

Note the subtitle, by the way. Like many people of color, the working poor are invisible, forgotten, neglected, not people to be concerned about. They help us to do all the things that make our better remunerated work possible, but they are, for the most part, ignored, left behind, and really kind of looked down upon. And, amazingly, I don't think they mind this treatment all that much. But when it comes to having enough to eat, being able to afford seeing the doctor when necessary, enjoying a decent roof over their heads, they do expect some kind of minimum that allows a decent existence. But again, the invisibility theme helps to explain why this doesn't happen. Bringing attention to the plight of the working poor is the first step. Maybe we can start this Labor Day. It is about labor, but fairly compensated labor that respects workers as humans, family breadwinners, and important contributors to our public good.

Another Dreamer's Dreams

Today is a good day for thinking about dreamers, as it is the 50th anniversary of the March on Washington in which Dr. Martin Luther KIng, Jr. declared: "I have a dream that my four little children will one day live in a nation where they will not be judged by the color of their skin but by the content of their character."

But, of course, Dr. King wasn't the only one who had a dream. Another prominent and highly talented African American who started writing poetry prolifically in the 1920s also had a dream. His name was Langston Hughes and he often invoked the image of a dreamer who struggled to find himself within the outmoded tradition of the American dream.

For instance, in a relatively early poem that he called "Dream Variations," the poet imagines himself free to dance, to whirl, to play, to let himself go, to be liberated from all constraints, conventions, and restrictions. When he was writing in the 1920s, such a dream for a Black man was simply impossible, completely out of reach. To be oneself, to go natural, to release oneself from inhibitions was to risk upsetting the white man, to appear as if you wanted to unend the whole white power structure. At least until well into the 1960s, such boldness wasn't likely. In the 1920s it was utterly taboo.

In the poem "America," Hughes again sees the Negro striving, reaching, straining for the stars, not letting himself be held back by anyone. He identities the Negro with the European immigrant similarly striving, but there are hints of how unfairly he is actually treated, and how stained democracy is as a result. At the same time, Hughes as poet wants to declare himself absolutely unique, not so much like a European immigrant or even a Black man bludgeoned by another round of unrelenting discrimination, but somehow his "own sole self" in an America where dreams come true and where everyone is freed to "seek the stars."

Or in "The Negro Mother," we learn of the universal Black mother, the one "beaten and mistreated" by slavery and racial oppression whose dream is achieved through her children. She kept trudging on because she had to, because she so desperately sought to become the "seed of the coming free." At times she had nothing to live for except the dream of her children making things anew. But now she returns to see her dream come alive through her children, but issues this caveat to them to never weaken or to take for granted how hard won this dream of freedom has been.

Or in "Let America be America Again," we hear again of the dream and the dreamers who dream it. We hear of the poet's call for America to "be the dream the dreamers dreamed," where love is strong and true and lasting. In this poem we also hear the parenthetical refrain "America never was America to me." Meaning, presumably, that the  dream the white man takes for granted has never even been a glimmer of hope for the Negro. He goes on: "For all the dreams we've dreamed/ And all the songs we've sung/ And all the flags we've hung/ The millions who have nothing for our pay---Except the dream that's almost dead today." In the midst of this rising despair, the poet rescues the possibility that the dream may yet be lived out: "O, yes,/ I say it plain,/ America never was America to me,/ And yet I swear this oath--/American will be!"

And then perhaps most famously and desperately of all there is his poem simply called "Harlem" in which the quest for the dream has reached its endpoint with no hope in sight and no sign of redemption or progress. It begins with a question and seems somehow to address this opening question with still more questions: "What happens to a dream deferred?/ Does it dry up/ like a raisin in the sun/ Or fester like a sore--/ And then run?/ Does it stink like rotten meat?/ Or crust and sugar over--/ Like a syrupy sweet?/ Maybe it just sags / like a heavy load/ Or does it explode?

King may have had his dream, but no African American writer dreamt with as much intensity and persistence as Langston Hughes. Sometimes the dreams were hopeful and sweet, but as the years dragged on and the hopes for real progress seemed to bog down in an everyday racism that would be hard for anyone to bear, the dreams grew fewer and darker. Why do the dreams of our youth so often become the nightmares of our all too seasoned adulthood?

Not Getting Over It

Even as I write, Wagner is suffering through one of the worst things that can happen to any close-knit community. A Wagner student named Justin Stevens has died under tragic circumstances and the news has hit everyone hard, even those who knew him only briefly. A popular member of Wagner's junior class, an accomplished theatre major, who also recently served as co-coordinator of new student orientation, he was found dead in the East Bronx earlier this afternoon. You can tell he will be greatly missed

It is always hard to make sense of such tragic occurrences. You can't quite believe something like this can happen and you wonder whether it could have been avoided if he hadn't been alone. But such speculation does little good and the exact circumstances of the event don't matter all that much either. What does matter is that a wonderful human being has been lost to the world and to the Wagner community, and those who knew him well and loved him greatly cannot be consoled. They need to let the full impact of their emotions take hold of them, even if those emotions include despair, rage, and desolation. 

Death is always hard under any circumstances and time for mourning should never be cut short. But when a person in the prime of life who has so many things to live for and to look forward to is cut down, everyone, even those who barely knew him, recognize that this creates a crack in the universe, a hurt, a laceration from which we do not easily heal. There will be time for healing and getting on with our lives. In the meantime, we mourn openly, passionately, unapologetically. We do so because we are human and because we have no other choice. But most of all we do so to remember and to cherish an important person who made a difference and whose loss, for the time being, is unbearable.

30 Million Words and Counting...

Being exposed to Words - the right words, the most expressive words, just a very large number of words - can make the difference between success and failure in American life. It turns out that many highly privileged children hear as many as 30 million more words by the time they are 3 than do children from poor or underprivileged environments. Furthermore, this much higher volume of words can lead to a greatly increased chance of their doing well in school, being well adjusted, and even enjoying a higher level of self-esteem.

Whether these exact numbers are right or not, we know that some children hear and use many more words than other children in their early years and that this discrepancy can spell the difference between school success and failure. It is therefore incumbent upon those of us who want to equalize the beneficial effects of early childhood development to explore options for increasing word exposure and word use for all children. 

One promising way to do this is through parental education. The Harlem Children's Zone has been holding Baby Colleges for many years now in which parents are given training and practice in interacting with their children more intimately and creatively. The focus of this practice is on conversations in which parents are guided in learning how to draw out their children through questions, by making personal statements, and by encouraging enthusiastic exchanges regarding the world around them. The more parents can get their children to observe and think about and act upon the larger world, the more their children will develop the language skills they need to do well in school and in life. 

Dana Suskind, a researcher at the University of Chicago, is now engaged in a series of research projects to see if the 30 million word gap between high SES children and low SES children can be bridged through ambitious interventions involving intensive, supervised practice between parents and their children. Parents are first and foremost taught that learning happens from birth and that language development, in particular, is a key part of early learning. Parents are also coached to engage in prolonged conversations that go in creative and unanticipated directions. That means offering more personal testimony about what one is seeing, doing, or thinking, asking children about what they are experiencing, and encouraging them to make connections between the past and the present. This also means that when parents and children are reading together, they don't just report the words in a story in a straight, linear fashion. They talk about the story, explore where it seems to be going, consider more deeply what it might mean, and investigate how the pictures in the story add to what the words are telling them. Such reading should also provide opportunities to reflect on stories and to share personal experiences that relate to the words that are found there.

In this research, parents and children together are engaged in absorbing everything around them, finding a variety of ways to talk about how it feels to take all this information in, and to relate it to what they think they already know. There is a very real sense here in which parents in this model of interaction are romancing their children, wooing them, seducing them to engage in this beautiful and mysterious process of confronting a rich, disorienting, and multifaceted world.

At first, at least, there is something a little unnatural about engaging our children so extensively. Sometimes adults don't feel like talking or don't want to make still another effort to describe at length what they're thinking and what they're experiencing, but given the high stakes, parents, in most cases, don't really have that option. In this case, talk is anything but cheap. It may be the single most valuable thing we can do to develop children's minds and boost their self-esteem. If this turns out to be true, what a small price to pay for making a large step toward ensuring their well-being and happiness.

You and the end of the world

The great and versatile actress, Julie Harris, died on Saturday at the age of 87. She will be sorely missed, truly one of the great ladies of the American stage. At the conclusion of the New York Times tribute to her, a story is recalled about what she said she would do if she learned the world were about to come to an end. Simply and predictably, she replied, "I'd go to the theatre."

In my opinion, a very good answer. Theatre is entertaining and thought provoking, but more than anything it gives life. Why not do the thing in the face of annihilation that most gives life? For me, nothing quite duplicates the power of theatre to remind us of our common humanity and of our struggles, usually resulting in failure, to aspire to something higher and more worthy of our noblest ambitions.

But then that made me wonder even more, what would others say? In fact, please let me know what you think by leaving a comment. In the meantime, though, in the absence of such answers, what might be the range of responses we could expect in reply to such a question?

I can imagine someone who might want to read an inspiring book or watch a memorable film. But which ones? What books or films would be powerful enough to draw people to them for a final time? Would they be sad and tragic? Or uplifting and inspiring? Would they be an opportunity to experience that nearly perfect work of art one more time, or something that would somehow prepare you for the disaster ahead? Somebody else might want to attend a sporting event or make one final attempt to bowl that perfect 300 game. Or perhaps a golfer would want to challenge himself for the last time to achieve his lowest score yet. Perhaps even that frustratingly elusive hole in one would be in the back of his mind.

I am guessing there are a few people, though, admittedly rather unusual people, who would not be thinking of themselves at all in such a moment, but would be concerned about the thousands, even the millions, who would be experiencing the most excruciating terror at the prospect of their destruction. Such a person would want to comfort those fearful ones and find a way to make their final hours not painful but peaceful, not terrifying but somehow enjoyable, even beautiful. Would such a thing be possible given the horrible expectations? And how would someone go about comforting people in such a situation?

There is no question that one popular choice would be to resort to religion and the prospect of eternal life. To remind people that time on earth is fleeting in any case, and that this is merely a simple case of speeding up what is inevitable anyway. You could argue that facing up to the end of the world is like being in a foxhole, only worse. And how does the saying go? There are no atheists in foxholes. So, yes, of course, turning to God or to organized religion and the promise of an afterlife would be appealing to a broad, broad swath of people. And that's fine. But I don't find it terribly interesting. It is pretty much what we would expect from the vast majority of people.

So what about the nonreligious and the non-believers, how would you comfort them in the face of sure annihilation? What would the caring person say to someone who has no belief in God and is nevertheless terribly agitated about their coming demise? And you know what? I think I know the answer. 

The response I propose is, I guess, similar to going to the theatre or reading a favorite book or seeing a special movie. But the answer I have in mind is simply to tell a story. Most likely, a story of the past, of what we have done together or meant to each other or even once had together. It would be both tragic and happy, both sad and funny, both enlivening and sobering. It would be a reminder of who we are, what we tried to achieve, and what makes us glad to be alive. For me anyway, this is a revelation. It is one more reminder of the power of stories and of the line from writer Joan Didion that haunts me every time I hear it. "We tell ourselves stories in order to live." Even in death, especially in death, we tell the stories that give meaning and purpose and shape to who we are and who we have tried to be.

Be the Change...

Many of us have grown attached to the famous Gandhi aphorism: "You must be the change you wish to see in the world," but I wonder what people would say if they were asked to explain Gandhi's meaning. Below is a brief exchange between a few high school kids who were recently struggling with their understanding of Gandhi's words.

Student One: It means what it says it means. Be the change. Be just like the change you want in the world.

Student Two: But I still don't get it. How can you be a change? How can anybody be a change?

Student Three: Well, you're not really the change. You behave the way people would behave if a change happened.

Student Four: What kind of change is that? What sort of change are we talking about?

Student Three: Think about what was important to Gandhi. It would be those kinds of changes.

Student One: Peace for one, right? You would be a person of peace, who brings peace to every situation.

Student Three: Yes, definitely peace. But not just peace in a quiet, passive way. It is peace that also involves nonviolent resistance, that encourages people to resist situations that are unfair and unjust.

Student Four: Like what? Like the untouchables being total outcasts?

Student Three: Exactly. If you are the change you wish to see, you fight nonviolently for making sure untouchables have rights, that they are treated decently by others.

Student Two: I'm starting to get it. If you want certain things, you can't just talk about them, you have to act like they matter to you.

Student One: I think that's right. But it's also true that Being the Change means you ARE the change, that you embody the change, that you do things all the time that show what you stand for.

Student Four: But didn't we say that. You would work for civil rights. You would rally people so that they support the idea that everyone enjoys a decent standard of living.

Student One: Yeah, yeah, all that. But you also live your whole life as if nonviolence and justice are the most important things. You give people another chance, you avoid yelling at them or frightening them. You try not to eat too much or talk too much, because you want others to be able to use the resources you might be using up

Student Two: You're losing me again. What resources are those?

Student One: All of them. Everything that helps to make life good: food, housing, healthcare, education, speaking time in a meeting. We who are privileged must use all these things moderately, so that there is more for others who have less.

Student Three: I don't know if I could live like that.

Student One: It goes with being the change, with sharing the planet's riches with others.

Student Four: What if we can't do this, if we can't find the patience and the generosity to pull this off?

Student One: I don't know, but I think it's possible that we might slowly destroy ourselves.

Student Two: That's horrible. There has to be another way.

Student One: Be the change, brother. Be the change you wish to see in the world.

1963

As we find ourselves in this year commemorating the 50th anniversary of one momentous event after another, it grows increasingly clear just how transformative the year 1963 turned out to be. We know a lot was going on during the late 50s and early 60s, especially with regard to civil rights, but until we look very closely at the year 1963 itself, we can lose sight of how blinding the rate of change was in that one remarkable year. For one thing, it begins with George Wallace's inauguration speech as the governor of Alabama when he defiantly declares: "Segregation now, Segregation tomorrow, Segregation forever." It ends in a haze of tragedy and mourning with the assassination of  President John F. Kennedy. In between these two horrifying bookends, sadness and tragedy abound, even as great leaps forward also occur.

For instance, April of 1963 marks the imprisonment of Dr. Martin Luther King in a Birmingham, Alabama jail, even as this very imprisonment helps to make possible Dr. King's great contribution to world literature - his Letter from a Birmingham Jail. That letter, as much as any document he ever produced, persuaded skeptics and so-called moderates alike that justice delayed when it comes to civil rights is ultimately justice denied and that true justice demanded a new push for full racial integration.

Only two months later, President Kennedy delivered his greatest and most ambitious civil rights speech. In it, he said, "We are primarily confronted with a moral issue...It is as old as the scriptures and as clear as the American constitution. One hundred years of delay have passed since President Lincoln freed the slaves, yet their heirs...are not fully free. They are not free from the bonds of injustice and this nation will not be fully free until all its citizens are free." He proposed strong legislation that finally passed under the guiding hand of President Johnson, not long after President Kennedy's assassination. 

I turned 13 in 1963 and had virtually no clue of the turmoil of that year. For me, it was all about baseball - both playing and following. But, like so many of my contemporaries, I have distinct memories of President Kennedy's death and all the ways in which that death broke the country's heart and yet, at the same time, helped it mature into something wiser, less sentimental and more genuinely caring as well.

 

Why Read?

There is an exchange between the mother and son in Will Schwalbe's "The end of your life book club" about cruelty and meanness as they are portrayed in books that has stayed with me today. It goes something like this. When the son asks his mother who is dying of pancreatic cancer how she feels about reading books that are depressing because they harp on cruelty, especially now that she herself is suffering from such a cruel disease, she answers that although, of course, she hates cruelty, it is important to read about it in order to know it, to recognize it when it occurs, and to learn how actions which begin as ordinary and harmless can gradually grow into cruelty. Presumably, gaining familiarity with the evolution of cruelty through literature is important, because doing so can assist us in avoiding it in the first place or perhaps in resisting it once it begins to spread. 

There are two interesting assumptions about the view that Schwalbe's mother advances. One is that a literary portrayal of cruelty must be subtle and life-like, not crude and obvious, for us to be able learn anything meaningful from it. Villains who are depicted as classic bullies or stereotypically wicked aren't going to enlighten us very much. A study of cruelty, then, only becomes interesting when it is examined in literature by highly skilled authors who have also accumulated a rich store of experiences with a wide variety of individuals, including those who could be characterized as cruel.

The other assumption is the one I want to use the rest of this space to elaborate on. And that is simply that one of literature's main functions is to teach us how to live. I'm sure that Mrs. Schwalbe isn't saying it's the only function. Literature, after all, does a lot of things that include showing us how to use language well, giving us experiences that we could never have directly on our own, and helping us understand how artistic and literary traditions wax and wane. But it also teaches us about love and compassion and jealousy and betrayal and rapture and loss and, well, a whole lot of other things, too, including cruelty. 

And as we read about these things, especially in the hands of our finest writers, we gain insight into the stuff that makes people tick. What drives them to make sacrifices for others or compels them to strike out against innocent people or enjoins them to become part of something much greater than themselves. We learn how they think about these things, how they talk about them, how they respond to a conflict or crisis, and finally what brings them to a boil or to some sort of turning point in their lives. 

We read for pleasure. Of course. We read to make ourselves more interesting. Undoubtedly. We read to have something else to talk about. No question. And some of us read because we are addicted to language, to the magic words conjure up through their choice, sound, arrangement, and cumulative impact. But I think we read most of all for enlightenment, for understanding, for guidance, and, yes, for wisdom. And it isn't as if the finest writers are necessarily the wisest people. I don't think that's quite it. Rather, it is that these writers are so skilled and so masterful with words that they have the ability to offer a reflection or representation of how  we actually live that is true, powerful and concentrated (usually novels can be consumed in anywhere from a few hours to a couple of days of continuous reading). In so doing, each artistically rendered book that we read is a kind of slice of life, usually not with an obvious moral or lesson, but with enough rich context and character development to offer insight into how people grow, how they become the people they are, for better or for worse. 

That portrait of a life lived for good or ill, it really doesn't matter which, introduces us to another person and the choices they make, and as with any experience, especially if we take the time to think about and reflect on that experience, we are helped to see the world more clearly and the challenges people face more vividly. Each book that we read, then, especially when read with care, serves as a guide to how we might live our own lives in a more wide-awake manner, with greater sensitivity and perhaps a heightened sense of responsibility as well. Maybe writers don't set out to teach us how to live and certainly they aren't expected to. But when a book is great, it is great, in part, because it reveals something to us about the human condition that makes each of us just a little bit wiser than we were before. And that's not a trivial thing.