Sep 6 2018
“It’s kind of cheap and easy to be a pessimist, because there will always be things that go wrong. Rather, we should have the most accurate assessment that we can have of the state of the world and the direction that it’s going, try to identify what it is that makes things better, and do more of them.”
Steven Pinker
Johnstone Family Professor of Psychology, Harvard UniversityAs The World Turns
A conscience by any other name…
Professor Steven Pinker is on a book tour for his latest creation Enlightenment Now. At one of his tour stops last night, he made the case, on several fronts, that the state of our world isn’t as dire as we might believe it to be. I don’t know his work all that well yet, but in this book he argues that Enlightenment principles of reason, science and humanism are directly enhancing the quality of life for everyone—not just the West.
One of his responses stood out to me, something I’ve been mulling over ever since the 2015 US presidential election campaigns began. What’s driving so much negative media coverage, particularly since many global quality-of-life metrics are improving, and how is that negativity harming us as a human race? Professor Pinker offered 3 reasons:
1) We now have a greater ability to gather news e.g. anyone with a smartphone can upload information to the web.
2) This is a product of our expanding circle of empathy – we care more about people and what’s happening in far-flung parts of the world than our ancestors.
3) There’s been a stark change in the culture of journalism, since the 1970s, to have to speak truth to power, and to not in any way be cheerleaders for the government. But this has been taken to the extreme, such that every civic institution is considered to be a target for aggressive take down, and there’s a cynicism that nothing can ever work, that everything is corrupt…which may have had pernicious consequences.
Though he seems to draw his sense of morality and conscience from the practice of reason and science, instead of from faith-based texts, the desire is the same – to better our lives. And I can’t argue with that.
Look closer at our towns
In another discussion, this time on Fareed Zakaria’s GPS show, author James Fallows shared his observations of what’s happening at the local level in America.
“…our sense is there are two Americas, but in a different way from what we usually — there’s the American of national politics which is so dispiriting and near historic low point. And there’s this other America not fully recognized of people inventing new ways to get things done at the local level.
…in one way or another, all the various signs come down to, are there are people who view the welfare of that town, that region, that state, as something that matters to them in the long run.”
So, let not the media fool you. There is good work happening all around us, and we can play our part in that work.
Om Is Where The Heart Is
Fiery love and duty
I could spend all day writing about the many flavors of love. We tend to first think of its soft and tender qualities, its ability to melt the hardest hearts and weariest souls. But love is so much more. And when it’s directed at a cause greater than our own, it can be fiery and awe-inspiring.
Such was the love on display when Sen John McCain’s daughter, Meghan McCain, eulogized him at the National Cathedral last Saturday. Her grief was palpable, but so was her resolve. The steel in her eyes and the will in her heart, to do right by her father’s legacy, was unmistakable. And yet, her words of fiery love were used against her, when a threatening tweet included an image doctored to show a gun pointed at Meghan McCain as she approached her father’s casket earlier in the week. Twitter waited too long to remove the image from its platform, and its CEO Jack Dorsey had to explain that delay as he testified to Congress yesterday.
I asked some people what they thought about her words. Sadly, even in what could have been a moment of united grief for a good man and public servant, a conservative American said that the display of grief and pomp was over the top, while a liberal voice paused long enough to commend Sen McCain for his service before questioning why Republicans remain loyal to an ineffective commander-in-chief.
It’s hard out there for someone who wants to rise above the partisan fray.
Meghan wasn’t immune to threats of bodily harm, even in her deep grief. And just yesterday, America was stunned by an opinion piece in the New York Times titled I Am Part of the Resistance Inside the Trump Administration, where an anonymous senior White House official calls out the president’s worst impulses, and validates that many of the senior officials in his own administration are working diligently from within to frustrate parts of his agenda and his worst inclinations.
To be sure, there’s a case to be made that Meghan was brave enough to claim her words in public, while the (as yet) unknown White House official is too cowardly to identify themselves. But they share the same fiery love of country, and a duty to preserve the integrity of that country and its institutions.
May there be many more. And the opinion writer in question put it best at the end of their piece:
“There is a quiet resistance within the administration of people choosing to put country first. But the real difference will be made by everyday citizens rising above politics, reaching across the aisle and resolving to shed the labels in favor of a single one: Americans.”
News and Views
Book is taking shape
This book project is rolling along smoothly, and my writerly heart is grateful.
I now have a good sense of what it’s going to look like, the genre (and sub-genre) it belongs to, and some of the chapters it will hold. Onward!
(Want to cheer me on and wish me well on this book-writing adventure? Send me a note of encouragement – I’d love to hear from you.)
In the next issue:
I finally watched Crazy Rich Asians with a friend this week. And I’m itching to share my thoughts on it. More on this next week.
Till then…
Live well and lead large – Maya
(featured image by Rona Proudfoot from Lorain, Ohio) CC BY-SA 2.0, via Wikimedia Commons