Tuesday, December 22, 2020

"Back to Basics - A Christmas Wish"

 As the Holidays are upon us and as the New Year approaches, I want to thank you for your readership. I recognize that not all of you share my views, and I appreciate your forbearance.

 

2020 was busy – 60 Thoughts of the Day, 19 book reviews and 12 Essays from Essex – a level made larger, I am sure, because of the pandemic. This will be the last of my communications for the year. My batteries need re-charging, and my pile of un-read books has been increasing. 

 

With days now getting longer and with a vaccine soon to be administered, my optimism for more social interaction with family and friends in 2021 is growing. Zoom calls cannot replace a hug.

.

 My best wishes for the Holidays and for a healthier and happier New Year!

 

Sydney

 

Sydney M. Williams

30 Bokum Road – Apartment 314

Essex, CT 06426

www.swtotd.blogspot.com

 

Thought of the Day

“Back to Basics – A Christmas Wish”

December 22, 2020

 

A member of a large and powerful tribe, whose influence in human affairs

has always been dominant and controlling. He sets the fashions of opinion and

taste, dictates the limitations of speech and circumscribes conduct with a deadline.”

                                                                                                                                        Definition of “Idiot”

                                                                                                                                        The Devil’s Dictionary, 1906

                                                                                                                                       Ambrose Bierce (1842-c.1914)

 

Ambrose Bierce was a Civil War veteran, newspaperman, wit and satirist, not well known today, but appreciated in his time for his sardonic humor. Now in this age of political correctness, “cancelled” history, “hurtful” words and “safe” places, levity, when exercised by the Right, is disallowed. Nevertheless, Bierce’s definition of “Idiot” reminds me of administrators and faculty that populate our universities, members of the press who forsake reporting for advocating, and Washington’s politicians and bureaucrats.

 

A last Saturday Wall Street Journal article, “Why Are Americans So Distrustful of Each Other” by Kevin Vallier, was sobering. In 1968, 56% of Americans “believed most people can be trusted.” In 2018, “after a half century of increasing [political] partisan division, only 31% did.” Perhaps not surprising, the level of social trust is lowest among young people – not a good sign for our future. Professor Vallier, who teaches philosophy at Bowling Green State University, wrote that social scientists have found three factors behind a country’s level of social trust: corruption, ethnic segregation and economic inequality. But none explain fully the decline in social trust in the United States today. He added: “Some social scientists are convinced that polarization increases political distrust, and it may play a role in increasing social distrust as well.”

 

In my opinion, there is truth in that statement. My conservative views, in “Blue State” Connecticut make me hesitant to offer opinions when in a social setting. In the same edition of the Wall Street Journal, Peggy Noonan wrote of the divide that separates elites from owners of small businesses, like restaurants and bars: “The professional class of politicians, media people, scientists and credentialed chatterers care about business in the abstract…But they have no particular heart for them.” For Democrats, this is particularly true. In their bar-bell approach to the electorate – wealthy, global, coastal elites on the one hand, and so-called “victims” of oppression on the other – they have no room for middle class Americans, who love their country and who value their families, religions and the virtue of success through hard work.

 

While I vacillate between being registered as a Republican and Independent, I treasure the principles and values inherent in conservativism, starting with the value of family and the critical importance of individual freedom. I know dependency leads to subservience. However, I am not an anarchist. I believe in government and in James Madison’s words, in Federalist 51: “If men were angels no government would be necessary.” But because men and women are flawed, I also believe in its corollary: “If angels were to govern men, neither external nor internal controls on government would be necessary.” Thus, I believe in government with reins: “…you must first enable the government to control the governed, and in the next place oblige it to control itself.” The latter is difficult for arrogant politicians, which is why I believe in the rule of law, not men. But I am concerned about bigness – big government, big business, big tech companies, big unions – as their future relies on government as a partner, not as a referee in disputes and guarantor of our rights. 

 

If the election taught us anything, it is that we all need to return to the basics of what is necessary for a participatory civil society to function: honesty, diligence, patience, humility, kindliness, mutual respect and tolerance. We need to encourage the formation of traditional families, the importance of volunteerism and the value of religion, as the latter provides our moral and ethical foundations. We need to teach rules of conduct and manners, as they lubricate the wheels of social interaction. It is vital to know our Country’s true origins. Students should be required to take a course in civics, in which they read the founding documents of the United States: The Declaration of Independence, the Constitution, the Bill of Rights and the Federalist Papers. They should learn how totalitarian regimes, like China, Russia, Venezuela and Cuba, differ from our democratic republic. They should realize the great good fortune they have to live here. 

 

Youth should be taught the basic principles of economics, to understand how and why revenues and incomes must balance. They need to understand that governments have no source of revenue other than what they take from citizens in the form of taxes and fees – that all income is generated within the private sector and that, while rules and regulations are important, they impede profitability, so regulations must be weighed for the positives they bring against the economic and social costs they entail. Students should know that low interest rates encourage borrowing while high interest rates encourage savings, and the obvious, but too often forgotten, precept that borrowed money must be repaid.

 

Among the basic tenets to which it would be healthy to return is to admit what we do not know and what we cannot know – that life is the constant pursuit of knowledge. Whether it is COVID-19 or climate, we are told to “follow the science,” yet mixed messages are delivered because scientific research is inexact. It is not a sign of ignorance to admit we cannot measure precisely how many meters reflect proper “social distancing,” nor can we measure with precision what is man’s effect on climate. In our data-driven world, experts are expected to be precise. Agnostics are not allowed. Yet, skepticism and humility are signs of strength, not weakness. As well, there are sensations we cannot define exactly. In his letter to Virginia O’Hanlon, in 1897, the editor of the New York Sun, Francie Pharcellus Church, wrote: “Yes, Virginia, there is a Santa Claus. He exists as certainly as love and generosity and devotion exist, and you know that they abound and give to your life its highest beauty and joy.” Mr. Church did not define the words love, generosity and devotion because their meanings are personal. We know what we mean when we express or experience them. But your definition of love may not be precisely mine.

 

How do we return to basics? How do we get rid of the idiocy Ambrose Bierce described? I do not pretend to have the answer, and this essay may be no more than an exercise in wishful thinking. But I believe that introspection is healthy, as well as acknowledgement that none of us have all the answers. I do have one year-end political wish, and that is term limits for members of Congress. I have long had an instinctive bias against limits, as I have felt people should be able to vote for whomever they choose, including the rascal that now represents them. However, I believe Washington’s swamp has become too familiar, with people moving seamlessly from elected office, to bureaucracies, to lobbying firms, in closed-knit fashion that is difficult for outsiders to penetrate. Thus, I think term limits are in our interest. Members of Congress no longer see themselves as servants to the people, but as masters of the governed. The Christmas season, with its promise of charity, forgiveness and love, is a good time to look in the mirror and take stock of what we have wrought. What we see reflected is not pretty. We could do worse than going back to basics.

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Saturday, December 19, 2020

"The Plateau," by Maggie Paxson

 In 1941, Hannah Arendt, the philosopher and political commentator, escaped Europe and settled in New York. She was thirty-five. Two years later she wrote an essay, “We Refugees.” The essay concludes: “The comity of European peoples went to pieces when, and because, it allowed its weakest members to be excluded and persecuted.” It is a line worth recalling, as the plight of asylum seekers continues to this day.

 

Sydney M. Williams

www.swtotd.blogspot.com

 

Burrowing into Book

“The Plateau,” Maggie Paxson

December 19, 2020

 

I am a lapsed anthropologist who thought she could figure out something

about peace, but now my nights are haunted by faces of the living and the dead.”

                                                                                                                                                Maggie Paxson

                                                                                                                                                The Plateau, 2020

 

Over the years I have read many books on the Holocaust. While I am not Jewish and am far from an expert, I recall my father, who had fought in Italy with the 10th Mountain Division, admonishing me that I should never forget what happened during the war. The German people were a civilized and cultured people, still they followed a leader into an abyss of evil, filled with hatred, contempt and corruption. Yet, in occupied countries, some remained good. Among them were people of the Plateau. 

 

In spending time in the Plateau Vivrais-Lignon, a remote, mountainous region in south central France and specifically in La Chambon-sur-Lignon in the Haute-Loire department, Ms. Paxson comes to understand its history and, over time, becomes accepted by its residents. She writes of how individuals and families saved hundreds of lives during World War II and of how the area today aids refugees who seek asylum – from countries like Chechnya and Syria and nations in Africa. La Chambon, with a population of just over 2,500, has a history of befriending the displaced. We learn that the Plateau region was settled in the 16th and 17th Centuries by Protestant Huguenots, who were persecuted by the French Catholic government.

 

The book has three main stories, running concurrently – of a young French schoolteacher named Daniel Trocmé. who arrived in the region in late 1942 to help his schoolteacher cousin, Andre Trocmé. We read about CADA (Centre d’Accueil de Demandeurs d’Asile), a welcome center for asylum seekers that was established in 1973 to help those fleeing Vietnam and Chile, and which today places asylum-seeking families in homes and their children in schools. And we are witness to the author’s personal odyssey, as she comes to understand “who does what to whom” – a mantra she uses, as an anthropologist, to interpret societies, like why have the people of the Plateau been so good in the face of so much evil. Toward the end, she quotes from her favorite childhood book, The Little Prince by Antoine de Saint-Exupéry, who himself spent some time in the Plateau during the War and who died in July 1944: “You are humanity, and your face comes to my mind simply as man incarnate.”

 

The story of Daniel Trocmé is especially moving. With eighteen of his students, in December 1943, he is arrested by the Gestapo, hustled into a tarpaulin-covered truck: “Don’t worry,” he tells his fellow teacher Magda. “I’ll go with my students; try to explain things for them.” He asks her to write to his parents: “Tell them I am not afraid. This is my work. I love these students very much.” Those are the last words his parents will hear from him. Five months later, at age thirty-one, he would be dead, in the Nazi extermination camp, Majdanek, which is just outside Lublin, Poland.

 

There were times when Ms. Paxson’s personal interjections were annoying, but they display her quest for self-understanding. She is smitten by the story of Daniel and follows it all the way to Israel where he is remembered as one of the “Righteous Among the Nations.” She grows to love the families she meets.  She ends the book by speaking to all refugees: “…this book is my love letter to every one of you…”

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Monday, December 14, 2020

"Trump Derangement Syndrome Persists"

 This is being sent this evening, as I have an early morning doctor’s appointment – a routine checkup, but I do not want to be late. 

 

The rubric in the essay below is from Joseph Epstein, one of the best essayists writing today. It was selected before the Left’s deranged brouhaha over his reference to Dr. Jill Biden. Their attitude (the Left’s) certainly does not portend a return to normalcy, if normalcy is defined as civility and reason. In fact, I would suggest their forced and supercilious reaction indicated behavior in need of therapy. Of course, they likely feel the same way about me, which is what makes democracy so interesting.  

 

Sydney M. Williams

www.swtotd.blogspot.com

 

Thought of the Day

“Trump Derangement Syndrome Persists”

December 15, 2020

 

In stage three [of Trump Derangement Syndrome], one is ready to believe anything

– anything pernicious or salacious, that is – about Mr. Trump and to reject anything

he has done that might be good for the country, if only because of the man who did it.”

                                                                                                                                                Joseph Epstein (1937 - )

                                                                                                                                                Wall Street Journal

                                                                                                                                                July 9, 2020

 

While I have not fussed much over last month’s election results, I believe, despite the Electoral College certifying the election, that there was fraud and other shenanigans. How else to explain halted vote counting in swing states; election rules changed without authorization from state legislatures; unsigned mail-in ballots, etc. Can we really believe that a candidate who spent much of the campaign in his home received ten million more votes than did Barack Obama in 2012? Congress and state legislatures should ensure that voter laws are explicit and fair. One is left wondering, not only about voter fraud, but about the size of the turnout. Apparently 156 million people voted, or 66% of registered voters, the highest percentage since 1900 and twenty percent more people than in 2016! Now, Mr. Trump’s options are gone; nevertheless, when politics smell fishy, it is usually more than a week-old Mackerel in the trunk of a car. 

 

Last Friday’s lead editorial in our local paper, The Day, stated: “But Trump has caused profound damage, having convinced tens of millions of people who voted for him that Biden is not a legitimate president.” Whether the statemen is true or not, I do not know, but the hypocrisy of the paper’s editorial board is heavier than a London fog. They, and most of mainstream media, never condemned the “Resistance” that for four years claimed Trump was an illegitimate president. They avoided the subject of Mr. Biden’s noticeable deteriorating mental acuity and stayed away from the Hunter Biden scandal. The Day posits itself as independent. Their masthead reads: “The newspaper should be more than a business enterprise. It should also be a champion and protector of the public interest and defender of the people’s rights.” Sadly, the paper, like so many others, has become a defender of the progressive movement and a foe of the messiness that is natural to the democracy of a free and independent people. In looking for potential threats to liberty, the media has a habit of ignoring peril from the left, like the hairbrained schemes of stacking the Supreme Court and doing away with the filibuster in the U.S. Senate. Wannabe tyrants do not alienate the media and reduce the power of government, as Trump has done with his sarcastic remarks to the press, and as he did in cutting regulations. Budding despots befriend the media, and they increase personal and government power through rules and regulations, like Governors Cuomo and Newsom. 

 

Trump will leave office in January, but it is unlikely the media will move on. “The spirit of Trumpism,” as Roger Kimball wrote recently, “is not vanquished.” So, Trump Derangement Syndrome (TDS) will remain, as it has served to bolster the bottom lines of media enterprises. Do the New York Times and the Washington Post expect to maintain their reader and viewer-ships when their big stories are about the patterns on Biden’s socks, or querying about his mending ankle? Will mainstream media do an about-face and lavish praise on Mr. Trump for reducing black unemployment to record lows, for creating Operation Warp Speed that gave us a vaccine in record time, for getting four Arab nations to recognize Israel, for confronting China on stealing technology, or for marginalizing Iran in their pursuit of nuclear weapons? It is far more likely they will continue to hound the only U.S. President whose net worth dropped by more than a billion dollars while he served the American people. To do so is good for their bottom line. Will Mr. Biden be queried about his deteriorating mental state or his son Hunter who made millions, using his Dad’s influence, from a country that is America’s largest economic and military threat. Will Hunter be treated with the same disdain as President Trump’s children? Not likely, as that would offend ‘woke’ readers.

 

Joe Biden promises a return to normal. In May 2019, while seeking the Democratic nomination, he said, “The country is sick of division. They’re sick of the fighting. They’re sick of the childish behavior.” However, which Party sought to divide people by race, gender and sexual orientation? Which Party was behind the riots that devastated cities like Portland and Seattle? Was it not childish for Democrats to boycott Mr. Trump’s inauguration in 2017? Mr. Biden’s words were ones with which no one can disagree, but how to achieve conciliation in a nation where, as Walter Williams once said, “liberty refers to the sovereignty of the individual,” not the right to free college and healthcare? Will Nancy Pelosi and Chuck Schumer put politics aside, link arms with Mitch McConnell and Kevin McCarthy and sing Kumbaya? Will the concept of diversity expand to include diversity of opinion? Will the police again be allowed to confront criminals without fear of losing their jobs? Will borders be opened to anyone, so long as they register as Democrats? Will Puerto Rico and the District of Columbia be admitted as states, to assure four more Democratic U.S. Senators? Will the Supreme Court be expanded to achieve a progressive majority? Will Black Lives Matter and Antifa recede into the shadows, as their usefulness has ended with the ascendancy of Biden and Harris? Will one-Party rule be the future for this rich and diverse nation? “But let there be no change by usurpation, for though this, in one instance, may be the instrument of good, it is the customary weapon by which free governments are destroyed,” wrote George Washington in his 1796 Farewell Address?   

 

And what about our schools and universities? Will teachers’ unions put students first, even if it means sending them to non-unionized charter schools? Will colleges become venues for open debate? Will university professors’ welcome conservatives who might influence the malleable minds of students, yet untutored in their progressive, Orwellian world? As long as the spirit of Trumpism exists, it is more likely that dissent will be forbidden, no matter which Republican carries the banner. One thing we know – tyrants, from the right or the left, cannot abide those who disagree. 

 

Trump Derangement Syndrome says more about those who have it than about Mr. Trump. It is a condition in which an individual’s visceral hatred for Mr. Trump causes him or her to forsake logic and reason. It is held by those who see in Mr. Trump’s character a man who fights as hard and as ruthlessly as do they. And it will be around as long as Mr. Trump and what he stands for are perceived as a threat to the ‘deep state’ and a progressive agenda. But it is not aimed solely at Mr. Trump. It is what he represents, a threat to our cultural elite and the cozy lives of Washington’s insiders. Ulysses Grant was not liked by traditional West Pointers, but he was fearless; he had common sense, an abiding faith in ultimate victory, and he did not let up. Lincoln may not have admired his whiskey habit (though he offered to send a barrel of Grant’s favorite to his other generals), but he respected and needed his fighting spirit. The United States has had the same two Parties for the past two hundred and sixty-six years. Yet one Party dominates our culture, media, universities, public-sector unions, Wall Street, global firms, tech companies, ‘green’ businesses and Washington’s bureaucracy. In Trump, the American people found an individual who fights for the average American and helps reverse the slide toward stateism. A free people cannot live in a one-Party country.

 

One consequence of what we have witnessed: January’s Senatorial runoffs loom ever more important. As Monday’s Wall Street Journal’s lead editorial stated: “There is a time to fight, and a time to concede.” Now is the time for Republicans, including Mr. Trump and his supporters, to accept Mr. Biden’s victory and to focus on Georgia.

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Wednesday, December 9, 2020

"Political Realignment, Class Warfare & Regressive Costs"

 This is a subject about which I have been thinking for some time, and which deserves consideration and debate. I recognize others have addressed it as well, probably more thoroughly and eloquently. At any rate, here is my two cents worth:

 

Sydney M. Williams

30 Bokum Road – Apartment 314

Essex, CT 06426

www.swtotd.blogspot.com

 

Thought of the Day

“Political Realignment, Class Warfare & Regressive Costs”

December 9, 2020

 

His pioneering 1982 book, The State Against Blacks, is an eloquent data-rich

broadside against occupational licensing, taxicab regulations, labor union privileges and

other fine-sounding government measures that inflict disproportionate harm on blacks by

restricting the employment options and by driving up the costs of goods and services.”

                                                                                                       Donald J. Boudreaux (1968 -)

                                                                                                       Professor of Economics, George Mason University

                                                                                                       On death of Walter Williams (1936 -2020)

            Wall Street Journal, December 3, 2020

 

The single biggest change in politics in my lifetime has been the reorientation of the political parties. Historically, Democrats represented the working classes, while Republicans had the backing of the monied classes on Wall Street and the occupiers of office suites in big businesses. Labor versus capital was a simplified definition. 

 

Things have changed. Roles have been reversed. My State of Connecticut is a proxy for wealthy blue states. It is the 5th wealthiest in terms of income and was solidly Republican when I was growing up. This year, it voted 59% for Joe Biden. The three towns in which I have lived for the past fifty years, Greenwich, Old Lyme and Essex – all in the top 12% of Connecticut’s wealthiest towns – voted between 61% and 63% for Joe Biden. November’s vote was not a one-time event. All five House members are Democrats. Connecticut’s two U.S. Senators are ranked eight (Richard Blumenthal) and sixteen (Chris Murphy) in terms of most progressive. The last Republican to serve in the House of Representatives was Chris Shays who lost re-election in 2008. The last Republican U.S. Senator from Connecticut was Lowell Weicker, who lost re-election in 1988. This Democratic Party is not your grandfather’s Party. It has become the Party of the establishment. The only two counties in Connecticut to vote for Donald Trump were Windham and Litchfield, the two most rural counties. In both counties, his margin of victory was four percentage points. Sixty years ago, Connecticut was as solidly Republican as it is solidly Democratic today.

 

Why has this happened? The shift took place during the 1960s and 1970s, during a period when I became registered as a Democrat. For me, in my late 20s, it was a combination of civil rights and Vietnam, and a feeling that whatever my parents were for I should be against. By the mid 1970s, when markets and the economy turned down, I realized my parents may have been smarter than I had thought – that to succeed financially, intellectually, personally and emotionally, one had to be aspirant, have a positive outlook, be self-reliant and willing to work hard. 

 

Throughout most of the 1980s, living in Connecticut was like living in Switzerland for those working in New York. There was no income tax, and property taxes were relatively low. It is a beautiful state, with 253 miles of shoreline and the largest river in New England, the Connecticut, which flows into Long Island Sound between Old Saybrook and Old Lyme. Roughly 130,000 acres of the state’s farm and woodland are under conservation. It is conveniently situated between New York and Boston. But Democrat control has left a dismal record of fiscal irresponsibility. Today, it is 5th in terms of debt as a percent of GDP, 4th in terms of local and state debt per capita, 4th in terms of unfunded pension liabilities, 3rd in terms of wealth inequality and 2nd in terms of combined sales and income taxes. Not surprisingly, Connecticut was one of ten states to lose population over the past ten years. Like other high-taxed states, the loss was due to people moving to other states, not because deaths outnumbered births.

 

As the state became more Progressive, its policies and taxes became more regressive. The State’s income tax is, admittedly, on a sliding scale. However, complication in the tax code is a boon to accountants and tax lawyers; they are hired by the wealthy and thrive in this environment. Surely, it is not coincidental that Connecticut ranks 4th in terms of lawyers per capita. A flat tax, with no deductions, would be the simplest and most progressive, but lobbyists for lawyers and accountants will never let that happen. Other taxes, like sales, gasoline and property are regressive, in that they consume a larger percentage of the income from low earners than high earners. The lottery, casinos and sports betting (something Connecticut is considering) appeal to the less wealthy, as visions of unearned riches parade before them. Green energy sounds like a good idea, but keep in mind who bears the cost. Connecticut ranks 3rd in terms of cost of energy, measured in cents per kilowatt hour. While the United States has witnessed a natural gas bonanza because of fracking and horizontal drilling, and natural gas prices have declined from $5.00 in December 2010 to $2.89 in November 2020, Connecticut homeowners’ electricity costs are almost double what they were ten years ago. Once batteries are capable of storing energy for months, solar may make sense. But the wind farm Connecticut is constructing in Long Island Sound will, in my opinion, prove to be an environmental disaster, with construction of the turbines damaging the seabed and the inevitable killing of birds who live on and migrate through the Sound. And where is nuclear? 

 

Excessive regulations benefit big businesses, as they limit competition from minority-owned smaller companies and start-ups, as Walter Williams pointed out in his 1982 book, The State Against Blacks, quoted in the rubric. But the truth is their effect is regressive on all small businesses and budding entrepreneurs. Reactions to COVID-19 show how distanced progressives have become from lower income people. In a case of “Big Brother knows best,” lockdowns, which hurt the most economically vulnerable, are enacted by officials and supported by the media who are less at risk of losing their jobs. Elites in business, government, entertainment, the media and the academy have lost their sense of what it was like to start out.

 

Even education has suffered under progressive leadership. Increased spending per student has not generated the results expected. Governor Ned Lamont recently boasted that Connecticut’s K-12 schools ranked third in the country. What he did not mention were the reading and math proficiency scores for fourth and eighth graders, as measured by the National Assessment and Educational Process. In both areas, proficiency for the State’s public schools were less than 50%. That this is mainly a Democratic cause can be seen in the fact that the two principal teachers’ unions give 90-95% of their political contributions to Democrats. 

 

As the Parties realign, what strikes an observer is that class, not race or gender, is the fault line. In the 1930s through the 1960s, the Democratic Party became the preferred venue for blacks. Prior to that, they had generally voted with the “Party of Lincoln.” We are witness to another such shift – this time driven by economic class warfare. In losing the election, Trump picked up support from minorities, women and the LGBTQ community. Where he lost support was among suburban white men. Arrogance and condescension emanating from Progressives do not help those who struggle to make ends meet, individuals who also value their freedom and independence. It is an example of that age-old Chinese adage: it is better to teach a man to fish than to give him a fish. The latter feeds him for a day, the former for a lifetime. Today’s privileged, measured by wealth or education, do not want to upset the status quo, which they find in the Democratic Party. The Republican Party has become the Party for those climbing up economic and social ladders, irrespective of race, religion or gender. It is, thus, the more radical Party, in that it recognizes the need for change, while hewing to those principles of tradition and family, which have helped previous generations become American success stories.

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Sunday, December 6, 2020

"Imagination"

 A cold, rainy Saturday allowed me to finish this essay – a diversion from the pervasive divisiveness of the political scene and the scare of the pandemic, neither of which we can ignore or from which we can escape. But we can temper their rough edges by letting loose our imaginations, in order we might see the world of tomorrow in a more favorable light.

 

Sydney M. Williams

www.swtotd.blogspot.com

 

Essay from Essex

“Imagination”

December 6, 2020

 

But real life is only one kind of life –

there is also the life of the imagination.”

                                                                                                            E.B. White (1899-1985)

                                                                                                            Letter, E.B. White to readers of Charlotte’s Web

                                                                                                            1952

 

Within each of us there lies a bit of Walter Mitty. One does not have to be a milquetoast with a demanding spouse to lapse into daydreams, to imagine impossible deeds. It is the creative urge in each of us to reach for something higher, bolder.

 

In Through the Looking Glass, Lewis Carroll had Alice, laughing, say to the White Queen: “…one can’t believe in impossible things.” The Queen replies: “I daresay you haven’t had much practice. When I was younger, I always did it for half an hour a day. Why, sometimes I’ve believed as many as six impossible things before breakfast.” Many of yesterday’s impossible dreams are today’s realities, thanks to creative and inventive minds.

 

Watch children when they play alone or with a friend. They make up characters, have them speak and they act out fantasies. It is a learning process that breeds creativity. When my siblings and I were children, besides believing in Santa Claus, my mother told us – and we had no reason to disbelieve her – that the barn animals would converse in English at midnight on Christmas Eve. We never were able to stay awake long enough to discover if she was right, but I have no reason today to believe she fibbed. In The Horse and His Boy, C.S. Lewis wrote: “Shasta stroked its smooth-as-silk nose and said, ‘I wish you could talk, old fellow.’ And then for a second he thought he was dreaming, for quite distinctly, though in a low voice, the Horse said, ‘But I can’” And a friendship was born. In Through the Looking Glass, Alice finds herself in the “Garden of Live Flowers”: “’O Tiger-lily,’ said Alice, addressing herself to one that was waving gracefully about in the wind, ‘I wish you could talk.’ ‘We can talk,’ said the Tiger-lily, ‘when there is anybody worth talking to.’” Alice passed the test. Children’s imagination has been abetted by authors like Beatrix Potter, Thornton W. Burgess, Kenneth Grahame and E.B. White who anthropomorphized the animals they created. None of us should grow so old or so cynical as not to be touched by Peter Rabbit, Paddy the Beaver, Mr. Toad or Stuart Little.    

 

Writers of fiction, like my daughter-in-law Beatriz Williams, have great doses of imagination that allow them to create believable characters and situations. Their imagination keeps us on edge as their stories unravel. A few go to greater lengths. J.R.R. Tolkien, CS. Lewis and J.K Rowling created whole worlds for their characters – Middle-earth, Narnia and the Hogwarts School of Witchcraft and Wizardry. Miltiades Peterkin Paul, the creation of Charles Remington Talbot (writing as John Brownjohn), lived in his own world, where he performed deeds that finally won him his spurs…and a kiss from his sister Abiathar Ann. 

 

Imagination extends beyond the literary. When I was growing up on a rocky farm in New Hampshire, I often imagined myself as someone I was not. As this was in the immediate aftermath of the Second World War, I might be the hero of a U.S. Army raiding party against the Nazis, assaulting a pillbox filled with Japanese soldiers, or a pilot flying through shrapnel to my target in Hamburg. Or, since we had horses and political correctness was not yet discovered, my brother and I would saddle up and hunt Indians or rustlers. We did that, even though we rode “English.” On other occasions, I envied birds, free of gravity’s pull, flying high above, with a vista to me visible inly in my imagination. A call to supper or a reminder of chores awakened us to reality. In Greenwich, while nodding off on a home-bound commuter train, I would imagine I was riding alone in my own private rail carriage, awakening, of course, when someone elbowed me in the ribs. Years later, sculling the marsh rivers of Old Lyme, where all signs of civilization were obscured by the aggressive (and non-native) Phragmite, I would imagine myself a Seventeenth Century explorer, the first to penetrate these waters and this land, until the sound of the Acela crossing the Connecticut River brought me out of my reverie. Even today, when returning to our apartment from the mail room, I walk home along two corridors, imagining this building to be ours, each doorway an apartment where friends have been invited to stay. 

 

It is imagination that led to great works of music and art. Think of Beethoven’s Symphony No. 9, Handel’s “Messiah,” Leonardo da Vinci’s “The Last Supper” and Picasso’s “Guernica.” Michelangelo once said: “I saw the angel in the marble and carved until I set him free.” Imagination, as well, can be sobering. Oscar Wilde, in an 1891 essay “The Critic as Artist,” wrote: “Yes: I am a dreamer. For a dreamer is one who can only find his way by moonlight, and his punishment is that he sees the dawn before the rest of the world.” In science, it is imagination that leads to discovery. “Imagination is more important than knowledge, wrote Albert Einstein, “Knowledge is limited. Imagination encircles the world.” Video games are examples of imagination converted to commercial products, which appeal to the imaginative instincts of teenagers. Walt Disney’s Imagineering Department designs and builds their theme park attractions, resorts and games. Almost two hundred years ago, the philosopher Jean-Jacques Rousseau told us: “The world of reality has its limits; the world of imagination is boundless.”

 

Most people are bound by the realities of life – a job, a place to live, the raising of a family, acquiring the necessities to make life bearable. Logic and reason dominate our lives. But we should not forget, as E.B. White reminded us, that there is also the life of the imagination and it is that which fuels our creative juices. We should not keep hidden our Walter Mitty, yearning to be released. It is the imagination that turns a dream into an accomplishment. It is a dream of a better future that drives the immigrant, that causes a student to strive a little harder for that ‘A,’ and that guides the entrepreneur in a search for a new product or service. Dream on!

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Thursday, December 3, 2020

"A Fading Culture"

 


Sydney M. Williams

www.swtotd.blogspot.com

 

Thought of the Day

“A Fading Culture”

December 3, 2020

 

It’s not dark yet, but it’s getting that way.”

                                                                                                Bob Dylan (1941-)

                                                                                                “Not Dark, Yet” 1997

 

The word culture stems from the Latin “colere,” to cultivate, nurture and grow. It encompasses many aspects of our lives, like music, art and literature, as well as ethnicities, religion and race. But when I write of culture, I refer to family, traditions like church and patriotism, and qualities like honor, manners, respect, humility, tolerance – universal values, acquired over time and required for civil behavior. They are expressed in axioms like the Golden Rule, the Ten Commandments and turning the other cheek.

 

The United States has faults, but its good qualities outshine its bad. As a nation of courageous and independent individuals, we are unafraid to speak of past and present evils, like slavery and bigotry. We should, as well, be as quick to acknowledge our accomplishments: A Constitutional government “of the people, by the people, for the people,” comprised of laws, not men; our system of free-market capitalism, which has done more to eradicate poverty than any system of state redistribution; educational opportunities not available to most of the world – two thirds of Americans between the ages of 18 and 22 are in college. To believe that race is systemic is to be seduced by accusations of white guilt and to disbelieve facts; a Pew Research survey found that 91% of Americans either shrug off or applaud interracial marriage. We are the most desired nation for migrants, with 21% naming the U.S., in a study done by the World Economic Forum in 2017. (Germany was second with six percent.)

 

As a nation, we are blessed with natural resources and favorable climate, but they alone do not account for our success. The crucible has been a culture that valued aspiration, risk-taking, hard work and self-reliance. It was a culture, based on a Judeo-Christian heritage, enmeshed in the traditional family and traditional values. Our universities were designed to allow the intellectually gifted to expand their minds, explore and debate ideas, to learn the “hows” and “whys” of thinking, not what to think. Students were challenged, not coddled. The concept of “safe places,” or the idea that the classroom was a place to claim victimhood and air grievances were alien to those who saw their role as imparting knowledge, to form better citizens, to help the Country grow and prosper. 

 

Fundamental to the success of our culture has been the nuclear family. Its decline has been accompanied by dysfunction and cultural deterioration. Today, according to statistics from the U.S. Census Bureau, 19.7 million American children (25%) grow up in households without a father. For Blacks, the number is 65%. Those children bear a disadvantage. In a recent issue of “First Things,” Mary Eberstadt, essayist and author of How the West Really Lost God, wrote: “Absent fathers predict higher rates of truancy, psychiatric problems, criminality, promiscuity, drug use, rape, domestic violence, and other less optimal outcomes.” Her conclusions are confirmed by sociologists and organizations like the National Fatherhood Initiative. While divorce, at times, is s the right answer, we should promote family values.

 

Immigration is integral to our culture. The United States is largely composed of immigrants, initially from Western Europe, with slaves from Africa brought here against their will. More recently the majority of immigrants have come from Latin America and Asia. Inherent to what is the United States has been the willingness of immigrants to adapt to American “cultural norms.” This does not mean, as some claim, that immigrants are supposed to deny their past. But it does recognize that assimilation is critical to future success. The preference of “woke” progressives is for a segregated, “salad bow” approach, with competing and contrasting identities, rather than a melting pot, with its motto of E Pluribus Unum. To succeed, immigrants must learn our language, culture and customs, while adding their bit to it. Yet, cynical politicians, viewing them as a source of votes, urge them to emphasize victimhood, rather than to encourage the independent spirit that brought them to this Country. To deny them the opportunities the United States offers is demeaning and unfair, as it makes more difficult the climb up the economic ladder, and it is untrue to the culture that has made the United States a success. 

 

In its place, we have developed a “woke” counterculture that idolizes political correctness, eradicates history, cheers white guilt and victimization of minorities; it divides people and discourages heroism. It is a culture seeded in universities, nurtured by mainstream and social media, reaped by “woke” politicians and fed on by organizations like Black Lives Matter and Antifa. It is a culture that allows politicians to milk the public purse for private gain. It permitted the Biden family to become rich off of Ukraine and China. It was behind the lies and the subterfuge in the Obama Administration, which weaponized our intelligence agencies to spy on, and attempt to destroy the Trump Administration, beginning in late 2016. It was behind the failed Mueller investigation and the impeachment of Donald Trump. It is a culture that brooks no dissent and allows no debate. Its followers are seductive, articulate and intelligent. But they are ruthless in their self-righteousness and will lie and cheat to achieve their goals. As well, and which may bring their downfall, they have become insufferable, cultural snobs. Is it any surprise that trust in government has collapsed?  Is it a surprise that so many question the outcome of November’s election?

 

At age sixteen, George Washington copied out 110 “Rules of Civility & Decent Behavior in Company and Conversation.” While many of the rules are dated and have little applicability today, what they have is a consideration for the feelings of others, rather than the self-righteousness that permeates society today. As such, they are intrinsic to our culture. They proclaim our respect for others and, in turn, give us the gift of self-respect and heightened self-esteem. I would not expect young people today to copy those rules, but they should be aware of them and of what prompted the young George Washington to copy them.

 

This cultural slide has been fed by a confederacy of snobs in academia, and in social and mainstream media. Corrupt politicians/bureaucrats and their corporate accomplices have created a government of oligarchs. Mr. Trump is a man whose many flaws are well publicized, but whose virtues – loyalty, directness, tenaciousness – go unreported. Our cultural slide is manifest in attitudes toward him: The hatred for Mr. Trump by Progressives is not based on damage he might inflict on democracy, but fear of what he would uncover in “draining the swamp.” The media does not mock him for the policies he pursued, but because he called them out for the toadies they are. Academia do not dismiss him for his ideas, but because his speech is blunt and coarse. Mr. Trump is not the cause of this cultural decline. He is a consequence. Where is respect for the office? Where is tolerance for a diversity of opinions? Where are the manners that allow us to live civilly? Where is honor? “It’s not dark yet, but it’s getting that way.”

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