"Trust," Hernan Diaz - A Review

 

Sydney M. Williams

 

Burrowing into Books

“Trust,” Hernan Diaz

February 25, 2023

 

“Chaos is a vortex that spins faster with each thing it swallows.”

                                                                                                                                Hernan Diaz (1973-)

                                                                                                                                Trust, 2022

 

This is an exceptional story. Because of the way it unfolds, the book is difficult to review without spoiling it for readers. The title is cryptic and ambivalent. Characters are believable, until contradicted. Who is telling the truth? We are left in wonder, but we are pleased.    

 

The table of contents alerts us that this is no ordinary story. Four chapters listed, each by a different author. In reality, it is the same story told by different people, and, of course, all by Hernan Diaz. The question: Which version should the reader believe? At its heart is a gifted, but ethically challenged, early 20^th Century New York financier, Andrew Bevel and his troubled but brilliant, and now deceased, wife Mildred. The book opens with “Bonds,” a fictional story by Harold Vanner, based on Bevel’s life, but with the names changed to Benjamin and Helen Rask. The story tells of Rask’s background and that of his wife, his financial prowess, and Mildred’s mental health troubles. The second section, “My Life,” is written by Bevel in response to Vanner’s story. In it, he presents his tale of events, emphasizing his financial acumen and his story of his wife’s illness. The third section, “A Memoir, Remembered,” is by Ida Partenza. Ida had been Bevel’s secretary in the late 1930s and helped him compile his book. Looking back from a distance of fifty years, she offers remembrances of that time. At just over 160 pages, this is the longest section. The fourth story, or chapter is the shortest and is comprised of notes written by Mildred when she was in the Swiss sanitarium. In this we learn that Bevel’s fortune may not have been made as have been led to believe. So, whom do we believe: Vanner, Bevel, Partenza, or Mildred? Whom should we trust?

 

Not wanting to give the story away, a few samples of Diaz’s writing might entice a potential reader: “Despite his honest efforts, he could not argue, with any semblance of passion, for the virtue of a lonsdale over a diadema…” “Since they both lived on the outskirts of political reality, they did not immediately understand the grave implications of Archduke Franz Ferdinand’s assassination.” “Whatever the past may have handed us, it is up to each one of us to chisel our present out of the shapeless block of the future.” And one with relevance for my recommendation of this book: “‘Well, sweetheart.’ His diction was muddled by a spoonful of ice cream he rolled around his tongue. ‘You’ll just have to trust me.’”

 

Hernan Diaz was born in Buenos Aires in 1973 and spent his early childhood in Sweden. He currently lives in New York City. This is his second novel. His first, In the Distance, published in 2017, was a finalist for the Pulitzer Prize. This novel won the Booker Prize in 2022. A fascinating novel, it won’t disappoint.

"Hatred and the Curse of Identity Politics"

 Today is President’s Day. In 1971, as part of the Uniform Monday Holiday Act, we ceased celebrating February 12 as Lincoln’s birthday and the 22^nd as Washington’s birthday. Instead, the holiday was moved to the third Monday of the month. While working, I admit to liking three-day weekends, but I feel we have lost something when we don’t celebrate the actual days of Washington’s and Lincoln’s birth. Of course, there are forty-four other Presidents, and forty-two of them were not born during this month. (The two others that were born in February are William Henry Harrison on February 9,  1773, and Ronald Reagan on February 6, 1911.)

 

Enough complaining. Enjoy the day, and, I hope, the essay.

 

Sydney M. Williams

www.swtotd.blogspot.com

 

Thought of the Day

“Hatred and the Curse of Identity Politics”

February 20, 2023

 

“Hatred is the most accessible and comprehensive of all the unifying agents. Mass movements

can rise and spread without belief in a god, but never without a belief in the devil.”

                                                                                 Eric Hoffer (1902-1983)

                                                                                 American author and social philosopher

                                                                                 The True Believer: Thoughts of the Nature of Mass Movements

 

Alice Roosevelt Longworth, Theodore Roosevelt’s rebellious daughter, is supposed to have quipped: “If you haven’t anything nice to say about anybody, come sit next to me.” Regardless of the quote’s validity, most of us were taught that “speech is silver, but silence is golden” and that “love conquers hate.” However, Vanessa Van Edwards, the behavioral scientist and author of Captivate: The Science of Succeeding with People, says her research suggests that Alice may have been on to something. People form stronger bonds when they talk about someone they hate rather than someone with whom they have positive feelings. 

 

Hatred, often coupled with tribalism, has been prominent throughout history and has led to millions being killed. Hatred of Native Americans, as well as desire for more land, was a motivating factor in opening North America to European settlers. Hatred for blacks in southern U.S. states led to an estimated 4,400 of them being lynched between Reconstruction and World War II.

 

Hatred is universal and has killed millions. Estimates are that up to 20 million people were killed by Stalin in the Soviet Union, most in the 1930s, including five million Ukrainians who were deliberately starved between 1931 and 1934. Hatred of Jews by the Nazis led to their genocide in Europe, with an estimated six million killed. Nobody knows for sure, but probably 30 million Chinese were killed or starved during the Cultural Revolution, between 1966 and 1976. Communist guerillas killed somewhere between two and three million Cambodians between 1975 and 1979. Islamic terrorists, driven by hate for the West, killed more than 3,000 people in the U.S. on 9/11. In the last fourteen years, an estimated 75,000 Christians have been slaughtered in Nigeria. Tens of thousands of Uyghurs have been detained and/or killed in China’s northwest. There are hundreds of other examples. 

 

Hatred, though, can rally a nation against its enemies, as it has in time of war: American colonists against the British in 1775; the South versus the North in 1861; the Spanish in 1898, after the explosion of the USS Maine; the “Hun” in 1917; Nazis and Japanese in 1941; Communists in Korea and later in Vietnam, and Islamic extremists following 9/11. All were called derogatory names. 

 

Paul Eckman, the American psychologist and professor emeritus at the University of California, has said that we have six basic emotions, two of which, anger and disgust, can lead to hatred. Our government once emphasized what we have in common – E pluribus unum (out of many, one). It appealed to our patriotism, to our exceptionalism as a sovereign nation, to what binds us as a people. We are a country of immigrants, and new immigrants tend to stick together, so the emphasis was to enfold them into the fabric that comprises America. And, over time – one, two, or three generations – that is what happened. Immigrants were no longer Italian Americans, Polish Americans, German Americans, or Irish Americans. They were Americans, living in “the land of opportunity,” a meritocracy where aspiration, diligence, and talent could lead one out of poverty and into the middle class. 

 

The Left, however, has determined that identity politics is a legitimate means of achieving and maintaining political power, so they have reverted to a new form of tribal segregation: dividing us by ethnicity, race, gender, sexual orientation, religious, and socio-economic backgrounds – all of which provide fertile ground for hatred to germinate. We are divided into victims and oppressors, with the implication that the only way to restore equity is for government to mandate equal outcomes. Institutionalized by the Left, identity politics has legitimized what Peruvian author Mario Vargas Llosa has called “the inextinguishable call of the tribe.”

 

Traditional values like diligence and strong family ties are seen as qualities of the oppressor class, thus not encouraged. In their efforts, the Left has been aided by the media, cultural icons, and technology, the latter which can be manipulated to achieve preferred goals that create further divisiveness. Technology has made us more knowledgeable, but not wiser, and has done little to ameliorate natural differences between people. In his book, Leadership, Henry Kissinger wrote: “Architects of the internet thought of their invention as an ingenious means of connecting the world; in reality, it has also yielded a new way to divide humanity into warring tribes.”

 

Some may think my concerns exaggerated – that we have been more divided in the past, with hatred more ubiquitous. We probably were in 1861, but still I worry. A case in point: The reaction to Donald Trump’s candidacy and Presidency by his political enemies was not based on reason. It was unadulterated hate. Some may have felt it was deserved, as Mr. Trump could be nasty to those who crossed him. Nevertheless, that does not absolve those who fought him. The 2016 Russian collusion story was fabricated by the Clinton campaign, with assists from the intelligence community and mainstream media. It resulted in the $30 million Mueller investigation, which hampered his Presidency for three years and came to naught. The same thing happened in 2020 with Hunter Biden’s laptop. Fifty existing and former intelligence officers, urged on by the media, claimed it was Russian disinformation. It was not. That hatred for Trump was not unique. Governor Ron DeSantis is now a target, as can be seen in Molly Jong-Fast’s recent article in Vanity Fair. Some may argue that, regarding Trump, ends justified means, that getting rid of him was worth any price. But that is a slippery slope, which adds to polarization and, thus, to hatred. Our democracy only works if the press, in reporting the news, remains politically agnostic, and if the intelligence community does not take sides. With the exception of opinion pages, the media and the intelligence communities should remain neutral when it comes to political candidates. Let politicians debate, then let the people decide.

 

Tribalism is natural. Based on emotion, it ignores reason. It can be a positive force: loyalty to one’s school, allegiance to one’s teammates, faithfulness to one’s comrades, public-spiritedness within one’s community, and patriotism to one’s country.  Apart from the recluse or hermit, most people want to be with others who are like-minded. Man is a social animal. It is why we have fraternities and sororities, social clubs and eating clubs. But in a diverse, multi-cultured country, like the United States, we must learn to live with those whose ideas and beliefs differ from ours. Identity politics, however, pushed by the Left, serves to keep us apart. This is where tribalism becomes a negative force. Diversity is demanded by the Left, but not in ideas. In protecting students from “hateful” words, colleges keep students intellectually isolated. Is that wise? In a recent essay for Geopolitical Futures, George Friedman wrote: “Simply put, you will learn little from someone with whom you agree. You will learn the most from someone with whom you disagree.” That means one must engage with and listen to those whose opinions differ from one’s own.

 

Man is perhaps the only species that kills and destroys its own kind out of pure hatred. The President, as leader of the federal government and responsible to all the people, should work to unite a fractured people, not pursue identity politics that deepen division and fuel hatred. More important, we, individually and responsible to and for ourselves, should let our better angels prevail.

"Leadership: Six Studies in World Leadership," Henry Kaufman

 At a time when the world sits precariously, in an apparent Thucydides Trap, between a self-indulgent West and an assertive China, this book has relevance.

 

Sydney M. Williams

 

Burrowing into Books

“Leadership: Six Studies in World Strategy,” Henry Kissinger

February 18, 2023

 

“For a nation to pretend to total autonomy is a form of nostalgia;

reality dictates that every nation – even the most powerful – adapt its

conduct to the capability and purposes of its neighbors and rivals.”

                                                                                                                Henry Kissinger (1923-)

                                                                                                                Leadership: Six Studies in World Strategy 2022

 

The leaders Kissinger discusses were forged in the crucible of the Second World War, the three oldest as players, the three youngest as observers. They were all classically educated, at a time when character was emphasized; they were intelligent, aspirant, and advanced to positions of authority based on merit. They had a positive effect on the world they inherited. Kissinger writes: “…[In] the unending contest between the willed and the inevitable, [they] understood that what seems inevitable becomes so by human agency.”

 

Another author might have selected different leaders; this list comprises those whom Kissinger knew, worked with, and respected. The central foreign policy challenges of this period – the end of World War II through the collapse of the Soviet Union in 1991 – the rebuilding of Europe and Japan and the building of a world order; the Cold War; and the struggle between liberty and tyranny. While each was unique, these six had in common directness and boldness, and they were unafraid of offending entrenched interests.

 

Through biographical sketches, Kissinger presents a history of those forty-five years, which saw the economic and political revival of former Axis powers, the end of European imperialism, the birth and struggle of new nations, and the collapse of the Soviet Union:

 

           Konrad Adenauer (1876-1967): He served as Mayor of Cologne from 1917 until 1933. “As an adult,” Kissinger writes, “Adenauer had experienced the German state’s three post-Bismarck configurations…under the Kaiser…under the Weimar Republic…and under Hitler, culminating in self-destruction and disintegration.” He was elected the Federal Republic of Germany’s first post-War Chancellor. In ten years, his Country had become a full partner in Europe and the Atlantic Alliance.

 

            Charles de Gaulle (1890-1970): “A sensitive reader and author of poetry as a child…The virtue of self-mastery, sketched in his journal, was to become a central feature of his character.” During the War, he kept alive the concept of sovereign France, saying she must be on the side of victory. “If she is,” Kissinger quotes from de Gaulle’s journal, “she will become what she was before, a great and independent nation. That, and that alone, is my goal.” De Gaulle restored the dignity of France.

 

           Richard Nixon (1913-1994): Kissinger served as Nixon’s Secretary of State, so knew him well. He doesn’t shy from his faults. There was the decisive and thoughtful Nixon, the one he describes in this book. But there was also the insecure Nixon “uncertain of his authority and plagued by a nagging self-doubt.” We are told that Nixon’s foreign policy views were “more nuanced than his critics’ perception of them.” “The essence of Nixon’s diplomacy lay in his disciplined application of American power and national purpose…,” with the opening of China his principal accomplishment.

 

           Anwar Sadat (1918-1981): “Of the individuals profiled in this volume,” Kissinger writes, “Sadat was the one whose philosophical and moral vision constituted the greatest breakthrough for his time and context.” “His policies,” he adds, “flowed organically from his personal reflections and his own interior transformations.” He believed “that Egypt’s freedom would be achieved through independence…His aim was to resurrect an ancient dialogue between Jews and Arabs…their histories were meant to intertwine.” This he did, as Egypt’s President from October 1970, until he was assassinated on October 6, 1981. 

 

Lee Kuan Yew (1923-2015): The first Prime Minister of an independent Singapore, he served from 1959 until 1990. Singapore is an authoritarian state, but Lee’s rigorous enforcement of the city-state’s laws has made it one of the least corrupt nations in the world. In a world of relaxed Western morals, which Lee saw as “freedom run amok,” he was a pragmatist. He preferred a market economy to statism, because it produces higher growth rates. He sought talented foreigners and brought women into the workforce, because he could not achieve his goals without them. “I was never,” Kissinger quotes Lee, “a prisoner of any theory. What guided me were reasons of reality.”

 

Margaret Thatcher (1925-2013): She was brought up in rooms above her father’s store, “lacking hot water and an indoor bathroom.” A graduate of Oxford with a degree in chemistry, she was turned down for a research job at Imperial Chemical Industries (ICI): “This woman is headstrong, obstinate, and dangerously self-opinionated,” was ICI’s internal assessment. Ironically, those qualities led to her political success. Thatcher, Kissinger writes, “was an implacable advocate of self-determination…in the right of citizens to choose their own form of government…and in the responsibility of states to exercise sovereignty on their own behalf.” She restored England’s economy, her sense of dignity and self-respect, in a world where she was no longer hegemonic. 

 

The world in which these six leaders lived had changed from an hereditary-aristocratic model prior to World War I to a middleclass-meritocratic one in the post-World War II period. During that time, the sun set on the British Empire, affecting both Egypt and Singapore. World War II saw the collapse of France in 1940, the near collapse of England the same year, and the devastation of Germany by 1945. The United States emerged as the wealthiest and most powerful nation on Earth. None of the six profiled grew up privileged. Two of them – Adenauer and Sadat – spent time in prison. De Gaulle and Lee had to deal with enemy occupiers of their countries. All were students of history.

 

Henry Kissinger has provided an intimate and masterful history of that time, with an emphasis on six individuals who played out-sized roles. In his conclusion about Thatcher he writes, in words appropriate to all six: “But only love of country and her people can explain how she wielded power and all that she achieved with it.”

"We Are All Americans"

Sydney M. Williams

Thought of the Day

“We Are All Americans”

February 11, 2023

 

“America was not built on fear. America was built on courage,

on imagination and an unbeatable determination to do the job at hand.”

                                                                                                                                President Harry Truman

                                                                                                                                Message to Congress

                                                                                                                                January 8, 1947

 

Public debates, be they high school, college or Presidential, are aimed at diminishing one’s opponent and convincing the audience of one’s superior argument. It is rhetoric, the art of persuasion. Like political campaigns, its goal is to win. In contrast, debates in the classroom – at least in years past – and in legislative bodies – at least when no press is present – are to test one’s argument, to listen to one’s opponent. The purpose is to learn and to come to a consensus. When I was young, I argued with my father; only later did I realize I was trying to understand why he believed as he did. 

 

…………………………………………………………….

 

In a polyglot society, such as the United States, individual identities are natural and differences in ideas are to be expected. The latter should be encouraged, for it is through respectful debate that common ground is found. On the other hand, the political exploitation of group identifications has caused a widening divide among an already fractionated people. Factionalism was a concern of the Founding Fathers. In “Federalist 10,” James Madison warned that it could lead to “…instability, injustice, and confusion…the mortal diseases under which popular governments have everywhere perished.”

 

Yet politicians today have found that splitting the electorate into manageable pieces makes it easier to campaign and win on specific issues. Thus, we have been divided into victims and assailants. This division makes the insulting assumption that certain races are incapable of competing on merit; so different standards are used for Asians, blacks, and whites in college admissions and jobs. We have been divided by cultural preferences, where gender is seen as a matter of choice, not biology. Dependency on government has come at the expense of individual responsibility and accountability; the concept of equal opportunity has been subordinated to a demand for equal outcomes, and the dignity of work seems an abandoned philosophy. Diversity and inclusion, the battle cry of the Woke, does not include diversity of ideas or the inclusion of those who dare challenge conventional thought.

 

The people of the United States represent most every nation on the planet. We speak hundreds of languages and dialects. We represent virtually every religion. In those senses, we are unique as a nation. We are born equal in our basic rights and before the law, but we are not born equal in mental abilities or physical attributes, nor do we all aspire to the same heights. No amount of political talk and promises can change that fact. We are of different economic classes, races, religions, and ethnicities. We must play the cards we were dealt. In his critically acclaimed novel, Trust, Hernan Diaz wrote: “Whatever the past may have handed us, it is up to each one of us to chisel our present out of the shapeless block of the future.” There is no question that a white child born in a suburb has a head start over a black child born in an inner city. Similarly, a black child born in suburbia has an easier start on life than a white one born dirt-poor in Appalachia. The promise of the United States is not the impossible gift of equity, but the real gift of opportunity – access to the social and economic ladder, the ascent of which is limited only by personal ambition and talent. Fundamental to climbing that ladder is education, which is why good schools are critical. 

 

We have reached an odd place – where our unique culture is at risk, where stories of deprivation and racism are not offset by stories of the success of men and women overcoming enormous odds, where values are muted or deemed relative, and where good and evil are not contrasted. It is not just politicians who have placed us in this spot. It is also the proliferation of a biased media. The news, whether on-line, TV or paper, has become little more than political propaganda. It is our universities where students are protected against “harmful” words and where truth has succumbed to ideology. It is social media, which has invaded our privacy with the tenacity of a four-year-old screaming for his popped balloon. Shared values become scarcer when individuals adopt the questionable memes of internet “influencers,” rather than the virtues gathered from classical literature, traditions, and customs.

 

What the people of the United States need are debates, not rhetorical flourishes designed for political campaign-style harangues; but debates with straight talk, to help citizens understand the problems we face and the opportunities we have. Social Security, Medicare, and Medicaid are an example. No one wants to cut payments to retirees, or not provide healthcare to the needy. But we must face the fact that unless something is done money will run out. There are policies we could pursue: Raising retirement age, means-testing benefits, and/or increasing the minimum taxable wage from $160,000. I am sure there are other ideas. But to pretend that the problem does not exist, as was the message from both sides during last Tuesday’s State of the Union, insults the intelligence of the American people. 

 

The United States is fortunate. It is laden with natural resources and uniquely positioned geographically. We are fortunate to be citizens of a nation of laws not men, a nation without an aristocracy, a nation whose men and women comprise myriad ethnicities, races, religions, and sexual orientations – a nation where a black man and a black woman sit on the highest court. “Vive la différence,” is a well-known French expression, generally used to celebrate the differences between the sexes. We, too, should laud our differences. But we cannot let them smother what we have in common – “a government of the people, by the people, for the people.”

 

But democracy is work. Without attention, it collapses. As Jesus said, a house divided against itself cannot stand. We cannot let differences destroy the symmetry history has given us. In his recent book Leadership, Henry

Kissinger wrote that we cannot let sectarian passions overwhelm traditional structures.[1]It is a challenge that must be met, else society unravels. We must not forget that what we have in common is individual freedom: free to pray, to speak, and to assemble; free to use the special gifts God gave each of us, to succeed or fail. We are all Americans.

"The Photograph Album"

 

Sydney M. Williams

 

More Essays from Essex

“The Photograph Album”

February 4, 2023

 

“What I like about photographs is that they capture a

moment that’s gone forever, impossible to reproduce.”

                                                                                                    Attributed to Karl Lagerfeld (1933-2019)

                                                                                                    German fashion designer, artist, and photographer

 

Photograph albums have gone the way of hand-cranked auto windows, phonographs, dial phones, carbon paper, and VCRs. But they will be missed more than those other 20^th Century inventions; for the latter have been replaced by improved products, while viewing photos on a smart phone, iPad, or computer is not the same as leafing through a photo album, pausing over a fond memory, or scuttling past one less memorable.

 

Photos contain stories of our past – our childhood and that of our parents and grandparents, remembrances of friends and special occasions, of the trips we took and the homes we lived in. As the rubric states, they capture a moment from which a story can be spun. They keep us anchored to a known past as we head toward unknowable shores.

 

These albums abound in our home, and I am happy they do. Amid the books, papers, and tchotchkes in our library lie twenty-five of them. Of assorted sizes, they record our fifty-nine years of marriage, along with glimpses of our parents and grandparents. They are treasures we will pass on. The earliest is a scrapbook (dated 1947), which has scribblings of mine, pictures cut from magazines, including an ad for Schlitz, “the beer that made Milwaukee famous,” an odd item to have collected at age six, as neither of my parents drank beer, and I was hardly a guzzler. Another album has photographs I took in the summer of 1955, mostly of my siblings and horses around our home in Peterborough, but there are also photos from the 4^th of July in Wellesley, MA; the Seaport in Mystic, Connecticut; New York’s Bronx Zoo; Washington, D.C., and from my grandmother’s home in Madison, CT. I had forgotten that I had traveled so much that summer.

 

Among the two dozen albums are a dozen “Apple” books. One is of Caroline’s 70th birthday; another of climbing Mount Washington in 2007, when grandson Alex was six; a third is of a trip to China in 2008, when I went as a guest of son Edward who was on a business trip. But most are of a “year in review,” in which we look at grandchildren, and watch as they grow older.

 

There is an album of photos from our wedding in 1964 – formal ones in black and white, with candid shots in color. Among the latter is a photo of my sister Mary and her husband Bob Gregg. Mary, who at the time was pregnant with her first child, died 24 years ago. Her husband died six months ago. Memories flood back and tears well. There is an album of our daughter’s wedding. Linie (short for Caroline) married Bill Featherston twenty-six years ago this June at St. Ann’s in Old Lyme, with the reception at our home. As I page through these albums, I blink back tears, remembering so many who have since died, but also recalling the joy of those special days and the love and closeness I felt. Other albums show our sons’ weddings in Palo Alto and Buffalo, each special in seeing them and their brides in the flowering of youth and love.

 

Our honeymoon was delayed almost a year. I finished college in February and had a job with Eastman Kodak starting in June, so Caroline and I took $2,000.00, bought round trip tickets to Paris and a copy of Arthur Frommer’s Europe on 5 Dollars a Day. We rented a VW “bug,” and took an eleven-week trip through southern Europe. It was memorialized in an album, which also includes the map we followed. There are photo albums of our childhoods and even those of our parents and grandparents. Looking at those who have been gone for so long, I am reminded that those who were my family had eyes that saw, ears that heard, voices that spoke, and arms that hugged. The world was as real to them as it is to us. There are albums of the houses in which we lived, and of ones we remember from our childhood. There is even an album showing scenes from my 40^th, 50^th and 60^th birthdays, with amusing comments from a neighbor. Each was a milestone; then I felt the passing decades. Now I realize how young I was.

 

But most of the albums are of our children through those wonderous years of their growing up. Twenty-seven years marked the time from when our first child was born until the youngest graduated from college. In any parent’s life, those are the most important years. Children grow from utter dependency to complete independency. It is a marvel and a miracle, and it has been happening for tens of thousands of years, over thousands of generations and will happen as long into the future as we can imagine. 

 

These albums are a record of our lives. They will be passed to our children and grandchildren, for whom I hope they bring as many pleasant memories as they have given us.

"Is Sanity Replacing Wokeism?"

 

Sydney M. Williams

https://swtotd.blogspot.com  

 

Thought of the Day

“Is Sanity Replacing Wokeism?”

February 3, 2023

 

“On Thursday the University of North Carolina board of trustees voted

12-0 to create a new school committed to free expression in higher education.”

                                                                                                                                Editorial, The Wall Street Journal

                                                                                                                                January 26, 2023

 

As is always true, many problems confront our nation, but one is in the forefront of what divides us: culture. It is the culture wars that strike at the heart of what it means to be an American, a nation of people from every corner of the world, individuals with myriad beliefs but with one common objective: to live freely. But what happens when definitions of freedom are in conflict – when, for example, the wishes of teenagers, empowered by teachers, run counter to the desires of parents? When we disagree as to the founding principles of our nation, or when merit is subservient to racial diversity in college admissions?

 

…………………………………………….

 

“Insanity is doing the same thing over and over again and expecting different results,” is a saying attributed to Albert Einstein. It is applicable in the “Woke”[1] world we inhabit: Does it make sense to persist in pouring money into the gaping jaws of public education, in hopes that this time money will cure failing schools? Why do teachers, administrators, and the curriculum escape blame when students score poorly on international tests? Does it make sense to blame the weapon above the one who pulled the trigger in a mass shooting? And why are criminals so often released without bail, even after having committed armed robbery, and why is the mental health of the gunman not considered a cause for the crime. And why were interest rates kept artificially low, even as federal debt expanded exponentially? 

 

These problems and more are of concern, yet there are signs that sanity may be returning. As The Wall Street Journal editorialized last week (and quoted in the rubric above), the University of North Carolina found it desirable to create a new school committed to free expression – a practice that was once considered the norm for universities. Was this an admission that “woke” policies had failed? Hamline University, a small liberal arts college in St. Paul, Minnesota, was in the news recently. Its president Fayneese Miller fired art history instructor Erika López Prater for the sin of having shown two slides of the Prophet Mohammed in her online art history class. One student, the president of the Muslim Student Association, complained that Ms. Prater had violated the rights of students to be protected from seeing or hearing something they dislike. However, the faculty has risen in support of her. Seventy-one of the ninety-two faculty members have called on President Miller to resign. 

 

School choice is gaining momentum, as a Wall Street Journal editorial noted last week. Public charter schools, which typically hire non-unionized teachers, have brought needed competition to traditional public schools. At the end of 2021, forty-three states had charter schools, with demand exceeding supply. They are a political football, though, fought against by well-funded teachers’ unions. A poll released last August by the National Alliance for Public Charter Schools found that “seventy-seven percent of parents want more charter school offerings in their area. This is consistent across political affiliations.” As well, eight states have education savings accounts – with a dozen or more now considering legislation – making private schools more accessible to more families, bringing needed competition to traditional public schools. 

 

State tax relief and reform are being considered. Stateline, a nonpartisan, nonprofit news service of the Pew Charitable Trusts reported a year ago that sixteen states, led by both Republicans and Democrats, had cut taxes in 2021. Admittedly, in part that was due to a surfeit of funds associated with Covid relief. But more states are cutting taxes. A January 30^th, 2023 article in The Wall Street Journal reported: “By year-end, nearly half of all states will have cut their income-tax rates within a three-year period,” with flat-tax reforms spreading. The Tax Foundation affirms that returning revenue to taxpayers spurs faster economic growth.

 

But I don’t want to appear Panglossian. We are not yet in the clear. As an editorial in the February 1^st edition of The Wall Street Journalnoted, regarding UNC’s new school, “…faculty grandees are outraged that the UNC trustees thought such a school necessary and didn’t even seek the faculty’s permission.” Teachers’ unions, which for years have fought charter schools, are among the largest donors to political campaigns. In 2022, according to Open Secrets, they donated just under $70 million, with 99% going to Democrats. And while interest rates have risen, and inflation has ebbed, rates on Fed Funds (4.5%) and the U.S. Ten-year (3.52%) remain below the current inflation rate (6.5%), benefitting borrowers and inhibiting savers.

 

And taxpayers have ceded power to government, reminding one of the letter Lord Acton (English historian and politician) wrote to Bishop Creighton (then chair of Ecclesiastical History at Cambridge) in 1887, regarding the application of moral standards: “Power tends to corrupt, and absolute power corrupts absolutely.” In The Road to Serfdom, Friedrich Hayek warned: “We shall never prevent the abuse of power if we are not prepared to limit power in a way which occasionally may prevent its use for desirable purposes.” It is difficult to slow the growth of our leviathan-like federal government: bureaucrats rely on its persistent expansion and dependents count on its continued beneficence. 

 

Looking out ten or twenty years, questions arise: What is in store for our children and grandchildren? Will government exert ever more control over what they do and how they think? Will its workforce continue to expand? Will more people become dependent on its largesse? Will people be free to follow their dreams? Will aspiration, effort, and ability lead to success, regardless of race or gender? Will the Fed continue to print money at a rate that exceeds economic productivity? Or will government revert to its more limited role as servant to the people? I don’t pretend to have answers, but I am heartened by what appears to be indications of people fighting back – parents of public school students arguing to be heard, university trustees assuming responsibility, state legislators who are cutting taxes, and a Federal Reserve that persists in raising rates, even as inflation appears to be ebbing – suggesting a possible return to common sense.

 

Fingers crossed!

 

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[1] I define wokeism as the actions of those who publicly (loudly and proudly) express more sensitivity to the social concerns of racial, gender, and ethnic groups, than to the plight of individuals within those groups. Wokeism claims to be inclusive yet has proven to be divisive. It professes adherence to such nebulous objectives as “saving the planet,” with little concern for disruption or costs. The woke promote diversity of race, gender, and ethnicity, while they demote diversity of ideas and opinions. As a consequence, wokeism leads to ideological conformity.