Thanksgiving 2015

Thanksgiving 2015

 

It was my good fortune to do my graduate work in a day before the intense (and competitive) specialization that ensued shortly after I received my degree—which I received together with rights and privileges that have yet to become apparent.

 

Recently, I’ve been glad to see that specialization—not just a single author but a short period of the author’s career, not just the eye but the iris—begin to break down at least in my fields…broadening into area studies, such as environmental writing or gender studies.  Themes at the Faulkner Conference, such as this past summer’s Print Culture, may discourage attendance by those not yet familiar with the new taxonomy, but they have certainly yielded some of the best papers in a long time.  So too the newer style of panels that Guy Reynolds experimented with at the last Cather International…less authoritative dictum and more let’s have conversation!

 

This subject is especially poignant to me this year.  The “In Remembrance” portion of the coming annual Christmastide reflections will speak for itself to the extraordinary griefs of this past year.  One cousin (Ted Peek) and many close and long-time friends (Carlos Carlisle, Ruth Lampe, Olive Bucklin), and a host of folks admired for their many qualities. Somewhat unfairly, however, I am stopping for a moment this Thanksgiving to focus on four remarkable “academic” friends, one among this year’s deepest losses and the others to whom I want to say something before we are all gone.

 

When Mike Cartwright died suddenly, I was reminded with some force of how long I’ve held these four to be my models of the kind of intellectual our graduate training then helped us become. Pete Clark, Don Cunningham, and Gerry Parsons, along with Mike, all remind me constantly of Dorothy Parker’s quip that the cure for boredom is curiosity—there is no known cure for curiosity!

 

The prayer following baptism in the Book of Common Prayer – one of my favorite prayers and, I think you’ll agree, completely Anglican in its spirit—includes the petition: Give them an inquiring and discerning heart, the courage to will and to persevere, a spirit to know and to love you, and the gift of joy and wonder in all your works.

 

Only two of my friends would have described themselves as even remotely religious, and the other two would probably have been reluctant to promote such claims…all four would have been loath to be lumped with the sorts of religious piety spouted by many today…but they all exhibited the kind of hearts and minds the prayer envisions.

 

As we graduated, none of us felt we needed to make some academic mark in order to exercise our minds in the pursuit of what we hoped would be worthwhile lives and a better society.  None of us felt we had to live out careers in the specific areas we’d studied.  So long as we taught, we all loved teaching in our fields, but loved just as much any number of other fields for which our only qualifications were continued interest and critical intelligence.  None of felt intellect was the sole province of academic institutions, or even best honored there.  We all seemed to know that, if we were truly the kinds of “doctors” that didn’t do a body any good, then there wasn’t a lot of use in being “doctors.”  If we possessed any virtues, they were not of the cloistered variety, not even the academic cloister.

 

We were, I should add, not alone in all this…I’d had wonderful models in Dick Wood and Dewey Jensen, Betty Carpenter and Jere Jones, Perry Weddle and Larry Kimmel. There were fine examples of this kind of perspective in the ranks ahead of us—Dave Lampe, Larry Freeman, Gordon Slethaug, Betty Hoyenga come to mind, as do Phil Strong and Arnold Johnson—and equally fine colleagues in the offices we shared—Tom Hoban, Glenn and Gail Reed, Denny Calandra, Emily Uzendowski, Judy Little. Some of these, it could easily be argued, were even brighter than we—better students, more successful professionals, more consummate scholars. But Mike, Don, Gerry, and Pete were those I knew best and longest and who directly shaped my own heart and mind, my own life.

 

We sometimes taught in universities—everything from technical writing and freshman comp to world literature and drama, and sometimes ethics and leadership—or became leaders in secondary education—honors teachers, principals, and the like.  We had specialties, of course—Durrell, Faulkner, Frost, Auden, Cather, Shakespeare, Modern Drama—and even made some mark among other scholars in those fields, but we were also public intellectuals, putting our learning and minds at work in helping the poor, conserving land, aiding distressed mothers and children, shepherding parochial school kids, serving on humanities and arts councils, editing or serving on editorial boards of journals and magazines, fostering the work of colleagues, students, and aspiring writers and artists. Almost all of us turned our hand at one time another to writing: poetry, essays, fiction, studies of baseball or natural habitats or public stupidities, reports, editorials, columns…a potpourri. We had multiple interests—sports, literature, politics, the arts, the economy, foreign affairs, history, philosophy.

 

No doubt some of this came from our mentors—the last of the renaissance men and women in what were then undisputedly two of the finest departments in America, English and Philosophy…the nationally and internationally known O. K. Bouwsma, Charlie Patterson, Paul Olson, Bernice Slote, Virginia Faulkner, Karl Shapiro, Lee Lemon, Robert Knoll, Ned Hedges, Charlie Stubblefield, and Dudley Bailey, probably the best department chair under which any group of men and women ever worked.  Some of our aspirations and interests rubbed off on us from colleagues like the soon to be highly regarded Ted Kooser and Don Welch and Bill Kloefkorn. Some may even have come from figures we only knew of, such as Ron Hull who was just then helping to launch what would become public television and Nebraskans like Dick Cavett and Johnny Carson who brought wit and intelligence to late night TV.  We were all there when future Governor and Senator Ben Nelson was breaking ground by rooming with football player Thunder Thornton and when future Governor and Senator Bob Kerrey was going to and part of him coming back from Vietnam.  Which means we were there for the revolution—the new days, the formative years of sex, drugs, and rock and roll.

 

I’ve never been sorry to have been there then and I’ve had to check myself from feeling sorry for any who weren’t…each day has it day, and its achievements are as sufficient to it as its evils.  Of a day that would not know what we knew nor be taught as we were taught, we were blissfully unaware as we sat around the Captain’s Table eating pizza and singing Irish songs until the boys who’d been to Greece got us kicked out for being a bit too rambunctious with their (version of) Greek dancing.

 

But, out of it all, out of myriad things held preciously in memory, nothing will ever quite surpass my memory of the four men from whom I learned so much about how to learn, how to be, and how to live in this world.  Pete, Don, Gerry—my lasting gratitude.  Mike—RIP.  A good deal of whatever is good in who I am and what I’ve become is due to you.

 

For the rest, I take refuge in Zorba the Greek when he said he’d come to realize that he himself was, “the whole catastrophe”!

 

Chuck Peek                                                   Kearney, Nebraska

Thanksgiving 2015

Is Our Government Too Big? Or Too Small?

Is Our Government Too Big? Or Too Small?

I’ve watched the recent debates of the two major parties and I’ve received an endless barrage of party solicitations. Both these brought to mind some thoughts about the topic of “big government.” None of those who complain the most seem to understand why government is big these days, or they would realize that their own prescriptions for our country only create conditions demanding bigger government.

First, however, let me note that describing one of the debates as being sponsored by a major party is only technically correct.  The Republican Party did sponsor a debate, but the participants were, for the most part, Tea Party wolves in Republican sheep’s clothing.  Fair’s fair—the Republican Party created the Tea Party and now has to live with its undisciplined and wayward child.  Lots of luck!

And, second, the barrage of solicitation.  One is sufficient to tell the story there. This came from some Democratic Party organization, possibly the DNC, I can’t recall and it really doesn’t matter much. This one wanted me to get on the bandwagon and make sure the Speaker of the House Ryan failed before he even started.  The theme was “let’s get him now, before he has a chance” and the subtext was, you know, like the Republicans (read, again, Republican sponsored Tea Party) did to our guy.

Now, to their shame, there indeed has been a strategy to make it impossible for President Obama to achieve all that his early enthusiastic (and unrealistic) support suggested he might—a policy of “No” to everything—regardless of what it did to the country. And why? Because, if he succeeded, they feared they’d never get in the electoral door again.  They may have been right about that.  The fact that the President accomplished a lot anyway doesn’t exonerate them in the least.

But, now, apparently, the party to which I reluctantly belong is supposed to behave the same way?  Do we never learn? Do we never listen? I’d find it even more shameful to belong to a Democrat lynch mob than to a Republican one!  To the victim being lynched, the label worn by the lynchers won’t make a lot of difference.

Enough, though, of the side issues.  (Though, speaking of side issues, I would have to commend the debaters for having usually tried to steer away from them…Bernie excoriating more questions about the “damn emails” and Christie belittling questions about Fantasy Football.  Good for them.)

But here is a fundamental issue of principle, and the bipartisan ignorance of the principle is in part what has brought us to the sorry pass we are at now.  That issue is the size of government.

To address this issue: two stories.

Let’s suppose a town in which there is a fine little league summer baseball program.  Nothing remarkable about that except, like most towns with a little league program, it is entirely the result of volunteers from top to bottom, and declining rural population has made volunteers in this town a scarcer commodity.  After all, there are only so many after-work hours, so many people, so many able, and they have to be the volunteer fire department and the blood drive helpers and put on the pancake feed and be the school boosters. The list soon starts to seem endless, and if the community is larger, then it includes volunteers for the art museum and the concert association and the community theater and the hospital magazine truck.  And yet there it is, this fine little league summer baseball program.

Point: no one makes them do this, no government enlists or directs their efforts, no mandate has to be fulfilled.  In this regard, think John Locke.  Here is a prime example of Locke’s indisputable principle that, left to their own devices, in a “state of nature,” people and communities will develop the enlightened self-interest needed to promote the common good and thus the individual welfare.

It is abuse of this obvious fact that has fed the outrage currently feeding right wing causes, the outrage at “big government regulation.”  When debaters excoriate the Democrats for only taking about more government here, more there—when Christie can make points by belittling a question that suggested a role for the Federal Government in regulating fantasy football—this is the rage they seek to tap.  And they have a point: “Washington,” in their scenario, is always looking for something to fix, always assumes that if government doesn’t step up and step in, then often wayward, self-seeking individuals and organizations will only organize to exploit and profit.

But the truth is, Locke was right.  Lots of the time the best solution is no solution, the best thing to do is let people alone, the most effective government is simply the bully pulpit encouraging people’s best instincts.

As populations grow and the world becomes more complex, we are very fortunate to have such Lockeans among us.  If they were better directed, less politically motivated, they might actually get some Government off our backs!  And they might not exaggerate their own truth into The One and Only Truth.

Because here is the rub. There was also a thinker named Thomas Hobbes.  In contrast to John Locke, Hobbes famously suggested that, left to our own devices in a “state of nature,” we would soon find life “mean, nasty, brutish, and short.”  We’d end up tearing each other apart, gobbling each other up.

You don’t have to look elsewhere, at somewhere for instance like Syria, to see just that occurring.  Simply imagine another community, a nice enough town, fairly prosperous, some growth.  You can wait for the snow fall, and then watch the first snow plows head toward the two very nicest residential areas.  The last place they go are the areas where live the lower paid workers and the unemployed.  All this is the result of wealthy individuals exercising their clout over their city government.  Multiply this effect for big business—copper in Arizona, liquid refreshment in Wisconsin, government in D.C.

You see, the truth is that Hobbes, too, was right. Lots of the time, no interference, no solution becomes merely code for sanctioned exploitation, short-sighted selfishness and greed run amok and to the detriment of individuals and communities.  And nothing has fed that recently more than an unfair tax code and misguided fiscal policy, manipulated on behalf of the rich, decimating the middle class, and penalizing the working poor.

This seems beyond the right wing’s comprehension, has affected even the formerly moderate wing of the Republican party, and the result of their “deregulation” mania was the 2008 collapse of our economy.  They have much to answer for, which is why now they want to be seen as the party urging us not to look back but only forward.

This is also why, ultimately, ideology is bad for us and pragmatic politics is better. Political parties that work together for the good of the country, who let their idealogs spout but don’t let them govern, produce a better life for the country than will ideological storm troopers of either stripe.  Intentionally or accidentally, we seemed formerly to know that both Locke and Hobbes were right, that government often needs to get off our backs, get out of our way, and let us be, and that government often needs to step in, stop rapacious behavior, and clear the way.

I doubt that Paul Ryan has much intention of doing what he said. (It is hard not to doubt when he has already repudiated his intentions publicly.) But what he said was that the two parties should work together, that they should both be constructive rather than obstructive.  He was absolutely right.  If he does not follow through, then it is that failure that is to blame, not his original announced intent.  His intent should be ours, too: to hold the two major parties accountable for recognizing that each represents something of value and reasonable people can find a way for those values to work together.

Too bad so many have spent so much time on the fine print of the Constitution that they have forgotten its larger intent. Too bad some can’t see that the quickest way to down-size a good government is to curb the rapacity of private and corporate interests, especially those where there is BIG, BIG money, and lots of puppeteers holding the purse strings. And too bad that the need to regulate commerce and enterprise has created a culture that has lost faith in a free people’s ability and desire to work for the common good if the conditions for doing so are not undermined.

You heard it here.  Listen for any hint of it in the debates.  Watch for any hint of it in your Party’s donor solicitations.  But don’t hold your breath.

Chuck Peek