By the Power of Greyskull

A very long essay legitimatizing power and taking a shot at explaining our cultural confusion

Part I

Allow me to introduce my friend Jack. He is a man of deep feeling when it comes to his children and grandchildren. A picture of one of them flashes on his phone and his face lights up as he shows it to you. Normally pictures of other people’s grandchildren can quickly bore but not Jack’s. When he shares one of his photos he’s enraptured, so genuinely happy, that, on occasion, I have wondered why I am not as ecstatic as he is about my own grandchildren. Mine are terrific and there are moments, but for Jack it takes very little for him to reach the mountain top. Their mere existence is a reason for joy.

He has straight forward values and beliefs. Jack’s thoughts about the Middle East can be summarized quickly. He favors bombing the shit out of Gaza. Palestinian women and children? Of course not, he readily offers if challenged, but that is an afterthought and what has happened to them during the war has not torn him up. Hamas is using its own people as human shields. He was told that and has no reason to doubt it. He wants Israel to go further. He doesn’t understand why they have not leveled Iran. They, after all, are behind the attacks from Hamas, Hezbollah and the Houthis. Pictures of Gazan devastation make Jack happy. Hamas members are warriors. They bragged to the world that their October 7th attack proved Israel is not infallible. There is no reason to be frightened by their clout. October 7th was a victory, planned and carried through to perfection. The IDF released a recording capturing the joy of a Hamas soldier calling home. He can be heard excitedly telling his parents that he is in Mefalsim, a kibbutz near the Gaza border, and that he alone killed 10 Jews.

“Look how many I killed with my own hands! Your son killed Jews!” he said, according to an English translation.

“Mom, your son is a hero,” he later adds.

His parents are heard praising him during the call. Identified by his father as Mahmoud, the terrorist says he is calling his family with the phone of a Jewish woman he’s just murdered and implores them to check his WhatsApp messages for further documentation.
“I wish I was with you,” the mother says.

Hamas promised to repeat October 7th again and again. Their elation infuriates Jack. Pictures of Gazan devastation, news report of executed enemy leaders are mana to Jack. The reason is simple. They deserve it. But even more important, punishing its enemies is critical for Israelis’ safety. Jack’s father taught him “that if someone hits you, you hit him back. Harder!” Doing so is common sense for anyone who is afraid of attacks being repeated. The rule applies even more to national strategy. The lives of members of your community are at stake, your friends, cousins and brothers, your wife, mother and children. Protecting them from harm is all that matters. When it comes to their safety, fuck the rest of the world’s opinion. You do what must be done.

Jack would not be against anything Israel could do to win international belief that Israelis are a kind and just people. But that is a lovely thought, nothing more. Given a choice between maintaining a lovey-dovey national image and keeping your own from being slaughtered, the answer is clear. Prioritizing public relations is a luxury of those with nothing to fear. What Trump lovers call the elite, those with little or no experience of fearing for their own safety, expect generous treatment to be given to those on the bottom, no matter what. Considering the elite’s privilege, which for the most part, was not earned by them, but given, it would be unconscionable for them not to have that attitude. Trump’s main support, on the other hand, comes from those who don’t have the comfort of keeping their public image polished. Generosity to people who hate you, who want to kill you, makes no sense. Those who are not elite have had to scratch and kick to maintain their equilibrium. Or, if they managed to get ahead, they remember how difficult it was to get there and how precarious it still seems. Those who have experienced danger, favor strategies that keep them safe, strategies that far outweigh fear of the deliberations of university professors who live mostly in their heads, or the World Court, determining from far away what is right and wrong.

One of the comforts of those who use their brain a lot, and place their conscience’s purity on a pedestal, is our belief that history is determined by people like us, people who favor braininess and moral focus over muscularity. When we are at our best, our effort is on gaining insight, getting at the truth, sorting out right and wrong, and, above all, learning. Millions, more likely billions of words have been used in commentaries back and forth, to the left, to the right, and around, sincerely trying to accomplish this. One cannot overestimate the importance of thoughtfully considered goals and accomplishments, and above all, having good intentions

With one exception:

When overvaluing our thoughts causes us to forget the importance of muscle.

When the importance of intelligence and fine beliefs are overvalued, it is not only a conceit. It is self-deception. Its premise is simply untrue. The greater part of what happens in history is determined by who is strong and who is weak. We might prefer a narrative where virtue is rewarded, and our hero and heroine live happily ever after. In California sunshine! But preference is not relevant when measured by what actually occurs. Horrible outcomes dot history, the result of plans gone awry? Sometimes, but not always. The most usual cause is that the strong overwhelmed the weak.

We, of course, believe it was America’s decency that made us leader of the free world after World War II. Democracy triumphed as it should. The cigarettes, candy bars and smiles of our GIs as they liberated the imprisoned, how grateful they were, the adulation our men received provide an everlasting impression for us to savor. But it was made possible by our young men killing young German men, hundreds of thousands of them. Close to 3 million Germans were killed on the Eastern front facing Russia.

What if Japan and Germany had won the war, if their industrial capacity was not destroyed and ours was? They, not us, would have been telling the world how to behave. Our fine beliefs are terrific, but it was the success of our warriors that enabled our voices to resound. Our strength determined our position on the pulpit, the acceptance of our ideas of right and wrong. Our hegemony in the Western World and beyond derived from our might. That is how it usually is.

Rome’s conquests shaped an empire that lastingly transformed civilizations that followed. Their art, their culture still amazes. Their social organization contributed to their military strength. But it was their armies, their ability to defeat, and when necessary, slaughter their adversaries that allowed them to rule and leave us their cultural treasures. As empires go, they were not very nice. The mightiest soldiers of conquered cities often became gladiators, put in a ring, providing entertainment for Roman citizens in the colosseum, so they too could savor victory. The audience laughed and placed wagers as they watched their enemies be torn apart by hungry lions, tigers and other ferocious beasts. Or else their opponent’s heroes were crucified. Romans punctuated their victories by setting up a long line of crucifixes on the main roads leading to the city they conquered. One after another a defeated warrior was nailed up completely naked, dying by what was believed to be the most painful way to die. It took hours, sometimes days. The Romans had learned about the horror of crucifixes from the Persians, once able to conquer and rule their empire using such techniques.

The cliche that might makes right is unfortunately true. The Romans were no different than Gengis Khan and his warriors, or Mohammed, or the Maccabees overthrowing the Greeks rulers who were oppressing Israel. Jews have survived to celebrate that victory on Hanukah. They credit God for being on their side. The proof? Oil that should not have lasted 8 days but did. Their cause was just but was that the main issue in the war? When we sing the Star Spangled Banner it is not to celebrate our virtue. That is taken for granted. It is that somehow, miraculously, we somehow managed to not be defeated. Our flag was still there! Whatever rabbis might say about the oil that lasted, claiming it was God showing Jews yet again that they were his chosen people, Israeli warriors did the necessary killing so that the holy temple could be reclaimed. Caught up in the thrill of the victory celebrations, rabbis noticed the oil, and that made the killing sanctified, but victory resulted because Greeks were run through by Israeli swords.

As moral individuals, compassion for victims of the powerful merits admiration. However, this can be taken to extremes. Currently, victims, those who have been defeated, but also anyone who has not been fortunate, underdogs of all varieties, are given special, I would go further and say, cherished status. They are accorded innocence, even when they have misbehaved. They are the good guys, forgiven for most, if not all sins. Especially if they are not white. The villains are those with power. In the end, many believe Rome’s great cultural achievements, their wealth and success contributed to their demise. Barbarians overran them. They had grown too soft. Charity is next to godliness, but not always. At certain times charity must begin at home.

Modern moralists might concede the point, the fact that power, not virtue rules. It is too obvious to ignore. But in the same spirit of seeing power as necessarily villainous, those who advocate using it are seen as evil. Critics claim that the true wish of those among us who value power is to unleash the Hitler in us. Jocks, hawks, members of the military-industrial complex, MAGA Republicans are not only brainless. They are up to no good. Extreme critics go beyond that. In the spirit of enlightened thinking, they claim that the wealth and success of Western Civilization has been built upon the oppression of everyone else. That belief is not only the position of left-wing fanatics. It is mainstream. Based on that belief, Western Civilization courses at most colleges have been eliminated. The glories of our heritage have been debunked-not just the thoughts of philosophers and poets. Ordinary heroes have been pulled off their pedestals. In a pedagogical, wise tone, my 10-year-old granddaughter, who is being educated at a Brooklyn public elementary school, shared with me what she has been taught. Lewis and Clark should not be honored. Sacagawea, their Shoshone guide, led them through the wilderness. She continued. There should not be a Columbus Day. Yes, he opened a door so Europeans could settle America, but he was a horrible man. He treated Native Americans terribly as did those who followed him. We live on stolen land.

One afternoon I used the word maid referring to our housekeeper. My granddaughter was aghast. Gabriela, the Guatemalan woman who cleans our house once a week is happy to have the job. My granddaughter has met her. Gabriela finds her adorable. My wife and I get along great with her. We appreciate her effort and treat her well. That has been apparent to my granddaughter. But after I used the wrong word my granddaughter’s attitude changed. She had serious misgivings about her working for us. In her mind, she was like a slave. And my granddaughter hasn’t yet been influenced by university indoctrination. Her perspective is shared, I assume, by all the students in her school. She is being raised as a Jew, but she is not happy with what she has seen on TV about Israel. Like her Yale educated parents she doesn’t think being Jewish should influence who she favors. They have taught her it is wrong to favor our own. We are all one people. She doesn’t have much interest in politics but has already heard that Trump is not a good man. As my generation used to recite our pledge of allegiance, in the same half bored spirit, she repeats an indictment of America’s past and present. She sees nothing wrong with George Washington and Thomas Jefferson being debunked. They owned slaves! Power has terrible consequences for those without power. Those who advocate it are not to be trusted.

This accusation has a grain of truth. Cruel people consistently elevate muscularity, but if I were to try to refine my granddaughter’s thoughts with a more nuanced understanding, my son and daughter-in law would have a fit. So would my wife. “She is just a child! Play games with her. Entertain her.” There is no need to drag her into the tense political discussions I once had with my progressive, still reading the New York Times, 4 children. So, I am forced to make my arguments here. Here goes.

The fact that bad people lust for power and often achieve it, is the most important reason decent people must turn to those among us who also value power. We need them on our side. We need warriors to protect us. They should not be dismissed as potential Hitlers. There was a time everyone understood this. During World War II, Americans knew Germany and Japan had to be destroyed. They were trying to annihilate us. The possibility that they could succeed was real. For centuries the ferocity of Hessian soldiers has been appreciated. Not just their soldiers, Germany had the finest engineers. Their manufacturing capacity was a given. Many Americans believed that we had been duped into World War I, drawn into what should have been a European affair. Despite what was happening in Europe we were determined to not make the same mistake. So, we kept our war machine small. The Germans had prepared for years. Their factories were humming. They rolled over most of Europe with little resistance. Japan was a similar story. They devastated our Pacific fleet with their attack on Pearl Harbor. They chased us from the Philippines and killed a million civilians. Hundreds of thousands of Chinese were killed in Nanjing, then the capital of China. Shortly after conquering Singapore, 50,000 Chinese were lined up and machine gunned. British and American POWs were mistreated, sometimes tortured. 40% of them died. This compares to the 3% of American POWs who died in German camps.

Decades later moralists were not only outraged by Hiroshima, but by our entire war mentality. Winning the hearts and minds of our enemies was first advocated during the Viet Nam war. Make love not war was shouted from the hearts of young critics. In order to win, we had to convince our enemies that we were nice. At that time, critics accused us of not wanting peace. Just the opposite, they claimed our hawks loved war, wanted more of it, not less. We were accused of escalating the war when we bombed the Ho Chi Minh Trail in Cambodia and Thailand which was being used to bring soldiers and supplies to the Viet Cong. Similarly, peace loving critics condemned us for bombing the ports of Haiphong where Russian and Chinese ships were unloading massive supplies of war materials. Although Ho Chi Minh, like Mao and Stalin before him had executed 50,000 Vietnamese farmers with his land reform policy, the largest massacre in Viet Nam history, peace loving Americans often referred to him, as the George Washington of Viet Nam. Reacting to the righteousness of those who condemned our warriors, eventually every one of our attacks had to be approved in Washington before our military could act. Tying one hand behind our back was considered the decent thing to do. We didn’t want to be thought of as bullies. Our power was, and still is, so great, that holding us back made the contest fairer.

This and the philosophy of “winning the hearts and minds” subsequently became central to our military strategy. It has lost us every war beginning with Viet Nam but so what. The most important battle is the one fought to maintain the American public’s support. By being critical of those among us who want to kill our enemies, by seeing our hawks as villainous, Americans have been able to retain belief in our humanity. To those living their lives in complete safety, nothing is more important than rejecting bloodshed, to be able to claim that their first loyalty is to higher truths, to peace and love, not murder. After Viet Nam, ROTCs were kicked off most college campuses. How could an institution of learning be part of our killing machine? Consistent with that belief, among our well-educated lovers of peace, it was not unusual for GIs, to be spit on when they returned from the war. They had been in hell, 58,220 young men killed, 150,000 wounded, 21,000 permanently disabled. There were no parades to honor our G.I.’s sacrifice. Instead, spit. Our soldiers were seen as collaborators, part of an evil empire.

Israeli is viewed similarly by many Americans, who proudly criticize them as proof of their virtue. Their moral focus stems from kindness in their souls. However, Israel’s circumstances are completely different than America’s. Israelis, of course, want to be thought of as primarily benevolent. Who wouldn’t? But they cannot indulge this wish if it means sacrificing their safety. The United States is a vast country. America has two oceans to protect us. Israel is 85 miles at its widest. Throughout its history Jews have been killed and chased from wherever they thought had been their home, sometimes after centuries there. Next year in Jerusalem had been a prayer, a thin thread of hope that one day Jews might truly have a home. Finally, in 1948 their prayers were answered. In 1948, on the first day of Israel’s existence, its birth was welcomed by an attack from its neighbors who outnumbered them 40 to 1. It was barely three years after survivors of Germany’s concentration camps were freed. Millions had been killed. Half of the survivors, 140,000 went to the Jewish Homeland.

Since then, a very real home it has been. Generation after generation of families have grown-up there and prospered. They know no other country. It has been 87 years since its birth and the attack then by those who proclaimed that Israel shouldn’t exist. Nothing has changed.

“Never again” was first used by Rabbi Kahane’s Hasidic congregation as they formed the Jewish Defense League in a crime ridden part of Brooklyn. Non- sectarian Jews fled to the suburbs when their neighborhoods became dangerous. They were not happy with the belligerence of the Jewish Defense League, with a war cry from the Hasid who remained and defended where they lived. To liberal Jews their behavior did not seem Jewish. To some of them Israeli belligerence similarly seems foreign. The phrase soon became Israel’s war cry. Israel has fought and won all its wars, but the state of war has never disappeared. It can’t. Its enemies don’t merely want to win. They continue to insist Israel should not exist. Most Arab nations still do not recognize them as a nation. The consequences of that belief have been deadly– attacks worldwide, kidnapping, hostages, huge swastikas on the side of Jewish buildings. The original ideal of the Olympics was that nations, even enemies, could compete peacefully. It is a lovely sentiment, but not when it comes to the Jewish Homeland. Israel is the only country to have had its Olympic athletes murdered. en masse.

Jews do not have a long and glorious history of military competence-obviously the opposite. Our history is one of abject defeat, century after century. Even now Israelis do not display their attributes in fine parades. Compared to the precision marching of most armies, theirs tend to be informal, with no special emphasis on their military might. But necessity is the mother of invention. They have been forced to develop one of the most powerful and capable militaries in the world.

Following their astonishing quick victory in 1967, the Six Day war, hopes for peace began to gain traction. Israel accepted resolution (242) from UN Security Council, which established “land for peace” as a principle. Basically it declared Arabs make peace with, and recognize Israel, and Israel returns them their newly occupied territories. All of the Arab states rejected it. In September of 1967, at the meeting of the Arab League in Sudan, they issued their own, so-called Khartoum resolution, whose principles were boiled down to the infamous “Three Noes”: No peace with Israel, No negotiation with Israel, No recognition of Israel!”

The West Bank occupation started out reasonably. Arabs and Jews intermingled peacefully. Arabs were finding jobs with Israeli businesses. Their standard of living began to improve. Palestinian-Israeli business partnerships were not uncommon. Schools were created with Palestinian and Jewish classrooms. Not surprisingly, however, normalization was intolerable to Arab radicals. Recently, at Harvard University, at U.C. Berkeley, and college sites all over the United States, demonstrators chanted "Long live the intifada.” Their celebrations were like a knife in every Jew’s heart. The Intifada was a period in Israel where over 1000 Israeli civilians were killed. Pizza parlors were blown up. Those standing on line at bus stops were machine gunned. Crowds were torn apart by explosives in public squares. Week after week it went on and on. There was no safety until Israel was forced to set up security barriers, much like we now must go through at our airports. But that meant many Palestinian had to pass through them repeatedly. The terrorists’ goals were accomplished. In the West Bank traveling almost anywhere meant encountering Jewish checkpoints, meaning long lines, and frustration.

Like everywhere else, Israel is populated with real people, some angels, some angry and quarrelsome, most somewhere in between. Some of the Israeli guards could not forget the Intifada. They were frisking potential enemies, in their minds, people who wanted to murder them. The hostility of some of the Israel’s young soldiers was evident. There was bound to be incidents. Most of the Arabs wanted to kill nobody. They just wanted to live their lives, get through the barriers and move on. But some of them were full of rage, felt humiliated by the process. Most Israelis manning the checkpoints had no agenda. They wanted to keep hostility to a minimum, get through their day without a flareup. But whether successful or not, the basic nature of the meeting point made friendliness unlikely. It escalated animosity that sometimes could not be contained. The relationship of Israelis and Palestinians has never returned to the way it was before the Intifada.

In Gaza, the same story. It started well. At that time, the majority of Israelis hoped they could win over the Palestinians. For instance, trying to improve medical care, Al Shiba Hospital in Gaza City underwent a major Israeli renovation and expansion. The project was designed by Israeli architects Gershon Tzapor and Benjamin Edelson, both well experienced in the construction of high standard hospitals. The hope was Gazans could share the benefits of the modern Western world. On the streets the atmosphere was relaxed. It was not unusual for Israelis to take a Sunday drive into Gaza to shop or picnic at the beach. As in the West Bank, the normalization of relations with Israel was the very worst possibility for those convinced Israel should not exist. Terrorists began to single out Palestinians who worked for Jewish companies. Yahya Sinwar, the eventual leader of Hamas, who with Iran’s support and encouragement planned the October 7 massacre, personally murdered 12 Palestinians including one he bragged that he buried alive. After enough bloodshed, Israel left Gaza, hoping that might be the solution. With tears in their eyes, Israeli soldiers physically forced Jews who lived there ,or had businesses there, to leave.

Hamas eventually ruled, killing members of its rival, the PLO. Hamas’ charter explicitly stated their goal was to eliminate Israel altogether. Not a two-state solution, one, from the river to the sea. Almost immediately they started sending rockets and bombs to Israel trying to kill its citizens. That has gone on for close to 20 years, as has Israel’s blockade trying to not allow war supplies to enter. Instead of spending the billion dollars of aid they received trying to improve the lives of their people, they spent it on their preparations for war, 310 miles of tunnels everywhere for their soldiers to hide and attack. With Iran’s aid they learned to manufacture rockets and missiles. Despite preparing for a war they saw as inevitable, no air raid shelters were built for civilians. They were not allowed in the tunnels when the expected Israel’s bombs were to fall.

Even in the worst of times, friendships are always possible. There were individual Israelis living on the border of Gaza who brought Gazan children to Israeli clinics and hospitals, Gazan and Israeli mothers who exchanged recipes. In the October attack Palestinian citizens of Israel died trying to protect their nation. There were also Gazans who worked on Israeli kibbutz’s, and fondness devloped between individuals. Others, who, it was later learned, mapped out the Kibbutz’ for Hamas murderers so that they knew the safe hiding places of the Jews.

But regardless of individual interactions, national agendas remained constant. Iran has poured in billions training and arming Hamas. Their goal is identical. Iran unveiled a digital clock in Tehran's Palestine Square in 2017, counting down to what they claim will be the "annihilation of Israel" on January 1, 2040. They are working on an atomic bomb. For decades, also funded by Iran, Hezbollah in Lebanon sent rockets and missiles flying into Israel trying to kill its citizens.

Israel’s military is a people’s army, manned by teachers, electricians, waiters, artists, farmers and lawyers, by citizens of every type. Everyone knows, or knows someone who knows a family of a young person who died defending them. Long after they are lost, they continue to be mourned. By contrast, America’s memorial day is a chance to go shopping or have a barbecue. It is the unofficial start of summer vacations. Even while our troops continued to fight in Iraq and Afghanistan Americans interest went up and down as one more item in the news were events for the chattering class to debate. In many ways it has been a repeat of Viet Nam.

9/11 caught us completely by surprise. The terrorists who brought down the World Trade Center entered the United States easily, even did their flight training here. Leftover from the peacenik’s distrust of our hawk’s influence, before the attack there was a fear that the CIA and FBI could overdo surveillance. They were seen as a far larger danger to Americans than an external enemy. Jamie Gorelick, working in Clinton’s justice department, made sure there was a wall between the CIA and FBI. They were forbidden to share intelligence. After the attack it was learned that each had isolated information that together might have allowed realization of what was being planned. Maybe yes, maybe no. The main point is that with the end of the cold war doves were in charge. They insisted that we relax our guard. Defense spending was cut by 1/3 during the 90’s and more cuts were contemplated. Gorelick energetic attempt to countermand the warriors among us was part of the anti war psychology of the time. Given the euphoria that followed the end of the Cold War it is understandable. But it was completely wrong.

Before 9/11 the CIA had some knowledge of who the terrorists were. A bomb went off in the world Trade Center garage 8 years before. Three years before, in 1998 two American embassies in Tanzania and Kenya were attacked killing 224, including 12 Americans. The FBI was sent to investigate. Th evidence pointed to Al Queda which was openly operating in Afghanistan. Bin Laden was indicted. An operation to capture Bin Laden at the terrorist’s headquarters at Tarnack Farms was canceled due to concerns about civilian casualties and the mission’s legality. 11 months before 9/11 the USS Cole was attacked by suicide bombers killing 17 sailors. Once again our reaction was minimal. We saw their danger as akin to a mosquito bite.

Understandably, after 9/11 we were suddenly in a panic. Not since World War II had Americans become genuinely frightened. The image of helpless New Yorkers leaping to their deaths rather than be consumed by fire, the two World Trade Center towers, one, then the other, collapsing into a mountain of dust, pierced the hard armor of our indifference to danger and seemingly ended our hostility to the warriors among us. There were repeated panics as rumors and sometimes minor attacks occurred. We didn’t know what terrorists were planning next.

Given the possibility of imminent danger the CIA was allowed to take their gloves off. Undoubtedly, this kind of attitude can bring out sadism in individuals. But it is also true that the CIA desperately needed to extract information from captured terrorists because the danger of what might come next was real. In a surprisingly short time, the media turned on our defenders. They were accused of using torture. Apologists called it enhanced interrogation and said it was necessary, crucial for our protection. The implicit message of our critics was that, as in Viet Nam, it revealed how evil we were. Experts stepped forward claiming scientific studies proved harsh techniques never work. Others disagreed. Most of the men that were tortured (or treated roughly) were thought to have planned 9/11 or other terrorist activities killing civilians. By most measures, they were a disgusting bunch of people, who many felt deserved to be tortured. The numbers mistreated may have been as little as 5 or as many as 39. But to the media, and, therefore, in the minds of most Americans there was no excuse. To this day our leaders then, Bush and Cheney were accused of being liars about claiming Iraq had weapons of mass destruction, of pressuring the CIA to substantiate that. That accusation was an out and out lie, fully known by the New York Times, Washington Post and the liberal media promoting it. It was the other way around. The CIA had been warning our leaders about WMD long before Bush was elected. (check for yourself. Madeline Albright President Clinton All of our leaders, on the basis of CIA intelligence believed Iraq had WMDs and were a danger to us That is why Hillary Clinton supported Bush’s decision to go to war. This kind of extraordinary media lying long preceded Donald Trump. Gentleman Bush silently melted away, hid rather than defend himself. Cheney, a far more quarrelsome man, was accused of pursuing the war because of his previous job at Halliburton. As Cheney tried to fight back he was made into a caricature, to such an extent that he too was silenced. As with Viet Nam, opponents of America’s military were able to silence those supporting our war effort. For the most part anti war activists convinced us that we were a war loving colonialist empire interested only because we wanted the oil, or other nefarious motives.

In any case most Americans began to ignore the war, as in Viet Nam convinced that we were villainous. They hoped for a way to forget it as an error. In response to this criticism we went out of our way to not flex our muscles. This included our military leaders who mostly kept our soldiers on their bases, out of harms way. 4599 soldiers died in Iraq compared to 58,220 in Viet Nam. There were even lower numbers in Afghanistan 2459 in 20 years. There were more soldiers who died from suicide then were lost in war, nine times as many from 2014-2019. Despite our brief sense of vulnerability after 9/11 we had returned to our anti Viet Nam narrative. The media attack on using our power, characterizing us as bullies and fascists, returned as powerfully as it ever was during the Viet Nam era, perhaps more so because now, not only student demonstrators opposed the war, our mainstream media and therefore most Americans saw it that way.

The focus of Israeli citizens to their war is what would be expected in any real war. Much like Americans’ response during World War II , when the threat to us was evident, Israelis understand the danger from their enemies. Americans weren’t concerned about killing our enemies. If anything we wanted as many of our enemies eliminated as our military could accomplish. 600,000 to 2 million German civilians were killed during World War II. It didn’t make the news. Similar to Israelis response to the current war, we feared and worried mostly about our own, not those trying to kill us. During the current war, day after day, with graphic, often moving videos showing devastating injuries to women and children, America’s media has reported on the suffering of Gazans. 10,000, then 20,000, 30,000, 40,000 and now 47,000 reportedly killed, the number growing daily, always with pronouncement from Hamas health authorities that the majority have been women and children. Whatever the true number, the deaths in Gaza are undeniably tragic. But it has almost been almost the entirety of America and the Western media’s war coverage. With the help of the heartbreaking videos the message is clear. America is participating in genocide. An unrelenting monster has been set loose which unable to stop it, the world watches horrified. Other than Haaretz, Israel’s left wing news source, there is little of this on Israeli TV.

Had there been the kind of coverage that Israel has been receiving in its war, would there have been demands during World War II, for an immediate cease fire to protect the innocent? Would we have been forced to stop before we defeated Germany? Would our concern for the innocents we were killing have forced us to allow Hitler to remain in power? Would we have allowed our troops to remain in Germany and Japan to assure the wrong people didn’t return after the war?

Leaving aside questions about the accuracy of Hamas’ claims about the numbers of civilian dead , certainly our concern for civilians losing their life is compassionate. It fortifies Americans’ view of themselves as decent. But from a different vantage point, our media’s emphasis is interchangeable with the media of Israel’s enemies. It goes beyond videos and the numbers of civilian war dead. We favor the political aims of Israel’s enemies. In late August 2024, Mark Memmott, CBS News' senior director of standards and practices, instructed staff not to refer to Jerusalem as being in Israel. Similar favoritism has been evident in all of the legacy media coverage, as well as CNN, MSNBC, PBS The NewYorker, the New York Times, Washington Times, UPI Reuters, BBC, Yahoo. So many organizations I have respected in the past, so many reporters, so many Jewish reporters say the same thing that it is tempting to believe I am getting it wrong. Except I know I am not. Like others, time and again, I have found intentional editing that presents half statements to twist the original to its opposite meaning. Video distortions that do the same. At the very beginning, I thought a single individual or two with an ax to grind had managed to misrepresent the truth. But this turned to astonishment as, along with most Americans, I realized that the prejudice was systemic. According to a Gallup poll the media is our least trusted civic and political institution. In 1972 70 to 80 % of both Republicans and Democrats had a great deal, or a fair amount of trust in the media. In 2024 it fell to 54% among Democrats but to 27% among independents, and 12% among Republicans. I suppose those numbers make clear where most of the bias has occurred. I would like to understand it what has happened.

The battle between America’s hawks and doves is not new. First one then the other gains dominance, fortunately often related to what is going on in the world , but not always. I will make my accusation explicit. The emphasis on Israeli iniquity is not limited to Israel. It is part of an anti-American, anti-Western and anti Israeli propaganda machine that starting in the 1960’s now practically owns our airwaves. It isn’t just the media. The tilt is found far and wide. As I noted, on the right it is claimed that it is people of privilege who are so against the West. I agree, but there is something else involved. It isn’t only the emphasis I, and others have been making, that they are safer, have less reason to fear. But it isn’t just attitudes about war. There is a certain snobbishness towards people who don’t embrace progressive ideas that goes beyond their virtue signaling and self-righteousness. It has something to do with class. Hillary Clinton called the non-elite deplorables, but even if she had not made the tactical mistake of labeling them, for some time the contempt that flows towards those disagreeing with the progressive agenda has been obvious. They are not just homophobic, misogynistic, sexist, racist and what have you. They are low class. The farmers and hillbillies, the evangelists, people in the Midwest, those still blinded by conventional religion, and all the rest of the nondescript unhip people not keeping up with the latest, are stupid!

Later I will elaborate and speculate still further on why our “elite” have become convinced we are evil. I assume, however, its pervasiveness will also remain a mystery to be answered by future historians. But one point may be made right off. The “elite” are not the rich, not old-line money, or new. It is primarily the educated, especially the very educated that detest promoters of Western power, and beyond that, any perspective that views our history in a positive light. They have bought into the New York Times 1619 project, the belief that America has been up to no good from the very beginning. It sounds like my granddaughter’s understanding of history. Her views reflect how deeply the progressive agenda has taken over the educational establishment and have inculcated our children to reject our past and present. The preponderance of our educators lean left and teach our children accordingly. Much of it is typical leftist propaganda. But there is more to it. Despite my claim that it is particularly the very smart that are behind this perspective, what has happened goes even beyond that. There has been a broad cultural shift that was best described in the 60’s as the counter-culture, but there is still more. Later I will add still another factor besides the effect of counter culture ideas becoming mainstream.

Allow me to return for a moment to my discussion of the importance of power and critics assumption that having it and using it indicates that we are evil. From the perspective of the requirements forced on every national leader by reality, their policy decisions were clear cut after Hiroshima. No nation on earth dared to double cross America. It matters that our power may have enabled certain policies to be forced on others that were unfair. And our power may have blinded us to policies that could have been better. But overall, with the Marshall Plan and the rest of our focus on helping, what we did after the war was a win win situation, benefiting ourselves and others too weak to object.

Regardless of these considerations the long and short of how we should be judged is not complicated for Jack. The complexities of right and wrong may preoccupy people like me who think and think about our actions, engrossed by the moral dimensions of everything nasty we might do, even if inadvertent. But not Jack. We are the good guys and those who don’t wish us well are the bad guys. Again, the same standard. Our safety trumps any other perspective. Are we really the good guys? To Jack that is an irrelevent question. Adding up the plus and minuses of our history ties us up in knots. Reasons can be found, examples cited that can defend or diminish the behavior of any nation. And while there may be policies and incidents where we haven’t been angels, the reason Jack sees us as good is the reason most people usually approve of their own country. Call it patriotism, blind loyalty, but it is simply recognizing a fact. We are all we got. Others may not consider that what is good for us is good for them. And yes, one could f our self criticism healthy, an indicator of our freedom. How else can we improve if we are not self critical? But I am not impressed that this amount of criticism has led to improvements. For the most part, it has led to paralysis. To law suits and counter suits, to lies and more lies on all sides. Why since Viet Nam and the 60’s are we so ready to jump on ourselves and our friends whenever we, or they, use muscle. And to get to the most relevant point, the degree of criticism that has been leveled at us, closely corresponds to the perspective of our enemies. The conversion of the neo-conservatives from being Trotskyites communists as opposed to Stalinists was an increasing recognition that their critique of America wasn’t just a desire to fix what was wrong. It was their realization that too many on the left hated America, almost everything about it. The same thing was true of where the counter culture went. They saw themselves as allies of our enemies.

Part 2

Jack’s father was a successful exterminator. His family lived in Lawrence, Long Island, an affluent community on Long Island. His company kept the offices of numerous firms in Manhattan rat free. He had started his business as a one-man operation, started it when he had nothing. He hated rats. He loved to kill them. That, and his wife’s business acumen made the family rich. It is fair to ask why, if Jack came from Lawrence, he isn’t part of the elite? I suppose generalizations often break down. He has had a safe protected life, but there are particulars that explain his difference.

When Jack was a boy he was sent to a teacher who taught him how to fight. Just like in the Hollywood movies where we are shown future heroes as children learning how to use a sword or bow and arrow, Jack was taught how to destroy someone who attacked him. Over weeks, months and years, Jack’s father and the instructors made sure he practiced and got better and better as a fighter. While I was going to Hebrew school he was learning to kick ass. I was not allowed to play with a toy gun. My parents had few if any political views, certainly nothing ever verbalized. They read the newspaper but what was going on in the world didn’t influence what they tried to get across to me. But prohibitions like not allowing toy guns said a lot. Fighting was not allowed. It was all about using my brain. Intelligent people are above legitimatizing violence. It was people like my family who marched into Germany’s ovens as instructed.

To Jack’s father his son’s lessons on how to fight were the most important part of his education. His father never missed a single game when Jack competed in football, basketball, and baseball. He gloried in Jack’s aggressive play. Protecting his family had always been the most important part of his father’s responsibilities. Being reassured that his son would be able to protect himself meant he could enter the world successfully. His father’s aim was not restricted to making his son a warrior. Moral issues were important. Jack was taught to never bully the weak, to use his strength not only to protect himself but to defend his friends and especially weaker people (including sissies and girls). As it happens, almost all of his fights happened because a weak person had been abused. Jack did not negotiate with bullies. He attacked them first, then as he walked away he warned them that the next time their punishment would be far worse. Jack had a younger brother. Several times Jack had protected him. His brother avoided confrontations. He was favored by his mother. He became a doctor.

So what did Jack go on to do? He became a world champion wrestler. Just kidding. He ran a business making clothes for children with a sports hero insignia. There are many sports heroes that children want to emulate, all with the same quality, winners rather than losers. Children need to see themselves that way. They are often frightened. Batman, Spiderman, Superman, their superheroes quiet their fears. In 2012, after twenty kindergarten children were murdered in Newtown CT (where I live) I was told by a patient that his son, who went to that school, but was able to escape, wouldn’t take off his batman costume. He wore that on top of a superman costume. That went on for months. It doesn’t take a horrific event for children to turn to heroes. I still remember my sons impersonating He Man, gloriously waiving their plastic swords and calling out “By the power of Greyskull-

Until it went out of style, adult Americans were perfectly comfortable finding pride by identifying with heroes. Quirky anti-heroes sometimes won sympathy. Victims maybe could claim a flash of empathy, even sympathy, but there was no trace of righteousness connected to losers. Victims might be extended a helping hand, or been able to garner pity, but the entitlement claimed by losers wasn’t part of the equation. Losers were still losers.

Little by little that shifted, to the point that enterprising victims are able to offer their victimhood as a way of legitimizing their identity, even command compensation. Of course, there really are losers, in need of a safety net, in need of our compassion and kindness. Unfortunately, many of them don’t know how to get it. And they truly suffer. But I am describing a group of me-too people who, in our current culture, delight in their disadvantages, who claim it because it elevates them. It is an important weapon. They know how to game the system, use it for all its worth.

For several years book publishers have looked for stories about victimhood, especially if it demonstrates how evil our formerly respected institutions have been. The Church, the Boy Scouts, Big Pharma, our military, the police, large corporations, corporate agribusiness attempt to addict us with sugar and processed foods, the list is endless. Not just institutions, large segments of our population are renounced, for example our settlers in the west stealing the land, cowboys, white men with their toxic masculinity- they see evil everywhere. Certainly by the standards of Mr. Roger’s neighborhood, all of our former heroes fall short of the goodness now expected to maintain the respect of our modern progressive culture. The only innocents, the only people worthy of our loyalty are victims, our losers.

After Simone Biles choked at the 2020 Olympics, she was chosen Athlete of the Year by Time magazine, for admitting to her mental health frailty. I doubt very much that Simone Biles planned on this kind of ascension to the throne. By usual standards her magazine cover victory was a bizarre occasion. I’m sure she was very upset that she was too nervous to compete. She had nothing to do with being made a hero for her failure to keep it together.

Year after year Russian coach, Eteri Tutberidze has turned ice skaters into champions. Their performances are so stupendous, so remarkably strong and graceful, that America’s best ice skaters usually expect, at best, a bronze or silver medal at the Olympics. At the 2022 competition young Kamila Valieva, who was expected to take gold blew her performance. She was visibly upset. Instead of offering a grandmotherly hug as she came off the ice, her coach yelled at her angrily: “Why did you stop fighting? Explain it to me-Why? You let it go after that axel. Why?” NBC caught the interchange live. Its commentator was outraged. He pointed out that several young Russian ice skaters had stopped training because they couldn’t take the pressure from her. In America, there seemed to be little controversy over the fact that this coach was a lousy coach. Her lack of empathy was unforgivable.

When I did my medical internship they intentionally had us work 24, one time 36 hours without sleeping. At marine training camps it was traditional to push future soldiers to the limit of their endurance. In the 1950’s Leo Durocher, manager of the New York Giants most famous quote was “Nice guys finish last.” No one was outraged. It was a statement about what was required to take pride in ourselves. That perspective was assumed. “The show must go on,” was a showbiz credo. The motto of our mailmen was proudly inscribed on the postal building in New York. "Neither snow nor rain nor heat nor gloom of night stays these couriers from the swift completion of their appointed rounds.” Most children’s complaints about their walk to school were met by their parents claim that they had had to walk twelve miles (or more!) every morning. It doesn’t matter whether that was true or not. The importance of what they were trying to say was the point. They wanted their children to not feel sorry for themselves, to grow up, to be strong, not cry babies. And indeed, I remember my parents going to work whatever the weather, with or without a headache, whether they were exhausted or not. They never mentioned their hardship. Indeed, more they had to endure, the greater their pride in their sacrifice. They may have not made a big deal about it, but I knew that kind of strength was expected from me. In my 29 hours a week after-school job in high school, I remember the pride I took making deliveries in the rain. It enhanced my self-esteem. Unlike my parents I bragged about it.

The point is toughness was a cherished value. Giving into weakness was not. Was I dismissive of others who seemed to be like the princess and the pea. I admit I bought into that mentality. I recall meeting with the parents of my son’s Yale roommates in the late 90’s. All three fathers (though not the mothers) worried that our children might be green-house flowers. This was before later generations were being accused of being snowflakes, where even disagreeable political opinions by lecturers or teachers was cause for alarm because they might traumatize their vulnerable bubbelahs. In the old system of values that perspective would have been mocked. In the new perspective it defined how kind and thoughtful authority figures had to be. Professors were fired, accused of cruelty for having used the wrong pronoun or for expressing a point of view that upset their students. In actual fact, my son has proven his resilience over many decades, but, nevertheless, there has been an enormous cultural shift in his and the next generation’s attitude towards weakness and power, in their strong belief against the necessity of fighting, unless those who are angry and fighting are former underdogs.

On the other hand

For a while now, high school choruses routinely give concerts where a kid with Down’s syndrome, regardless of his ability to perform, is on stage happily accepted by the others. I, like everyone else, think that is terrific. I feel a warm spot in my heart. It is an indication of society’s greater kindness and acceptance of the disabled. Along that line, Special Olympics and the routine inclusion of people in wheel chairs, deaf people signing, all of that is a wonderful change. It has brought cripples out of hiding, no longer ashamed, fully able to make contributions to society. It has allowed fat dancers to show their grace–Ballanchine be damned for forcing diet pills on his ballerinas. TV ads often feature ordinary, even ugly models. People like you and me. No one thinks anything of it. Accepting the child with Down’s as one of the merry chorus members at Christmas is a valuable educational lesson for the students. It makes each a better person. It is progress.

There was a time when children with Down’s were hidden away in institutions. John’s Kennedy’s older sister was “developmentally delayed”. The family tried for many years to keep her home, but eventually a lobotomy was performed, and she was permanently institutionalized. For many years the Kennedys kept her existence a secret. On the whole replacing shame with acceptance has been a forward cultural step. To borrow a word from the left, progress! In so many ways America is a better place than it was.

However

The good can turn in to the bad. Related to the themes I have been addressing it is possible to take a fine sentiment and turn it into an ideology, a mandate, a principle come hell or high water. Those who not only treasure ideas, but dedicate their lives to them, are particularly prone to ignore the consequences. Not just academicians. Even brilliant people– Jean Paul Sartre supported Communism long after tens of millions of people were killed in the name of equality. As was repeatedly done in one workers’ paradise after another, the victims they were trying to equalize were literally imprisoned, shot if they tried to escape. How is it possible that a man like Sartre could be so blind? The Berlin Wall was not a secret. Russia not only killed its own people if they tried to escape, but citizens in every Eastern European nation the communists conquered. There is something dangerous about fine beliefs

The French Revolution’s indisputable ideals, liberty, equality, fraternity, developed justifiably from the suffering of those who put an end to it. Violence was necessary to make the revolution happen. But the revolution’s ideals eventually became the justification for a reign of terror. Even after thousands of Frenchmen met their judgement by being beheaded, the guillotine remained the hallowed instrument of revolutionary zeal. Eventually, most of the aristocrats had been beheaded. But the killing continued. Eventually, the only crime of those killed was that they spoke up about the innocence of those about to be killed. Revenge can become a dangerous motivator for those seeking justice. Even more dangerous is those strongly motivated by their beliefs.

I suppose there is an innate desire to kill that is in our DNA, a part of human instincts. It may be let loose with any kind of bedlam. It also finds release as a form of entertainment. I already mentioned the shows at the Roman Colosseum. Witness the popularity of Games of Throne, or Squid Game, the most popular show in Netflix history (4.9 billion minutes watching innocent people being slaughtered). But to my point it is difficult to ignore the powerful impetus to hate and kill that often seems to occur when powerful ideas blind us. The French revolution’s reign of terror and Stalin’s quest to purify revolutionary fervor are but two on a long list. Cambodia’s Khmer Rouge killed millions, many of them fellow communists, but with different ideas about how it should be implemented. Bolsheviks not only killed royalty and then land owners and the bourgeoise, or eventually, those with a family history of privilege. Stalin killed Communists who agreed with Trotsky. Mao, repeated the slaughter in China. This is not necessarily a quality of the left. The right is just as capable. Hitler, Mussolini, Franco, Japan’s Bushido ideology-the list there is just as long. But it isn’t just politics. The Protestants and Catholics went to war century after century over their beliefs, leaving blood drenched fields. During the Inquisition Muslims and Jews were targeted but also Catholics they deemed heretical. Intertwined with all the killing, personal vendettas played a part, and the excesses of a cruel person with power invariably maximized these orgies. But the major motivator was the sanctity of the belligerents’ ideals, the demands of their conscience defining what was most important to God. Puritans had to flee to America but they in turn burned witches at the stake who they suspected didn’t follow their practices. In Connecticut a number of towns were created, when Congregationalists or other sects drove out those with other religious ideas.

In Ellsworth Maine in 1854 a mob of Protestants burnt down the Catholic Church. They violently stripped the priest, John Bapst naked and tarred and feathered him. Bapst came to Maine after the Jesuits were chased out of Switzerland, after a civil war between Catholics and Protestants. What set if off in Maine was Bapst objection to Catholic children being forced at school to read the Protestant (King James) bible. Sixteen Catholic students were expelled from Ellsworth’s school for refusing to read it. Had there been a Covid epidemic and disagreement about wearing masks, violence might have been worse. John Bapst’ Jesuit passionate beliefs remained lifelong. He moved on to Boston and helped found Boston College, becoming its first president.

Shiites and Sunni Moslems have similarly killed and killed and killed each other for having the wrong ideas about how to worship God. In the Iran-Iraqi war Sunnis and Shiite animosity resulted in 1,000,000 deaths. The split began in 632 as a battle about who should succeed Mohammed. Precisely as religious beliefs have strengthened, justifiable hatred has grown. When they blow themselves up in order to kill adversaries praying at their own mosque they gloriously shout out Allahu Akbar(God is great). We may think of their behavior as evil, but they don’t. They are willing to die doing what they believe is Allah’s will. Their purified conscience, their passion to do good, to ally themselves with their God and meet him in heaven, overwhelms seeing those they murder as human beings, rather than purveyors of an evil doctrine. When Japanese pilots committed suicide by steering their plane into an American ship during World War II there wasn’t even a belief that Kamkaze pilots would be rewarded in the afterlife with 72 virgins. They were willing to die and kill so that they and their family would be honored.

The current political animosity in America unfortunately is similar to the examples I have cited. Opponents believe that a person’s politics defines not only what their thoughts are, but who they are. On the internet, where anonymity allows unusual freedom, seeing the depths of people’s passion as they define the good and become furious at what they see in others as evil (for their opinions), my best hope is that it is just talk, blowing off steam. People are usually more sane then their worst thoughts, particularly when they are public. But group think, united political passions can intensify fear and hatred.

The extreme examples cited, where ideals have time and again led people to wars and killing should be noted as a reason for caution. Why this keeps happening throughout history is the strongest reason for us to beware. Human beings have a layer of rationality with which they try to successfully navigate daily behavior, but beneath that is a wild animal that can be unleashed not only in our dreams, but in behavior. Horrible consequences can follow the strong beliefs characterizing contemporary America. But for now, what follows is to identify how our very lovely intentions are leading us astray. My purpose is not to diminish or negate kind sentiments. As individuals the more we have them, the more we try to live in Mr. Roger’s neighborhood and be good citizens there, the more fulfilled we will be and the better our surroundings. But on the other hand while extremely principled beliefs strengthen people’s righteousness, it makes it far harder to be practical, to compromise, to be accepting of our own and others imperfection. It would be nice if thoughts about right and wrong could remain in our heads, provide thousands of posts on substack to entertain and stimulate us. But the real world has always been where people live and act. Idealism doesn’t always lead to bloodshed but it does lead to asinine policies when societies are blinded by it. That is where we will go next.

In the 1990’s a large beautiful home once belonging to a physician was bought by the Connecticut Department of Retardation (renamed the Department of Developmental Services in 2007) It was on a nice block in a very nice neighborhood in New Milford, Connecticut. Southbury Training School, an institution housing what were then called retarded people, had been ordered to shut down, with the belief that returning its patients to the community was the ethical responsibility of society. I’m sure there are many instances where it has worked nicely, but visiting there once a month to do medications I learned of some serious problems. One of their patients, a tall strong strapping fellow in his 20’s often sat on the front lawn of the house and openly masturbated. Great efforts were made to stop this but they were unsuccessful. There was nothing they could do. They couldn’t keep him in restraints or lock him in his room, although, at Southbury, that might have been done. He was a free man. This same young man walked into an adjacent house and tried to play with one of the children by grabbing her. She was very frightened. The police were called but again nothing could be done. Several patients had spent a night in jail but that led nowhere. One time, this young man had been taken for a visit to a 7-11. He helped himself to some candy bars and innocently tried to leave with them. A middle aged woman clerk tried to stop him. He punched her in the nose, and broke it. The same issue–charge him with assault and jail? That had been tried many times. The community would simply have to live with this man’s transgressions.

There was another patient living in this same community house who repeatedly was brought to the ER because he again and again used to stick glass in his penis and intentionally break it. There was a small section of Southbury still open, for very severe cases. The boy’s mother tried to get her son readmitted. She was refused, even when she brought the case to court. A judge ruled that deinstitutionalization was the will of society, and exceptions cannot be made. The rule at Southbury was no new admissions. A different solution had to be found. A different solution wasn’t found.

Nor has a solution been found for the chronically insane who now populate the downtown of most cities as homeless wanderers. They can be found on subways and buses and park benches talking to imaginary people, not bathing, wearing the same clothes day after day. Sometimes they defecate on sidewalks. Sometimes they growl at passerby’s, yell obscenities. There have been several instances where they attacked people. One of these insane people pushed a person on a subway platform in front of an oncoming train because a voice told him to do so. True, schizophrenics are harmless. As mental health advocates argue, far more harm is done to them than they do to society. That is true but citing numbers like that may mean something in a debate about who is innocent and who wicked, but otherwise it is irrelevant.

I was aware of a person that at one point used to come to our clinic who paced every day on the village green in the middle of January. He did not wear a winter coat. Inspired by the cruelty dramatized in One Flew Over the Cuckoo Nest most insane asylums have been permanently closed.

Deinstitutionalization, finding homes within society for crazy people has been another well meaning example of our new openness, our society’s kindness, our protection of the civil rights of the insane. State institutions had always been a mixed bag. Very nice workers existed in the state systems but also others who hated their job, as well as the patients. Most workers went through the motions, bored, worn down by the years and years of futility. Some mostly hung around in the nurses station away from the patients. I can imagine what it would have been like today with cell phones to keep the staff company. Some workers, pushed their weight around, like Nurse Ratched in One Flew Over the Cuckoo Nest and should have been fired but weren’t. As government employees they were protected. However, whatever its many shortcomings, at the very least patients were kept warm in the winter and had regular meals in institutions. I made a concerted effort to get the man who paced our village green into a hospital knowing full well that the modern “revolving door policy” meant patients would very quickly be released. There is something called depot neuroleptics, medicine that stays in the body for several weeks. Hopefully, those few weeks might return enough sanity so that he would then begin to come to our clinic, take oral meds and wear a winter coat. With much effort I was able to get him a week in a small unit in Bridgeport. Not long after he was back on the street. Without a coat. Eventually he disappeared. I’ve wondered if he froze to death.

The New York Times published an interesting story. Park Slope, Brooklyn, an affluent community that prides itself on its progressivism was torn apart by an incident in August 2022. “Jessica Chrustic, 40, a professional beekeeper, was walking her dog in Prospect Park a little after 6 a.m. when she saw a man rifling through the garbage outside the Picnic House. She had seen the man before — tall, with dreadlocks wrapped in a turban, carrying a long staff and often muttering to himself or cursing. She usually kept her distance. But this morning there was no room to avoid him.

According to Ms. Chrustic, he started yelling about immigrants taking over the park, then grabbed a bottle of what she later concluded was urine and sloshed it at her and her dog. She tried to run away, but Moose, her 80-pound golden retriever mix, was straining toward the man, trying to protect her.

The man started swinging a heavy stick. One blow hit her, not seriously. Another connected solidly with the dog’s snout. Mary Rowland, 56, a hospital manager who was walking her dog nearby, said she heard the crack of wood on bone and came running toward them, screaming at the man to get away.

Both women called 911, and four patrol cars arrived within a few minutes. But by then, the man was gone. The dog died. Weeks went by and the assailant wasn’t arrested. Nextdoor, working from Ms. Chrustic’s description, posted that they had seen him in one part of the park or another. Nextdoor, which claims an average of 37 million users per week, started in 2010 with the promise of connecting people with their neighbors and neighborhoods. One slogan went, “When neighbors start talking, good things happen.”

One thing they talked about, a lot, was local crime. In Nextdoor forums for communities all over the country, this included suspected crimes and sightings of “suspicious” characters, leading early critics to say that what the platform really propagated was white fear. After complaints about racial profiling in 2016, the company instituted diversity training for its operations staff and new protocols for posts about crime and safety. But even in 2020, Representative Alexandria Ocasio-Cortez characterized it as an outlet for privileged white people to vent criminal fantasies about their Black and brown neighbors. She tweeted, “@Nextdoor needs to publicly deal w/ their Karen problem.”

Kristian Nammack invited people on Nextdoor to form a neighborhood watch group to “take our neighborhood back… Not vigilantes, not with guns, not with the intention to tackle an attacker, but just to be another physical presence. I think just a presence deters crime.”

A man calling himself Snow told the group, “We are super not into you guys having your meeting, or doing anything in the park,” according to Hell Gate. “The opposite of what we need right now is more cops in this park and more people who want to be helping the cops in this park, when people are already being, like, chased down by the cops.” Martin Lofsnes, a dancer and choreographer who moved out of the neighborhood in 2020, came across the conversation and was appalled by the vitriol directed at an impoverished man, and by what he called “this vigilante attitude.”

He urged people on the thread to put their emotions aside and consider “400 years of systematic racism which has prevented black people from building generational wealth through homeownership resulting in the extreme disparity we see today.” Arresting the man, he wrote, would solve none of that.

Meanwhile the police were doing little to apprehend this man. Both Ms. Chrustic and Mr. Nammack separately appealed to their representative on the City Council. Mr. Nammack said he was told: “‘We don’t want the police involved in this.’” He said, “They didn’t seem concerned that there was a public safety threat with this man at large, and that he needs to be dealt with. The bigger concern was keeping this man out of Rikers, and let’s not do anything.”

Mr. Nammack urged people to sign a petition on Change.org, demanding that Mayor Eric Adams “take appropriate action to rectify this matter.” More than 600 people signed the petition. Mr. Nammack was not done. After a brief ban from Nextdoor, which was never explained, he returned to the fray. Once again he posted the police sketch of Ms. Chrustic’s attacker, above the headline: STILL AT LARGE. PROSPECT PARK VAGRANT. VIOLENT AND SOCIOPATHIC. Twenty-seven people clicked that they liked the post. Then Mr. Nammack’s posts were removed again. (I might add, even if he were apprehended and put in a hospital he would be out after a few days)

Not as dramatic, but along the same lines, I treated a fourth grade teacher who had found fulfillment in her work for 20 years. No longer. She had had it. For the second straight year, an out-of-control student totally disrupted her classroom. She was spending most of her time trying to get misbehavior under control with little time left for actual teaching. In the past, out of fairness to the others in a class, seriously misbehaving students were removed. In those days they had what was called “reform schools” That no longer exists. She got no sympathy from the principal when she complained. His attitude was she was being difficult. He accused her of not keeping up with current thinking. The new philosophy was “mainstreaming.” The theory was that these poorly behaving students could gain from exposure to well behaved students. She was told that if she couldn’t get a handle on things it was her own deficiency. Besides, nothing could be done. Policy is policy. My patient thought the principal was a coward. He was unwilling to take on the superintendent . And he was unwilling to take on the state. The basic message: authorities have no right to assert their power to restrict people It is illegitimate to isolate or punish people with problems. All of the problems stem from society’s misbehavior.

Somewhat analogous were policies about what to do with smart and less smart students. In the 50’s when I was going to elementary school, kids were put in classes according to their ability. There was no special designation of “gifted programs”, but in effect, that was what was happening. The class with the smart kids could race ahead, be given enriched material. Classes with less smart kids went slower so that they could absorb the material. This wasn’t a racial thing. The school was 99% Jewish. But setting things up that way seemed like common sense. No one announced that there were classes for smarter kids and less smart kids. I don’t know if anyone noticed. I didn’t. Only looking back 70 years ago did I realize that 3-1, 4-1, 5-1 classes were for brighter students. I don’t know if the word meritocracy existed back then. It’s just how things were done. It wasn’t to bestow privilege, or necessarily thought of as a reward. It seemed the best way to maximize potential.

Later, as the focus changed to sensitivity to children’s feelings, when, above all else, being nice was the most important part of children’s education it was argued that the children who didn’t get into the smart student classes were being rejected. They knew it, discouraging them. Perhaps, but if they were in the same class as smarter students and witnessed first-hand that they weren’t as bright as another wouldn’t that have had the same effect? I mean reality is reality. Making adjustments, finding our own strengths and moving on is part of what all of us must do. Or else faced with not measuring up, some children (and adults) with determination work twice as hard, ten times as hard if that is what is needed. Karl Anthony Towns of the New York Knicks recently scored 42 points in a game. He was the star that evening. However, he missed three foul shots. He doesn’t usually miss three foul shots. After the game, with Madison Square Garden emptied out, despite his exhaustion, he stood at the foul line alone shooting foul shots, again and again and again.

During the period of time that protecting children from being considered better or worse was the goal, as sensitivity to the feelings of those not being the best, against believing that winning was all important, a common practice in children’s athletics was to give everyone a trophy, win or lose. Self-esteem was considered so valuable that a make-believe world of equality was instituted. I’ve been told this is no longer done. Perhaps because the kids saw the exercise as hooey and threw away their trophies. Nevertheless, at that time someone poo-pooing that perspective would have been considered mean, or cold hearted. But, somewhat similar, in many colleges grade inflation became common and still remains. Instead of one or two outstanding students getting A’s, three quarter of the students got them. Why tell two students they were excellent when that kind of reinforcement could be shared by everyone?

It should also be noted that equalizing everyone later turned into being against excellence. The traditional perspective of valuing those who have risen to the top, of maximizing the process was turned upside down. Once gifted programs began to be recognized as worth doing, they were usually the first to be cut when there were budgetary difficulties. To those making that decision it seemed unfair that gifted students should get special treatment. The needs of the disadvantaged were far more important. It was more equitable to favor them. If funds were limited those below the norm should get special privileges, not those who didn’t need help.

Along those lines affirmative action became the ideal in most universities, particularly the best ones. From the point of view of providing a better education for their students by including those who they otherwise might not meet as classmates, the idea had merit. But the downside was also clear. The best schools served as a gateway to better jobs. In college admissions capable students were being discriminated against by favoring less capable students. It was not a favor to bright hard working African Americans who rightly deserved the esteem that would ordinarily come to those with an ivy league degree. It meant cheapening the value of their degree, creating doubt about their abilities and accomplishments, the very thing they had worked so hard to achieve.

The very worst result of this thinking was DEIs being a factor in hiring. One can argue against school’s affirmative action programs, but in the end it is their school and they should be allowed to do as they please. It is quite another thing for our government demands that its agencies must follow DEI requirements. And even beyond that private companies doing business with Uncle Sam must prove they have DEI policies. Less capable persons had to be hired as a requirement for companies getting government contracts. Private businesses have every right to d what they want. It is not okay that the government demands that individuals competing for a job must be given an advantage because of their race. On the other hand, certainly favoritism is not uncommon for other reasons. People are hired for who they know, or because they are fit and trim rather than fat and ugly or a thousand different qualities unrelated to competency play a role. But that kind of favoritism isn’t governmentally mandated. If a company is to survive and prosper most companies looking for employees truly want the best people . They may be blinded by their own sometimes irrational ideas of who will be best suited for a job, but few people doing hiring would ignore competency. Critics claim that the drive for equity is sometimes so strong that competency is made irrelevant. Or that less competent people are chosen over more competent people. I don’t know the facts but I do know that the best, most competitive companies usually got that way by finding and hiring the best people they could to fulfill their business needs. If they also furthered social causes or shared some of the ideals that people on the left hold dear, that is admirable, but those intangibles were not pushed ahead of competence.

Favoring competitiveness and aggressiveness has a long history in corporate hiring To achieve their purposes, they have wanted people who prioritize winning, rather than those with a highly developed intellect. That is why in the past, they tended to hire the captain of the football team rather than members of Phi Beta Kappa. I suppose one could argue that not valuing intellect is a kind of prejudice. It is not favoring excellence. But in this case the premise is not based on ideology. It is based on reality, on getting done what they need to do, make a good return on their investments, by favoring competitive individuals who have demonstrated necessary qualities.

Before the 60’s, the majority of voters thought similarly. They trusted their common sense, meaning what they thought to be their own needs. Adlai Stephenson was undoubtedly more brilliant than his opponent, Dwight Eisenhower, his vocabulary immense, his learning impressed everyone. If they had had a presidential debate back then, the opinion of most commentators probably would have been that he creamed Eisenhower. Ike was somewhere in the middle of his class at West Point. He had certain other qualities. For instance he was a regular violator of the more detailed regulations. He seemed to relish opportunities to outwit instructors or upperclassmen. It was originally football that led him to West Point. Then, after an injury, he had to find other ways to beat the other guys.

Stephenson was editor of the school newspaper at Choate and Managing Editor at Princeton. His education is said to have fostered a deep understanding of political philosophy, history, and international relations.

The election was hardly a contest. Stephenson’s smarts counted for little. Americans wanted a successful competitor, a leader to lead the country. General Eisenhower led our armed forces to victory over Germany. Case closed. His organizational skills and warrior abilities in the real world counted a thousand times more than Stephenson’s mastery of what is in books. Mind you, Ike’s demeanor was not based on impressing anyone with his brilliance, or macho. It was presenting himself as a regular guy, a humble man. Like most Republicans, he talked slowly, rarely used big words. Modern video editors would have cut up his speeches to give them more pizazz. But regardless, Americans knew he was not ordinary. He had been head of the Supreme Command, the mighty combined armed forces that kept Americans safe. I don’t know if underneath his calm persona Eisenhower was a lion. Probably he was. When it came to mastering the art of military victory, he was all in. He had been an ordinary student at West Point, but at Command and General Staff College: which he attended after West Point, he graduated first in a class of 245 officers.

Stephenson often told the story of Lincoln's response to an unsuccessful election, saying, "Someone asked me...how it felt, and I was reminded of a story that a fellow townsman of ours used to tell--Abraham Lincoln. They asked him how he felt once after an unsuccessful election. He said he felt like a little boy who had stubbed his toe in the dark. He said that he was too old to cry, but it hurt too much to laugh.”

Americans did not particularly want a president who cherished the psychology of a loser. They preferred a winner to protect them, not someone who took comfort by stressing their vulnerability. Popular songs often addressed fear and dejection, but the point was to overcome it, to whistle a happy tune, or “When you walk through a storm hold your head up high. And don't be afraid of the dark…Walk on, walk on-lyrics like that. I know what Jack would say about electing someone like Stephenson. A nice guy, someone to talk to and feel understood, someone to learn from. But as our president? You got to be kidding.

It is not coincidence that our universities have become so left wing. Before, in the 50’s and early 60’s, before the counterculture, professors may have looked down on the corrupt world outside their monastery. But their influence in the outside world was not consequential. Usually, they weren’t very political. They were “experts” about their subject matter and good professors had a lot to teach us, but they weren’t experts to be used by politicians and the media about how the world should be run. Elsewhere I am working on an article about how the Kennedy era changed that. A good deal of the elitism that those on the right keep referring to comes from the prestige that has been given to “experts,” those teaching at universities. The irrationality and hatred aroused in colleges over Israel’s war has smoked out the degree of their irrationality, their antagonism to conventional beliefs and loyalties. The degree of their political correctness, their group think, their hostility to the police, the judicial system, the military, patriotism, the flag, toxic masculinity, their assumption that they are royalty when it comes to truth, their snobbishness, has finally become obvious by the excesses of their attack on Israel. There had been flare ups earlier, stories about speakers disinvited crom schools because their views didn’t meet politicly correct definitions of decency that ruled academia. Support for Hamas, anti-Semitic outburst ended the prestige universities had managed to maintain. It was long overdue.

I am not a professor, but my brain doesn’t stop. I value the truth and especially new truths more than any other quality. But as important as that is to me, I know it is my shtick. It is my curse as well as my best quality. When I look around, it is obvious that others don’t value ideas even close to the way I do. Others are passionately interested in fashion, or social grace, or beauty, or athletic ability, or making money, or social standing, or making good investments, or shrewdness, or creativity, or wit, or simply getting through the day. To a greater or lesser degree I am interested in all of those things as well. Although, nevertheless ideas reign supreme for me, in this article I am arguing against the danger of that perspective. I am accusing those who overvalue thought, too often allow it to blind them. I would have loved to have taught in a university. My first years out of training I taught at my medical school until I sensed that if I continued to be so contrary I would be out on my ears. So, I made a living practicing privately and have written and written and written.

In psychiatry, I have my share of academicians who have followed me and want to hear my thoughts. (See https://simonsobo.substack.com/p/why-i-should-be-read But more than once when communicating with them they have asked me not to communicate with them through their university email address, to use their private email. Also, more than once I have been told by them that they admired my courage. That is a joke. That is not my thing. But I am not an academician, so I have had intellectual freedom, the real thing. I can say whatever I want and not fear losing my job. It should be noted that I am not talking about political ideas. I wrote articles challenging the paradigms, the group thinking in psychiatry. Like most people, most psychiatrists fear thinking for themselves. Better to feel secure in their understanding by following what everyone else says is true. It isn’t only for show, or to be safe from a lawsuit should they stray from officially approved truth. That factor is real. But above all they fear the curse of doubt and uncertainty. No one adequately understands how the brain works. It may be centuries ‘til we get there. But, better to be in the know, to follow the experts. I’m sure the same thing goes on in every profession.

My wife doesn’t understand, or particularly sympathize with the pride I take being the child who called out the emperor is wearing no clothes. She’s right. It is childish. She continually tries to convince me that I must learn to read the room. She’s not wrong that my career might have gone more smoothly if I didn’t insist on sticking to whatever thoughts I had,. To her it is bragging. I am writing here about the snobbishness of those who use their political correctness to intimidate the deplorables. She answers that I should try living with me, be the recipient of my disdain. It is victory I want, not truth. Perhaps, perhaps not. But I am not aware of it. I truly am convinced that I am trying to figure things out. That is the treasure I seek. Granted it is absurd that I have changed my mind so many times and each time I have passionately believed in the truth of a position that I later reversed. I was an enthusiastic liberal. Was drawn to the promised land Berkeley in 1965, after the Free Speech Movement there in 1964 received so much attention. I loved it. I returned there for a year in 1968. for my medical internship. What I found there cured my left leaning politics forever. I suppose like the neoconservatives who were once Trotskyites, and turned against the Left. Since I have a special dislike of most leftist truths, even before wokism transformed mainstream Democrats to completely crazy ideas. However, if Trump goes too far I may become an enemy of the right. I am a critic by disposition. I invariably find claims of truth that I know are not true, and am surprised others don’t see it. I assume others must know that what is claimed true is false. So that gets me going.

I suppose my hero is Ludwig Wittgenstein, the philosophy professor at Cambridge, at the time, the most brilliant member of the most prestigious philosophy department in the world. When logical positivism led philosophers into a blind alley, he walked out of academia and became a gardener. He never mentioned to his fellow gardeners that he had been a professor. 10 years later he returned because he believed he had figured out the problem plaguing him. Do not use the language of philosophers. Use ordinary language.

When we tangle, one of my wife’s messages to me has been repeated many times. “What difference do ideas really make? Who is right? Who is wrong? Who cares. And what difference will it make in 10 years? We are old. It is no longer our world. Will we even be here in 10 years?” She is not wrong. Here I am asking for us to overthrow the power of an army of professors, to throw out the conclusions so many of our “experts” agree upon, to dismiss conclusions from preoccupations sincerely arrived at. By me, by them. By anyone led by their ideas who has convinced others. My answer is the same stubborn voice I have always had. Relevant or not I have to say what I believe. And despite her dismissal of my never ending doubts, this time it is important. With the best intentions our culture has been led in the wrong direction. Gone too far We must listen to a different voice. To Jack’s father. Not forever, but now. Sometimes, the simplest most basic thoughts, or instincts, are more relevant than the educated complicated ideas of smart people.

Part 3

Back to politics and more personal reflections

So let us return to Jack and what it is like to think like him. Sorry. Not think like him- react like him. Allow me to repeat the main points so far.

1. Big ideas and fine desirable beliefs in politics can lead to stupid policies.and worse, sometimes violent behavior. Over valuing thinking can sometimes lead to paralysis and loss of common sense. In our current era our turn to “experts” to guide us has not been helpful

2. People who live a good part of their life in a dog-eat-dog world don’t need to be taught that making it in the world is very challenging, that people they face can be uncaring and sometimes bastards. Not just the Chinese or Russians, all of us. innumerable kinds of misfortunes can create detours, even permanent obstacles. It takes luck and determination to keep going. In previous generations difficulties didn’t have to be imagined. Every day they were there. Even among the rich it is important to not lose that understanding. Mr. Rogers neighborhood is an important vision, particularly in nursery school, but to judge the world through that lens is living in a make believe kingdom that has never existed. It is particularly destructive if holding it up as the only standard of decency leads to a rejection of our actual history, of having legitimate pride in how much we have accomplished.

I mentioned how prior to the 60’s our “be tough” perspective was deeply engrained. It was common sense as a response to the world every knew from daily experience. At prep schools, and private schools in England, freshman were often roughed up. Not quite Marine boot camp but with the same idea. Grab mother’s boys, and force them to find the strength to leave the nest. We understood that nurturing our young for too long might incapacitate them, make them, as a I not4ed earlier , green house flowers. Highly competitive sports were encouraged not to train professional athletes, but to teach them how to win. And lose. I just read a description of how Northfield Mount Herman, in Connecticut, a very fancy prep school, remains old fashioned. Students have to work 10 hours a week in the dining hall just like their scholarship students. Not as many hours a week as I worked in high school, saving for college, but the same idea. The attitudes that I and others have been calling elitist wasn’t to be found at Northfield Mount Herman, or in my childhood.

Jack grew up rich but Jack’s father, like my immigrant grandparents, did not have it easy. His grandfather delivered ice to the tenements. He carried 100-pound blocks of ice up five flights to supply his customers’ ice boxes. As a young man his father also carried the ice as soon as he was strong enough to lift it. He didn’t enjoy it. No one thought it wonderful that work was so difficult, that it was anything but a curse, that burdens characterized everyone’s life. Yes at Mt. Herman they intentionally burdened their students to toughen their rich boys up, but for Jack’s father, and most people no education was needed. If anything whatever could be done to lesson the difficult labors necessary for survival was desirable. No one could imagine that one day vast numbers of our young growing up in America would have it so easy , feel so rich and comfortable, so disconnected from the stresses and dangers of the real world, that if anything they would embrace an enemy supported by Iran, that chanted “Death to America.”

Working at night Jack’s father got an education at an agricultural school so that he was trained in animal husbandry, and entomology. After graduation he became part of the U.S. Agriculture Department and here is where things get interesting. During World War II the War Powers Confiscation Act gave the government the right do whatever they thought necessary. His father would lead a contingent of G men, carrying tommy guns, to stop trucks on Route 1 bringing chickens to the market in New York from the South. Pointing their Tommy Guns at the truck driver they would unload his truck into an Agriculture Dept Truck and send them to our soldiers so that on Sundays they could have a chicken dinner instead of rations. No lawyers were involved in these confiscations, no negotiating at all. The chicken farmers may have been able to get 27 cents a pound in New York, but the government paid them 17 cents a pound. And it wasn’t take it or leave it. Take it or take on the tommy guns. Their weapons were loaded with real bullets. Jack’s father wrote out an agriculture department check and off the driver went-no complications anticipated.

The point of this story is to remind the reader of what the world was like not very long ago. Pushing people around was not extraordinary. It was the way things were done. It would be wonderful if that weren’t true today. But it still is, always has been, and will be. It would be wonderful, if all day long people could experience the sweet satisfaction of a choir that includes a Down’s syndrome child. But it won’t happen. After a morning of Sabbath prayer at synagogue or church, visiting God always brings out the best. To those who attended services, inspiring sermon once brought genuine determination to be a more perfect version of themselves. Congregations regularly hired preachers who could juice up their conscience, so that at the end of the service worshippers re-experienced their innocence. They didn’t need to turn to politics for that experience. For a few hours they lived in sweet Mr. Rogers Neighborhood. With God. But with that achieved on the Sabbath, deliberately or not, their connection to the ethereal rarely lasted very long. After a few hours, or a day or two, a return to reality was guaranteed. Apparently, psychologically, regaining their innocence once a week did the trick

A wild speculation has occurred to me. Lacking religion, many on the left may have to satisfy that need for moral purity in their politics, but in their case they have to extend it all week long. Whereas the religious tend to be politically conservative, more able to accept the corrupt temporal world as a given, those who don’t experience it through weekly religious ceremony, have to find their unfulfilled moral purity in a constant demand for it, which, as I will describe more fully later, leads to trouble. I will not stake my reputation on this speculation, but it is worth considering. Logically, it makes no sense, but as a psychiatrist, accepting the contradictions in our nature, that kind of split behavior is more common than not.

To continue along this line Jack’s father, like most Americans did not have to be taught about toughness. It was part of everyday reality, woven into our experience. I assume his father watched gangster movies, starring Edward G Robinson, James Cagney, John Garfield and others, and while he may or may not have known actual crooks, movie goers recognized these characters as familiar, the way of the world. Perhaps they weren’t heroes but an important part of their identity was represented. Remaining a choir boy wasn’t a viable path. Yes the Godfather needed to receive communion from the Church, regularly, as did everyone else. But in the old America, day to day aggression was commonplace– it wasn’t merely their father’s belt, or other boys taunting and name calling, or nuns’ snapping their rulers at the fingers of an unruly student, or my Hebrew school teacher who once grabbed a misbehaving student by the ear, or my junior high vice principal who terrified everyone in the auditorium during the study period. If there was even a hint of a wise guy expression on our face. at P.S 218 we expected doom. The lesson was chiseled into the experience of everyone. Toughen up. Or else. Expecting that kept you prepared. While it was possible to admire a Mother Theresa, or Mr. Rogers later on, the usual hero was someone closer to what Dad expected. Or used to expect, or hoped to achieve. Not the elimination of fear, an impossibility, or a world of angelic behavior, but persistence in facing the way the world has always been.

My grandfather came alone to America from Lithuania when he was twelve. He was expected to be able to handle himself. There were thousands like him, sent by desperate parents hoping for something better. When I asked our son’s high school authorities to allow my 16 year-old son to come home alone from Manhattan after a school visit to a museum, (he wanted to see a movie and I had faith he could make it home) school officials would not allow it even with a signed permission letter. They implied what we were proposing was practically child abuse. Same thing for leaving a child alone in a house. At 8 or 9 I was left alone with my 5-year-old sister and 10-year-old brother, while my parents worked.I babysat for other children when I was 12. When I was in kindergarten I walked to school a mile away without an adult. Yes there were crossing guards, but no one thought anything of it. After school I played every day with other children with no adults watching us. The only rule? Be home for supper. Of course, those were safer times when there weren’t as many predators, or perhaps, there were, but we were taught how to avoid them, and remain safe. I watch my children as helicopter parents and am amazed. They are ten times more involved than I was. I don’t know if they love their kids more or doing what is expected in their generation. If I live long enough I am waiting to see if it turns out to be good or bad. I can’t tell but I can’t help thinking it is strange. My wife thinks it is fantastic.

I remember a case presented at our clinic of an Asian mother who used to punish her children when they misbehaved by having them walk on uncooked rice. She often left them unsupervised. Many of her child rearing methods resembled the famous Tiger Mom, demanding excellence, keeping pressure on her children to excel. expecting maturity as was expected of me when I was a child. Her kids are actually doing fantastically well, disciplined, out performing caucasian class-mates. And not seeming frightened or unhappy. Would there be trouble further down the line? Perhaps, perhaps not. But a number of clinicians at the clinic were alarmed that this mother did not conform to American ideas of child rearing. To them the rice was like corporal punishment, now uniformly condemned by child rearing experts. Some of the clinicians wanted to report her to the Bureau of Child Welfare believing her parenting constituted child abuse. Fortunately, as head of the clinic my perspective prevailed, particularly because workers for the state protective agency rarely gave a damn about reported cases. I bring the case up not to illustrate that my old fashioned perspective is the right one. Truthfully, I don’t know if modern American ideas of child rearing produce more security and happiness in adults. I don’t know how to measure that, but what can be measured is the educational test scores of Asian American vs. Caucasians and this holds true even in Asian students with uneducated parents. It isn’t just school work. As I watch the latest generation of masterful violinists and pianists, I recall when most of them used to be Jewish rather than Asian. I can’t ignore how many of our champion ice skaters are South Korean, Chinese, or Japanese Americans, how many products on the marketplace are from China, Japan, and South Korea. I believe that our failure to compete is related to our work ethos which, as in Europe has been fractured by all of our nice ideas about the nature of the workplace.

Being aggressive and competitive in the business world doesn’t mean that successful parents can’t have a gentler side, which they may prioritize. At this point the reader may believe that as a parent I was extremely authoritarian. It is not true. I liked to play and knew my children needed to play a lot. There is no other time in life when it is so available and needed. But I do believe parents should be parents, not friends. See ADHD and Other Sins of Our Children .Chidren can play and still absorb lesson one.

Jack is a gentle polite soul. Like me I sense a certain fear of his wife. She has told me his father (the hero of this piece) was afraid of Jack’s mother. He still thinks poorly of the businessmen in China who were relentless competitors. He was cheated more than once by them. He acknowledges it has served them well. Our threat from China may come from their government’s policies, but the real threat, that has most affected us has come from their businessmen’s ability to beat us in competition. At first take, China’s competitiveness should have nothing to do with our foreign policy in the middle east but I think it is all part of the same package.

Jack wants us to bomb Iran and take no prisoners. War is war. Our enemies will do terrible things to us if they see us as weak enough to give them a chance. It is no different in business. If our businessmen aren’t shrewd enough, or persistent enough, if those phony trophies given to little leaguers have taken away our sense of necessity, they will win and we will lose over and over. There are many reasons for China’s success but one reason has not been that they have tried to elevate the self esteem of its citizens.

I am not of fan of Trump’s macho. I favor a speak softly and carry a big stick, kind of fellow. I wish Nikki Haley had been a choice. It is very unfortunate that our choice was between the nonsense of the Democrats, their view of Western civilization and the white men as villains and Trump’s nonsense, for now, given the choice I think voters preference was need. Trump often presents himself as an idiot, but not always. He’s kind of like a guy at the bar when he has had enough to drink. What comes out of his mouth is what he feels at that moment. Truly feels. And yes he lies easily. Often times what he says is stupid but what he says is where he is at. He is unlike professional politicians who are careful to say the right thing in public, but who can be a very different person in private. As a politician Hillary railed against Wall Street. The expose that Russia tried to effect our election produced one very interesting piece of information. They made public emails from her campaign director where she was reassuring Wall Street privately that she was their friend at the same time as she was attacking them publicly. I would prefer if Trump were more like her, a realist. Trump is not someone who keeps his cards close to his chest. When he says something bozo, I wish Trump were more like Hillary. On the other hand, there is comfort knowing that what you see is what you get. He has been so unfairly maligned by the media and Hollywood that it is easy to forgive many of his sins, to side not so much with his innocence as with the belief he’s not that bad. For one thing he is clearly respectful and a little afraid of women. When he was a businessman, time and again he has turned to them for their capabilities and stability. In the real estate industry he broke the glass ceiling time and again by promoting women to positions they had never reached working for others. It is not coincidence that his current chief of staff is a woman. Like many men, his sexual macho, his conquests at night, if anything, may be an attempt to restore the balance.

Certainly, he is not even close to being a Hitler, even if, on occasion, he has said nice things about not very nice people. He has admired their capabilities in the use of power. Before he became a politician he has railed against NFL rules that overprotected quarterbacks, about the way policemen gently protect criminals’ head s as they place them in a police car. I wish Donald Trump was not our president. On the other hand, he was elected because Americans understood that what he stands for, at this particular time, is needed.

Let me cut to the chase. Trump has repeatedly expressed admiration for Vladimir Putin. He has praised Putin's intelligence and leadership. Trump will pick a fight with anyone, Republican or Democrat. He doesn’t understand any other way. His script seems to be analogous to prize fighters. Attack with everything you got and then, only then, acknowledge your adversary by giving them respect. You know them. They know you and now you can talk. Trump has described Kim Jong Un, the leader of North Korea as "tough" and "smart," claiming they "fell in love" after exchanging letters. Trump has lauded China’s leader Xi Jinping’s appearance, strength, and intelligence, comparing him favorably to U.S. leaders. He has called Viktor Orban Hungary’s leader "one of the strongest leaders anywhere in the world," though he mistakenly identified him as the leader of Turkey.

Yikes! Are we that stupid that we could elect someone who seemed ridiculous in his debate with Vice-president Harris, someone who carried on about illegal immigrants roasting people’s pets on the basis of something he had heard on the grapevine? How could we elect this kind of man? The answer is simple. For now, voters have bought into Trump’s priorities. He seems to trumpet the quality that I have been describing that his voters feel has been lacking. If I had a choice, I would prefer someone with fewer obvious deficits. Nevertheless, a majority of Americans couldn’t care less about his self-centeredness, his ridiculous show business persona, his constant need for attention and applause, his many faux pas and his business failures. Come election time, the alternative was to go along with the complete idiocies of progressives.

Right now voters like his combativeness, especially when he is smart, but forgiving when he is stupid. They don’t believe that, as his adversaries claim, he could totally lose it and bring on nuclear war. He has tantrums but so did LBJ, who could get whipped up into a fury. His outbursts were not translated into policy. In a rage he’d order his aides to do unpresidential things, clearly ridiculous attempts at vengeance He was the president. They knew the next day his perspective would gain the upper hand, so they ignored what he told them to do when he lost control. He just needed to ventilate. I assume the same thing happen with Trump. However, there is a difference. LBJ could indulge himself with a shit fit, but he didn’t have twitter to shout out at the object of his fury. During Trump’s presidency he tweeted 57,000 times. Only, LBJ aides knew how crazy he could get.

Trump’s ignorance and fury can sometimes be hard to take. We can, and sometimes, should call him an idiot and oppose him in a thousand and one ways. Even when he is at his best, it is likely that some of his policy ideas and those of his appointees may not work out as hoped. Some are already ridiculous, clearing out Gaza to build condos on the Mediterranean, taking over Greenland. Which of his many ideas will work will be determined by what emerges in the future. He is far from the greatest, but when I hear my leftist children and friends carry on about Trump being a fascist I know they have gone extremist like Biden, Harris, Pelosi, Schumer, CNN, MSNBC the New York Times, and the rest of the media.

Trump is not even close to being an angel, which hasn’t bothered MAGA Trumpers one bit. Leaving aside his threats to round up immigrants he is vindictive. Since being inaugurated he has ended federal protection of Bolton and Pompeo, and Fauci, which is unnecessarily mean and vindictive. He is not organized enough, competent enough to pull off something like a dictatorship. Yes, his dedication to being powerful, if carried to an extreme degree isn’t that different than a Hitler or Mussolini. But this is America. We have had a McCarthy era, and most recently we have made it through the Democrats trying to force their nutty beliefs on us and our children, scaring people with more customary ideas into silence. But in the privacy of the voting booth we voted those fascists out of office. The very quality that in extreme form resembles the mindset of fascist is not fascist. It is what strong leaders possess. It is exactly what voters have decided we need more of, explicitly valuing power, America’s power. They are willing to ignore Trump’s many deficits and take a chance.

The pride Trump takes in the art of the deal is not fatuous. Negotiating from strength should not be considered cheating, or tyrannical. To use whatever negotiating advantages we have for their full value makes sense even if it undermines the noblesse oblige others have come to expect from us. Too often our guilt about our wealth and power, leads others (and worse, us) to expect us to put ourselves second. Too often others take advantage, whether it is our NATO allies expecting us to spend all of the money NATO needs, or domestically where those collecting government benefits demand more and more.

When we were extraordinarily powerful and rich our willingness to give was a reason to be proud. It was a testament to how kind we were, how great America’s impulses were. We didn’t have to give, give give but we did. Pax Americana was a wonderful era for the world. The issue, however, is how things stand now. As our advantages have greatly diminished, many Americans, do not consider themselves, or our country rich enough to piss away our self interest. They see our empty factories, rusting, being demolished or just left there to rot. They know it is dumb to not think of ourselves first, even if they are called dumb by the elite for saying it out loud. They see nothing wrong with us using every good card in our hand. I am arguing that we should take heed of one of the main reasons Donald Trump won the election. Not just Hispanic men liked his braggadocio. People from many backgrounds thought our leaders should not be ashamed of machismo, whether fake or real, to more often embrace it. When someone shot Donald Trump, missing the end of his existence by inches, Trump ducked but then immediately stood up and raised his fist. He didn’t ask the shooter to meet with him so they could have a talk. The vote of 77,303,573 Americans proclaimed we need a leader like him, a fighter.

I voted for Donald Trump even if he sounded like a jerk when he repeated some gossip he heard (and believed) that illegal immigrants were killing Americans’ pets and roasting them for supper. It doesn’t matter if the reports were true. It doesn’t matter that Harris seemed the smarter of the two. It doesn’t matter that as he must know, many, perhaps most illegal immigrants are decent and hard working human beings. Simple observation of reality has to have made that obvious to him, as it has to me. By far, most illegal immigrants, like legal immigrants, do not intend to lie around languidly, boozing it up, submitting to their fate and blaming the white man. They tend to be go-getters. Like all immigrants, past and present, legal or illegal, they were brave enough to leave home for an uncertain future. If anything, they love what they are seeing in America. They are impressed by the wonders of American culture, by McDonalds, BurgerKing and Amazon. Every time I visit Costco I see large numbers of them, big families, with loaded carts, speaking Spanish, Bengali, Swahili, Brazilian Portuguese.

They want in. They are willing to work hard. They know they have to work hard. Back home there was never a choice. They had to work hard. For pennies. They have worked at my house, painting, doing carpentry, as masons, gardening, and doing a great job, a better job than too many rip off American contractors seem to do. Yes, their broken down trucks often leak oil which my tar driveway doesn’t appreciate, but one of them, Mario is like family to me and my wife. He joins us for Thanksgiving. He knows the name of all of my six grandchildren, and asks about them. He remembers what they are up to. Recently, he did a Facetime from Guatemala on my wife’s birthday. We loan him money when he needs it. We once mistakenly paid him twice. He let us know and returned it. His brother’s boy has been recruited by Yale for their soccer team. They seem to be a fine family.

Mario and his 10 brothers and sisters grew up in Guatemala without electricity. They had to go to the river for water. He is legal. My wife grilled him for his citizenship exam. She was invited by him to go to Hartford for his citizenship ceremony. They both cried. When we had an apartment in Park Slope, Brooklyn, one of our doormen, also from South America showed me a picture of his daughter She is going to my medical school, Albert Einstein. Mario rents a room from a countryman who is renting out rooms in the house his family lives in.–also in other houses he owns. Mario is like an uncle to his landlord’s children. His landlord also owns three restaurants. He doesn’t disparage worship of the dollar as our well-educated American born do. He understands what it is like to not have dollars. His landlord’s background is similar to Mario’s. The immigrants in his neighborhood resemble the people I grew up with as a boy. They were all democrats then. Today they would be Republicans. Mario doesn’t understand people on welfare. He has contempt for laziness and beggars.

I assume Trump knows, that on average immigrants are more ambitious, and harder working than long term residents of the USA. Nigerian Americans, Korean Americans, Indian Americans have a higher per capita income than our native born. And their children do even better. They are repeating the story of how a few generations back, Jewish, Italian, Irish , Greek, and German Americans plowed their way forward. Those who came here may have been desperate, and not very educated but they were willing to take their chances if it meant they could improve their lot. As greenhorns they were not necessarily welcomed. They were discriminated against. Kikes, wops and micks back then could tell similar stories of prejudice against them. It still goes on. The Korean owner of a very nice supermarket on Flatbush Avenue in Park Slope spoke little English when he arrived in the 60’s. He joined the army and faced constant ridicule and insults. Like others in his family, who also arrived with nothing, he was not passive, waiting to be given because others had more. He and his brother worked at 2 jobs, saved every penny. When they saw opportunity they grabbed it. It wasn’t easy but he saw a future, especially for his children and that was enough. As it turns out, time and again the hopes of immigrants were fulfilled. If not in their own lives, their children’s success gave their sweat and difficulties meaning.

Immigrants have long been part of the reason America keeps forging ahead. Trump is married to an immigrant. I’m sure he has been told, or has seen for himself, how the narrative of immigrants’ story fits so beautifully into the way our country works. As Chris Arnade wrote on Substack , The World is in Love with America:( https://www.thefp.com/p/the-world-loves-america-chris-arnade) despite our media’s constant drumming about how terrible we are, and how we are seen elsewhere as the bad guys, he found the opposite. For three years he traveled to the far corners of the world, to everywhere. He discovered it just ain’t so. I heard the same thing from another doorman in my Brooklyn apartment, an immigrant from Jamaica. He would go wild when he heard people on the media going on, wanting to cut funding for the police. At 3 AM, when he gets off work and emerges from the subway to his neighborhood, his happiest sight is a policeman nearby. He tells me many at his church are always upset when the media presents angry black people blaming white people. Why aren’t members of his congregation interviewed? Why does the media present decent hard working black people as Uncle Toms. There are more of them than there are left wing politicos.

Trump can respect the positive immigrant story and still be reluctant to accept Muslims from countries where terrorism is rampant. Despite charges of Islamophobia he has never been opposed Muslims from elsewhere. He can respect the pluck of immigrants and still want to build a wall to keep hordes of wannabe Americans from invading our borders. It doesn’t indicate that he is cruel. It was once the position of all of our leaders. In his first term, he didn’t hesitate to threaten Mexico with tariffs if they didn’t stem the tide. He is doing so again, or something like it. It isn’t just Fentanyl being brought here by illegals. For emphasis he tends to exaggerate whenever he wants to make a point. I despise his portrayal of illegal immigrants as mostly criminal or drug smugglers. He came from the real estate world and that is how they talk. You don’t know what to believe. I wish he had appreciation of the grey, not just black and white. But his basic position is sound. He will not allow a massive invasion by those breaking the law. Their entrance must be orderly, legal. Particularly now, those entering our homeland must be carefully vouched. Tens of thousands of terrorists hate America and want to sneak in to satisfy that hatred by killing us. He cannot ignore that enemy nations are only too happy to empty their prisons and send their criminals here. He will not be duped. Better safe than sorry. Only the very privileged, safe from threats others confront every day, can go la de da about danger. . They are far more fearful of being accused of being cruel or dumb. So yes, a wall must be built if ordinary methods of vouching are being overwhelmed by the numbers. It isn’t meanness to choose our safety rather than empathizing with immigrants’ dreams to such an extent that we open our doors wide open. Most people lock their doors. They are not being inhospitable to those who might want to enter their home. They have a right to fear strangers. Nine out of ten of those who enter a wide open door might be perfectly nice. But they would be nuts to ignore the potential for trouble. Limiting strangers entrance is not cruel. It is a judicious use of power. It is common sense.

I have been criticizing our overarching belief that when we exercise our power it is illegitimate, proof we are evil. The accusation is made that we are going against what should be the open heart of true Americans. A a result, the decision to be tough, even when it is necessary, has become difficult to pursue. January 6th was frightening in many respects. Thousands of demonstrators were literally able to invade and take over the Capitol building while congressmen were there. They were unarmed. It was not an insurrection, more an out of control mardi gras kind of event. That their invasion could succeed would be inconceivable if it hadn’t actually happened. How did it happen? The police were helpless. All they could do was physically push back. Rubber bullets, tear gas, nightsticks, any of the usual comparatively peaceful methods of crowd control were forbidden by those who saw such tactics as weapons of oppression, an illegitimate use of power. Mayor Daley’s police force were called Nazi’s when they took on rioters in Chicago who were determined to disrupt the Democratic National Convention. The criticism of Mayor Daley was not only coming from the left. The mainstream media saw it like that. That is how it came to be remembered. There was no way the capitol’s police were going to be seen in the same light as Mayor Daley’s gestapo, even if it rendered helpless those in charge of protecting our government.

The same thing happened in the Midwest following George Floyd’s death. Riots broke out in cities all over the country. Police cars were set on fire. Rather than fight back , the 3rd precinct police station in Minneapolis.was ordered to be evacuated by the mayor . The police were chased as they left. The mayor said it was only a building and it wasn’t worth loss of life. The building was burned to the ground. This was the first time in over a century that something like that had occurred. It had always been considered mandatory for authorities to not give in and allow lawlessness to reign. The rioting, looting and burning of other buildings continued after the police fled. Two weeks later a Seattle police precinct was similarly overrun and 5 1/2 city blocks were taken over. Signs were erected, reading "You Are Entering Free Capitol Hill" and "You are now leaving the USA" It was only reoccupied after mayhem reigned in the free zone, gunshots, murder, drug users needles everywhere. The rioting continued for weeks in most large cities. Many more police cars were set on fire in Chicago, Boston, Los Angeles , New York and Philadelphia. There was 2 billion dollars of property damage from widespread arson.

Many in the mainstream thought we deserved it. They weren’t willing to highlight how out of control it had become. For the most part, media coverage emphasized the peaceful nature of the demonstrations. While it is true there were peaceful protesters, many of them, the riots were hardly reported. NBC told their reporters to use the term protest rather than riot. Since then, the pendulum has swung slightly back from the extremes of the defund the police movement, but the overall perspective remains, all based on the belief that Western societies, white men in particular are villains, especially when they try to exert power.

Senator Tom Cotton wrote an op ed piece “Send in the Troops” in the New York Times suggesting that when there are riots the Insurrection Act should be invoked. If necessary Federal troops should be sent to control the violence. Shortly, thereafter James Bennet, the editor of the Times’ editorial page was forced to resign for allowing his article. Young reporters were furious. claiming the article had put their black employees in danger. I’m not sure how that is true unless we accept the premise that any use of power by our authorities is the action of villains. I suppose they believe that. That their own employees do not side with the proprietors of the numerous stores and restaurants that were burned to the ground, but rather with mobs whose hatred had taken over and were dangerous-what does that say? The rioters and the Times black employees are one and the same? That a white senator would consider using force, that a white editor would allow that viewpoint to be expressed, that Federal troops would automatically be assumed to be the equivalence of setting loose the Gestapo- is that what are we talking about? Perhaps I am being disingenuous. Like the reader I know exactly what it means. Not only black reporters, but white reporters comfortably despise white society. Like my grand daughter there is a fundamental distrust of us. Perhaps if the Times reporters met the proprietor of a small business that had been looted and then destroyed a few of the reporters might feel sympathy, but that a Target was stripped of its merchandise before being burned to the ground,? No way a corporation would get an ounce of sympathy. Despite the cruel history of Communist societies everywhere a Marxist spin to events has returned to the educated younger generation.

The same assumptions expressed by sympathy for rioters has been clear in officials elected to uphold the law. Shoplifters are no longer being prosecuted in several cities. In their thinking, who but a fat rich cruel person wants jail for people helping themselves to what fortunate people own? Why should poor people accused of a crime be obligated to pay for bail. Why should ex-cons be forced to report their criminal history when applying for a job. It is now against the law for employers to ask that question. It isn’t only kindness that motivates the left to not prosecute criminals. Declaring criminals innocent substantiates their own fine ideals. Signaling their virtues relentlessly, their selflessness places a halo on their heads. It also places a swastika across the chest of those who favor traditional ideas of crime and punishment. It makes progressives better than other people. With the threat of shaming them, it bullies those with traditional values into silence. These defenders of misbehavior go beyond arguing that all use of power to defend society is immoral. Any political action that declares we are in favor of policies that favor ourselves is undemocratic.

Of course that isn’t true. In the past it was assumed that every person would vote for policies that defend and favor themselves and their group of people with similar interests. Irish for the Irish, farmers for farmers, small businessmen for small businessmen, government employees for government employees, factory workers for factory workers and so on. That is how democracy is supposed to work. It doesn’t depend on nobility as the motivation of constituents. Rather than seeing self interest as cruel it is the expected politics of constituents. It is a natural extension of how, in their private lives most people struggle to survive, and, if lucky, flourish. Yes selflessness and charity is admirable, but not the primary motivation of people. Only the rich could even consider it as a priority. Following self interest allows different groups politically to fight like hell for what they want for themselves but also negotiate and compromise if necessary. Those whose politics is driven by ideals see giving in as foregoing the good and allowing evil to prevail. That doesn’t work. As I will illustrate in a future article, the failure of idealists to achieve their goals, time and again becomes the justification for trying to overthrow democracies.

In the late 60’s, the counter-culture undermined the sustaining beliefs of America. The enormous wealth that began to accumulate among large numbers of the young coming from middle and upper middle class backgrounds made it possible for the fortunate to look beyond themselves, and as described above, to turn to ideals rather than self interest as the basis of their politics. To maintain their decency fine beliefs became expected from them. They weren’t Rockefellers but compared to others, lower down on the social spectrum, they had remarkably few fears about their future. Some families were richer than others which affected their place in the social pecking order and that was not a trivial motivator for those wanting to move up. But they were not in need. Their parents, on the other hand had been cautious all along. They were afraid to step too far out of line. Among the young there was contempt for the bourgeoisie, meaning their parents. How could they respect their parents’ fear their imprisonment by the rules. But as the prosperity of the 60’s accelerated and appeared to be permanent, more and more recklessness became prestigious. It was called freedom., a word, a belief sed over and over. The economy was bursting with good jobs for college graduates. Better than that. Young people could totally fuck up without endangering their future. Unlike their parents, who had lived through the depression and had busted their ass to arrive where they were, the young had few fears about making a living. They looked down on their parents’ rules as chicken shit conformity. They wanted to escape that, to be better than them.

Instead of having to climbing the precarious ladder their parents had managed to scale, without risk,much of the young’s energy could be devoted to perfecting themselves spiritually , to self actualization, discovering the wisdom of gurus, to ways of transcending boredom and the ordinary. Although there still were a great number of the young who bought in, who wanted even greater wealth, a sizable number of young people, even if they were not necessarily Marxists, felt disdain for what their parents valued. . They dismissed their parents’ pride in their trophies, the house, the car, their latest purchases as pathetic, as greed and foolishness. The do’s and don’ts, a crease in the trousers, shoes shined daily, not being able to shout out curse words, hair combed with a part, sexualiy restricted. Everything they were taught was a joke. They didn’t want to be part of the rat race, keeping up with the Jones, any of it. They looked down on the whole enterprise, at working to make a buck, at the dirty corrupt world outside the rarified ideals of university land. The only place they had ever lived was classrooms, and even there, the pressure on them to compete and get good grades was rejected as bullshit. They claimed to believe in true learning, knowledge growing from their curiosity, not information stuffed down their throat. Reacting to their righteous fury, many schools eliminated grades. Many more began the process of grade inflation, somewhat similar to the everyone gets a trophy practice that had characterized the Little Leagues.

Their goal seemed worthy, a kinder gentle nation. The righteousness they claimed, their confidence that their opposition to American values was based on allegiance to a better world was reinforced by their certainty that the war In Viet Nam derived from colonialism. The same for the racism prevalent in society. But the challenge to Western beliefs went much further. The bible had it wrong about the mankind’s curses as they were chased out of paradise They could return. Some form of spiritual awakening could guide them there. People talked that way. Christianity had long since invalidated mortality. Eventually heaven awaited them, an even better paradise than Adam and Eve had lost. Harps and angels sitting on the clouds. But Western religion was not the true pathway They wanted it here on earth. Paradise Now became the clarion call . As for the other curse, earning their bread by the sweat of their brow? Watching their parents be degraded at work by the endless hours that imprisoned them, the aggravation, sometimes the humiliation that they had to live with. It was not for them. It wasn’t necessary. Yes, some parents were proud of their stoicism, the hard work they did as I described before They had met the challenge. Their determination, their unwillingness to give up ennobled them. They expected their children to respect them, even find elements of the heroic in their battle Some men had been triumphant, done very well. They even loved their jobs. They didn’t see it as endless trials and tribulations. For winners, the glory was delicious.. Those who won, got to sit atop the mountain of competition that had reduced others to defeat. For feminists that possibility, having the wonderful achievements some men claimed for themselves seemed a possibility long denied.

But most young, encouraged by the wonderful proclamations of the counterculture, by the unified agreement of what was wrong in America, by the evil Viet Nam War and segregation in the South and continuing racism, by the belief that something better could be found in their life, had little difficulty joining in the cheer, the faith they would live out in the better world they expected. This kind of optimism is not new It is common in the young. But it is usually knocked out of them by the reality of the difficulties they eventually face. The 60’s were a completely new moment in history. Ordinarily only aristocrats looked down on those who worked for a living. Now there were millions of young people rich enough to share the sentiment

Without being forced by necessity, work and more work, and after still more, compared to the long free hours students had had in their life it seemed ridiculous. Their parents’ jobs, the aggravation and curses they brought home that they nightly tried to forget with a stiff drink or a good TV show-the new generation thought work could be redefined. They wanted labor that was fulfilling, that gave their life meaning, that improved the world. It would be embarrassing to seek wealth, greedy, lowly. Perhaps Mario in his world thought nothing wrong with worshipping the dollar. But they did. The worst part of the equation was that their parents’ life seemed devoid of high ideals, the luxurious mental state, the dreamland students possessed, one in which, they imagined, their future idealized self could find fulfillment. Their parents’ daily existence reduced them, to an existence without hope of emancipation, shackled by useless labor and afraid of dreaming the impossible dream “Turn on, tune in, drop out.” Timothy Leary suggested. Some hippies became bohemian hobos, worked minimum hours, anything to maintain their freedom. Individuality, becoming one’s true self rather than have it dictated by society had become what it was all about.

60’s ideas were not new. Borrowing some of the thoughts of Rousseau, bohemians had long believed that it had nothing to do with the Garden of Eden and God’s curse. Civilization was the cause. Human nature was basically good. Freed of society’s restrictions, its endless prohibitions, humans could be happy. Society caused corruption, alienation and inequality. Picasso, Gauguin and many other artists worshipped the simplicity of primitive men. Freud had discovered that underneath the expectations of societies was an animal that knew no boundaries. He agreed it was civilization that was the basis of our discontent. Freud, however, was not bohemian. He saw civilization as a necessary evil.

Gauguin thought he found paradise in Tahiti. Perhaps, but it should be pointed out that until French colonialists imposed Christian values, human sacrifice was commonly practiced in Tahiti. Those they chose to kill were from the lower classes. It was done to appease the gods and help their tribe succeed in their wars against other tribes. Cannibalism was also practiced in the Polynesian Islands. Was human flesh tasty meat? Don’t know I never tried it, but it was ingested by warriors who believed that consuming the flesh of their enemies would allow them to absorb their strength and mana, a spiritual force. It was also seen as the ultimate form of revenge and domination. It was the constraints of Western beliefs that ended these practices.

That said New York and San Francisco beatniks revived in the 50’s the excitement of Paris bohemians and artists. The avant garde, the new, originality, creativity blew away convention and from there it was a short distance to the counterculture.

For those convinced that work destroyed one’s treasured ideals, that chasing money contaminated their innocence, working for non-profits became a legitimate way to avoid the corruption embedded in commerce. Government bureaucrats similarly weren’t owned by the profit motive. Many were able to govern, to police those whose practices that might harm society. In various government agencies they were able to spend money to further liberal causes. Others may have seen them as a pain in the ass but they enjoyed a taste of power in the name of the higher motives. Becoming an artist, a painter, writer, dancer, actor, singer was another way to avoid business motives. Lastly the alternative was academia. Most universities were founded by religious orders. They educated future men of cloth. Later this moral purity continued. Like monks escaping the filthy outer world in monasteries , behind their ivy covered walls, professors could eschew the profit motive and devote their energies to the clean realm of books and ideas.

Along these same lines, as the original culture of maintaining one’s ideals and innocence and valuing ideas and the expertise of academicians flourished over the decades, the politics of a majority of the young believed the government run by modern Democrats could bring their ideals to fulfillment avoiding the dirty profit motives of businessmen. Although many Democrats were lawyers, they weren’t businessmen. They may have earned a fortune winning cases where logic and argument were paramount, and although they could and often did play dirty, they were able to sell this image, of themselves as not being sell outs, unapologetically pursuing their self interest whose only purpose was chasing dollars. They were experts on the letter of the law.

Republicans, on the other hand were the party of businessmen. It was axiomatic that they were up to no good. They freely continued the ancient belief that work centered on money and making profits. They admitted it, insisted there was nothing wrong with chasing the dollar. To the left they were incapable of the goodness, the holiness idealists valued in themselves. The one exception, a recent one , was technology which allowed a looser disruptive kind of work style. Elsewhere I will describe how being unconventional became a good in itself which entitled them to get rich and slip by the dictums of the left. But for everyone else, if they had to work 9 to 5 for a living to support a family, and it wasn’t for a non profit, they held their nose and did what they had to do. They “sold out.”

The reason selling out wasn’t an issue for their parents is they had no choice. But also contrary to their children’s rejection of them as soulless, they had a towering ideal. They worked at their job, they sacrificed their hours to fulfill their ideal, although they didn’t think of it that way. It wasn’t pie in the sky. It was the same as their parents ideals, and their parents’ parents. Creating a family, bringing children into the world and then guiding and protecting them was what their life was all about. Teaching their children what they had learned and hoping they would do better. That was their story, their explanation for why they did what they did. Keeping the whole thing going. Their ideal was not about changing the world for the better, not Eastern, or Zen, or guru enlightenment. Just a desire to do what they had been brought up to do.

Parents were undoubtedly surprised that their children didn’t see what they held most dear, the well being of their children, of them. Since their children were the recipients of this effort, they assumed it would be notice. It turned out quite the opposite. The new generation often saw their parents efforts to guide them, to instill values that they had been given by their parents as a way of oppressing them, as trying to impose, their stereotypes on them, trying to force their own dreams on their children, as if their children were not entitled to define their own way. Yes, parent could see their work was often a curse. Indeed, the sacrifices mothers make for their children and family were very often even more restrictive than what men had to undergo with their bosses. But in the past the satisfaction they derived was payment enough especially if it brought grandchildren.

To be sure, moving from having a family as the central ideal of those coming of age to a more modern perspective has its good points, for instance women being allowed, even encouraged to achieve what they see as having been men’s privilege. That their fathers spent so much of their life focused on their job and that their self esteem was so entwined with their work may have given the appearance of being a privilege. So that being able to do the same has been seen as progress rather than it being the same old curse that so often crushed their fathers. Breaking out of their parents’ expectations may have made it attractive, especially because freedom has become an idealized quality. It has even been better if they have achieved a modicum of success. Or if not, their father may have tried to give the appearance that he wasn’t being done in by his work. They too can maintain the illusion However, there will be many modern women who will eventually see it as their fathers actually did. Their work is simply work, meaning a curse.

On a mire positive note,. in two of the last three elections women almost became president. There are certainly many women delighted with their careers. 40% of lawyers are now women. In some government and nonprofit sectors, women comprise 60% or more of the lawyer workforce. 65% of pediatricians are now women. They constitute 62% of OB-GYN practitioners. Who said they must stay home for the children, or become teachers so their work might mesh with their children’s schedule? They are as capable of so much more, as capable as men.

But there is another issue involving men as much as women, the devaluation of the family as an ideal. Families have never been ideal. Conflict, favoritism, all kinds of overt and covert antagonisms, secrets, shame, broken hearts, misunderstandings, grudges, competition, disappointment, bullying alliances, lies and deceptions are the stuff of great drama, and in many families these problems appear. Families are made up of human beings and at one time or another, every human failing manifests itself. Yes it is an ideal, but its actual characteristic are far from ideal. Its close knit nature can intensify the poignancy of the heartbreak that so often interferes with harmony. It can also bring support that may never be replicated in other relationships. But to my point, losing it as an ideal worth striving for, or until recently an expectation, women replacing the importance of family with an idealization of accomplishments in the work place doesn’t seem like very much progress to me. And on the other end of the scale, devaluing the profit motive because it implies greed and selfishness, devaluing traditional values that give first priority to one’s family or even oneself out of a need to maintain a superior conscience, the status that it seems to offer is a net loss for countless individuals and even more so for the country. It can be intoxicating to feel free, to throw off all the demands we were taught to not question, but it is just as important to question new answers, to not automatically equate change with progress. to be lured by the unanimity belonging to a large group with similar beliefs. To jot find radical chic to be chic at all. As I have repeated again and again, ironically, the danger of being enthralled by seemingly ennobling ideas is that it leads to intolerance, to an inability to compromise, to a righteousness that too often leads to violence.

I am working on a part 3 and 4 to this article. I suppose I am half way to a book. Stay tuned