I’m watching the current political
campaign unfold with a mixture of interest, chagrin, embarrassment, and dismay.
The Watergate scandal that roiled the final days of the Nixon administration
marks my first political awareness. Watching those pivotal events flicker
across my parent’s small black and white television in Abilene, Texas, I
realized that decisions made far away influenced my life in strange and
mysterious ways. Now, forty-two years later I follow politics, understanding
that these things, not matter how grievous or mortifying, matter and greatly.
Many reporters, politicians, pundits, and preachers lament the low level to
which our national debate has sunk, including me. Most express surprise at the
crass exchanges that daily scroll across our screens. I do not share their
shock. We created this situation.
During my life, which contrary to what my
students believe is still short, we slowly exchanged substance for show. A well
educated person used to read the great works of antiquity, developing the
skills needed to plunge such depths and weigh serious matters. A classical
education required careful examination, and memorization, of great literary
works and large bodies of facts concerning the world around us. We spoke of
areas of study as disciplines since it took discipline, time, and effort to
master them. Civilized men engaged in debate, which consisted of a reasoned
exchange of ideas, not red-faced men exchanging insults across the table.
Sometime, before I was born, we started divesting ourselves of these standards,
accepting in their place a paltry, anemic substitute that eschews scholarship
and civility and instead embraces bombast and the one hundred and forty
character sound-bite.
Students, and adults alike, recoil at the
thought of writing a well-reasoned and supported essay. We want everything
packaged in small easily digestible bits. During interviews and what passes for
debates, participants regularly avoid difficult topics and spew out an endless
diatribe of sentence fragments designed to play well on the next thirty minute
news segment. And we let them. Our embrace of the plasticized social-media
driven culture produces such meaningless dreck. They get away with it because
we will not summon the intestinal fortitude it takes to reject such pandering. Politicians
from both parties and the media participate in this erosion of the national
conversation. Perhaps we lack the acumen necessary to call these pretenders,
and that is what they are men in suits pretending to be men of substance, out
and demand legitimate solutions to very real and convoluted problems. They
believe, and perhaps rightly, that we do not understand well enough to discern
substance from Shinola (you need to have been in the Army the days of the
universal suede boot for that particular reference). In our thirty second spot,
thirty minute sitcom frame of mind we find it hard to seriously consider what
character is and how to recognize it.
Due to our mental laziness, or in some
cases lassitude, we willingly support anyone who says a few things we want to
hear. Often we choose to embrace a single issue as paramount, forgetting that
often the person who drapes themselves in that particular issue may not be running
for an office that can materially influence it or has not plan to attack the
proximate cause of the problem we find so odious. Our continual willingness to
overlook bombast and self-aggrandizement and not demand substantive plans
coupled with a general unwillingness to sacrifice for the good of the nation
draws politicians, not statesmen or patriots. Consequently we get the current
crop of politicians; well coifed and stuffed suits who engage in the kind of sophomoric
antics I see in the halls of my junior high each day, the big difference being
my students act their age. We must change the paradigm.
We must embrace the work needed to educate
ourselves, to learn once again how to think, deeply and critically. We must develop that discipline required to
understand the complex issues which vex our nation, and world. Few problems
require solutions that fit into a snippet of text. Those that will succumb to
such a short solution do not merit our effort. We must refuse to support those
who would ingratiate themselves by pandering to one or two issues. Those who
seek high office need to apply armed with good ideas and a willingness to roll
up their sleeves and work. Refusal to discharge Constitutionally mandated
duties in the name of party or ideological purity is not the moral high-ground.
And neither is shutting down the government to make a point. We must relearn that
true patriotism is not about flag and bunting waving. The signers of the
Declaration captured patriotism very well in these words, “And for the support
of this Declaration, with a firm reliance on the protection of divine
Providence, we mutually pledge to each other our Lives, our Fortunes and our
sacred Honor.” And until we once again educate ourselves to these matters we
will endure an endless parade of poltroons disguised as viable candidates.
Since I am currently a teacher, I harbor
great hope for the future. If my students are any indicator of the upcoming generation,
they want and are up to the challenge. They willingly allow me to try and test
them. Early on in the year I would get a few anemic scratchings passed off as a
paragraph. Now, I regularly see fully formed thoughts in paragraphs that
explore ideas. Recently one of my students came up to me in the hall and said, “Mr.
Robinson, do you have a limit to how many pages I can write on this subject? I’m
really enjoying this project and have a lot to say about it.”
And she said this in front of my
principle! Yes, I think they are up to the task. The question is, am I up to
the challenge of guiding them into education?
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