To anyone who stumbles upon this blog that has gone int hibernation: I am looking for some honest, thoughtful, frank people to help me with the book I am writing. Specifically, I’m looking for people to tell me what they think of it. This is not a book for ivory tower scholars and pointy-headed intellectuals but for regular, ordinary Christians. I want the book to be as compelling, interesting and meaningful as I can make it, which is why I need honest feedback.
It is a book about why Christians in Burma in the 1830s and what they have to do with our spiritual life. Really. Can that topic actually be compelling, interesting and meaningful? Well, we’ll see.
So, if you are interested in reading some or all of the drafts of the chapters I have written, (I’d even take feedback on my one-page Introduction), let me know by sending an email to me at jcase@malone.edu.
I’d really like to hear what you think, so that I can make this a better book. Thanks, Jay.
It’s that time of year again, when everyone in our society begins to obsess about two critically important decisions in life: 1) how can we outflank the other aggressive shoppers on Black Friday and 2) what specific thing to be thankful for on Thanksgiving. (Actually, wouldn’t the world be a much better place if we all put as much energy into the latter as we do the former?)
Ah, aren’t you glad we have this holiday to think about what is really important in life?
If you obsessing about the shopping part, I’m afraid I can’t help you. You and the other 4538 crazed shoppers who descend on Walmart on Friday morning (Thursday night?) will just have to fight it out among yourselves.
However, I have something new and different for you to be thankful for: humility. Not your own. You can try to be thankful for that, but it won’t work, for some reason. No, I mean the humility of good people who have gone before us. They have given a great gift to us.
How? Consider the abolition of slavery. Several years I posted a piece about how we all ought to be thankful for those who worked to eliminate slavery. Because of them, slavery is not only illegal in American society, but we all actually believe slavery is wrong. We have all inherited that idea. We did not come up with it ourselves. We don’t get any credit for taking a stand on that one, folks.
It’s hard to believe, but through most of human history, nobody thought that slavery was an institution that people ought to be actively campaigning against. Slaves, of course, hated the system and wanted to get away. A number of people thought it was bad. But they saw it as an unfortunate part of the world that we all had to live with, like poverty.
And then, in the early eighteenth century some people actually got this crazy idea that slavery violated God’s intention for the world and that God wanted them to do what they could to eliminate it.
Now, I admire William Wilberforce, God bless him, but he did not actually single-handedly abolish slavery and he didn’t start the whole thing. Decades before he came on the scene, some other people got the ball rolling.
One of those persons, whom I think historians and Christians alike have not paid enough attention to, was a man named John Woolman. (I’m guessing you’ve never heard of him unless you are a Malone University alum who remembers Woolman dorm. Even then, the name might not have even meant anything to you. Sigh.)
Woolman was a Friend (Quaker) from New Jersey who became convinced that he needed to do what he could to convince others to give up slavery.
So, if you were John Woolman with this crazy idea, how would you do it? Would you debate slaveholders and convince them through evidence and the superior power of your reasoning that they were wrong?
No. And here is bad news for those of us who love to post on Facebook. Or, (ahem), write blogs. Argument and debate rarely ever change anybody’s mind. The only time argument really works is when all involved are less concerned with scoring points and more concerned with wanting to try to gain deeper understanding, which includes a willingness to consider that one might be wrong about something or other. That doesn’t happen very often.
Here is where humility comes in.
Before going out to discuss slavery, John Woolman prayed that the Lord would strengthen him and help him set aside “self-interest.” He confessed in his journal that often when he went to speak to others, he realized that he himself was guilty of desiring things for his own benefit. (Scoring points, perhaps? Greater holiness? Superior grasp of the truth?)
And then, do you know who Woolman went to talk to? Fellow Christians. Fellow Quakers, in fact. When he addressed them, he spoke of how they all needed to work together in “brotherly love.” They should all “promote the pure spirit of meekness and heavenly-mindedness.” He pointed out that they all needed to be “truly humbled as to be favored with a clear understanding of the mind of truth.”
And then he urged them to put aside their self-interest and consider what it is that God wants.
Hmm.
Prayer. Self-searching. Confession of one’s own selfishness. Seeking meekness. Admitting that one does not always see the truth clearly. Showing brotherly love with those one disagrees with.
Humility.
I don’t know why those of us who are Christians should be surprised by this, but I think if we were honest with ourselves we would have to admit that the most surprising thing of all is this:
It worked.
Over a period of a couple of decades, the Quakers managed to eliminate all slave-holding among themselves. Not only that, they had an incalculable influence on non-Quakers who worked against slavery: former slaves, evangelicals, William Wilberforce, and secular-minded abolitionists who followed them, just to name a few. Woolman and his Friends started the movement.
Let me point out that it was not just John Woolman who demonstrated humility. Perhaps we should give even greater credit to the Quaker slaveholders who voluntarily freed their slaves. They had to give up wealth and status to do that. And before they even reached that point, they had to give up something that we all hold on to even tighter: pride. They had to consider the suggestion that they were wrong. And then admit it.
So, yeah, there are a lot of things here we can learn for our own lives.
A place to start: on Thursday we should thank God that his grace worked through John Woolman, the other Quakers, and all the other people who were humble enough to actually admit that they were often selfish, muddled in their thinking, and did not love others as much as they should. And then that they went and did something with their chastened hearts.
We should be thankful for that. Because we have all benefited from their humility, even though we don’t really deserve it.
Boy there’s just nothing like reading the headlines, or turning on cable TV news, or listening to talk-radio, or clicking on your favorite internet news site to make you feel all warm and happy and peaceful inside.
Right.
More likely, we come away thinking, “Man, the world sure is a mess.”
It can take a toll on our soul. What to do about that?
Avoidance seems to be a popular option. We could go shopping, escape to a movie, or watch the NFL. (Well, the last one doesn’t work if you are a Browns fan).
Still, some of us know it is important to be engaged. But what to do when it all just seems so distressing?
Here is one small idea: take a careful look at history. Particularly the history of “news.”
For the past year or so, my local newspaper, the Canton Repository, has been reprinting “A Page from History,” showing the Repository front page from the date in a previous year. They usually select a day that has some sort of news item that would be interesting to us. For instance, three recent days featured Vice-President Calvin Coolidge visiting Canton in 1922, how a local sheriff raided an illegal gambling den in 1911, and how Congress was trying to find communists in Hollywood in 1947.
I have this question. If we were reading the newspaper in 1922 or 1911 or 1947, what would we think about the shape of the world?
Here are the other front page stories from those dates:
October 27, 1922:
Yeah, it’s hard to read the fine print, but you get the idea.
– A minister in Newark, New Jersey is accused of murder
– Five teenagers killed when their car gets hit by a train
– Federal government rules that US ships cannot haul alcohol
– A drunk driver is sentenced to jail
– a local rabbi is sued for divorce
– US ideas are spreading to China
– County post office is robbed
– Local man accused of embezzlement tries to commit suicide
– Local man denies killing his wife
– The city will be purchasing new snow plows
October 28, 1911:
This page is actually not from 1911, but the news is still distressing.
– 19-year old found guilty of murder
– a plot was uncovered to smuggle dynamite from Indiana into Ohio
– war in China
– mayor is accused of corruption
– John D. Rockefeller is sued for illegal business tactics
– Body of a drowned man is discovered
– labor leader is accused of murder
– A pastor is accused of murder
– Local man is accused of abducting a teenager girl
– President Taft, it is reported, has failed to register to vote in his home town
October 29, 1947:
…and this one’s from 1948 instead of 1947, but we still worried that communism was going to destroy the world.
– Mayor is accused of firing policemen because they belong to the opposing party
– National hysteria over communism may threaten civil rights
– Men in two small planes are trying to circle the globe
– riots in Paris seem to be provoked by communists
– Free trade agreement signed by US and Britain
– property values and taxes are increasing
– local bus drivers in contract dispute
– Communist officials in election in Denmark lose some support
– Fund-raising is taking place for local community chest
Overall, most of these news stories will not make one feel all warm and happy and peaceful inside. Maybe the new snowplows, if you are into that sort of thing.
The point, of course is that if you regularly read the newspaper from any time in the past century, it could also make one think, “Man, the world sure is a mess.” The years above are not even known as particularly tragic years in the 20th century.
Of course, there really is something wrong with the world. These are real stories.
But the news is a funny thing. It tends to dwell on conflicts, tragedies and evils of the world.
And it does not tend to report other kinds of things. For instance, imagine some kinds of things the news did not report, in 1922, 1911, 1947 or 2016:
– Yesterday a father in Nashville, Tennessee went out to his backyard and played some ball with his two kids. They felt loved.
– Neighbors in a village in China yesterday talked with an elderly woman whose husband just died. She was comforted.
– Nobody in Canada rioted, attempted to take over the military, or shoot a politician yesterday when election results showed the ruling party had lost. The country moved on in a peaceful transfer of power.
– A small church in Los Angeles reports that a dozen couples in the past year have grown stronger in their marriage and, despite instances of difficulties, have become more dedicated than ever to one another.
If you worked at it, you could imagine hundreds of similar events that take place in our society and in the world that don’t count as “news.”
But why does our news function the way it does? More on that later.
No, this is not a post about long-suffering Cubs fans, who may not be suffering much longer. That would be a fun blog post, though.
This post is about political losers. You see, my favorite part of the election season is listening to the loser on election day.
Seriously.
After months and months of campaigning in which candidates tear each other up, declare that the country will completely collapse if the other gets elected, and paint one another with half-truths and misinformation, we finally get to election day. One of them wins. And the other loses.
Then comes my favorite part: the concession speech.
We have this custom in American democracy: when it is apparent who has won, the loser of an election calls up the winner, has a brief conversation, and then gives a speech.
And what happens in that speech, after all those months of bitter fighting?
Well, consider these excerpts from the concession speeches of our last four presidential losers:
“I have just called President Obama to congratulate him on his victory…His supporters and his campaign also deserve congratulations. I wish all of them well, but particularly the president, the first lady and their daughters….This is a time of great challenges for America, and I pray that the president will be successful in guiding our nation…..”
“A little while ago, I had the honor of calling Sen. Barack Obama — to congratulate him on being elected the next president of the country that we both love…..In a contest as long and difficult as this campaign has been, his success alone commands my respect for his ability and perseverance. But that he managed to do so by inspiring the hopes of so many millions of Americans, who had once wrongly believed that they had little at stake or little influence in the election of an American president, is something I deeply admire and commend him for achieving.”
“I spoke to President Bush and I offered him and Laura our congratulations on their victory.
We had a good conversation, and we talked about the danger of division in our country and the need — the desperate need for unity, for finding the common ground, coming together.”
Al Gore: As a loser, he might have been almost John Adams-esque.
“Just moments ago, I spoke with George W. Bush and congratulated him on becoming the 43rd president of the United States….I offered to meet with him as soon as possible so that we can start to heal the divisions of the campaign and the contest through which we’ve just passed…I know that many of my supporters are disappointed. I am too. But our disappointment must be overcome by our love of country…And while there will be time enough to debate our continuing differences, now is the time to recognize that that which unites us is greater than that which divides us….”
Two Republicans and two Democrats.
Embedded in their statements are these elements, found in many concession speeches:
1) They congratulate the winner.
2) They indicate that both sides need to work for the good of the country.
3) They mention, or imply, that the system of democracy is more important than their election victory or their political party.
In other words, the concession speech is where we most clearly get politicians articulating elements of the loyal opposition. And as I have argued, the concept of the loyal opposition is critically important for a healthy democracy.
John McCain’s 2008 speech (which is when I first fell in love with concession speeches) and Al Gore’s 2000 speech are particularly good. They are worth reading in their entirety and they are not long.
In fact, as I looked these speeches up, (and I could have gone back further in history, but, well, it’s a blog) I gained a level of respect for Al Gore that I did not have before. I have indicated how many other societies might react to a disputed presidential election like ours in 2000. Al Gore, however, wonderfully articulated the fundamental principles behind the rule of law, democracy and the loyal opposition. Consider these other parts of his speech:
“But in one of God’s unforeseen paths, this belatedly broken impasse can point us all to a new common ground, for its very closeness can serve to remind us that we are one people with a shared history and a shared destiny. Indeed, that history gives us many examples of contests as hotly debated, as fiercely fought, with their own challenges to the popular will. Other disputes have dragged on for weeks before reaching resolution. And each time, both the victor and the vanquished have accepted the result peacefully and in a spirit of reconciliation…..While we yet hold and do not yield our opposing beliefs, there is a higher duty than the one we owe to political party. This is America and we put country before party; we will stand together behind our new president.”
These are great points.
(OK, Gore overlooked the 1860 election when the victor and the vanquished both took up arms and five years later we looked around stunned that we had killed 750,000 of our own people).
Still, almost every time in American history both the victor and vanquished have accepted the results peacefully and in a spirit of reconciliation.
I do hope that whoever loses this year’s presidential race will give a concession speech with these elements in it. It is not guaranteed, for there is such a thing as a bad loser. And some people lose sight of, or don’t understand the importance of these fundamental principles. Given the very nasty and bitter comments from both sides in the second debate, I have to confess that I’m not entirely sure either Trump or Clinton would do this.
Still, the final question of the debate on Sunday night, which came from an undecided voter named Karl Becker, got at this issue. Beckerhas become something of a folk hero, which shows that many Americans long for a more civil and respectful campaign as we debate our differences. He asked this: “Would either of you name one positive thing that you respect in one another?”
Both Clinton and Trump actually said something positive about each in other.
So there is hope for this year’s concession speech.
If you are like me, you know that in ordinary, daily life, it is very difficult to offer constructive criticism in a civil and respectful manner. And it is darn near impossible in two areas of American public life: political elections and anonymous comment sections on the internet.
Granted, there are people, some of them are even creatures called politicians, who are able to disagree in a thoughtful, civil and constructive manner. But it is very hard, partly because many voters do not pay attention to this kind of discourse. The temptation to revel in the mudslinging thrown by “our people” is far too alluring to many of us.
On the other hand, political mud-slinging is not just distasteful to many Americans, it tempts many to avoid political engagement as much as possible. That is another unfortunate consequence.
So, wouldn’t it be great if we could go back to that time when elections weren’t characterize by insults, intentionally misleading characterizations and outright lies about the opposing candidate?
But there was more to that election. As the first presidential election in which clear factions had formed in competition for the top position, some rather outrageous things were said by politicians and media leaders. Ordinary people believed a lot of these outrageous things.
For your entertainment and increased understanding of the world, I have a video that catches some of the spirit of the rhetoric from the 1800 election:
Several notes:
1. For the historically gullible among you: neither the internet nor television actually existed in 1800.
2. The quotes here are edited and taken out of context, but they do reflect the flavor of what was said and some actual phrases that were used.
3. The 1800 election, like all elections, also produced people who gave thoughtful, respectful and constructive criticism.
4. Jefferson and Adams did not actually say these things publicly because candidates did not actually campaign publicly then — they let their supporters campaign for them. (Hey, wouldn’t that be great?) The mudslinging comments in 1800 were from their supporters. (OK, second thoughts: maybe we don’t want to put all the political rhetoric in the hands of party supporters.)
My point is that name-calling, false accusations and outright lies have been present since the beginning. This is not new.
So does mud-slinging matter?
Well, it is protected speech under the Constitution, and rightfully so. This kind of rhetoric is, on some level, unavoidable, since “men are not angels” as Madison said, (or “all have sinned and fallen short of the glory of God” as Paul said.)
However, that does not mean it is healthy for our society. It would be better if candidates (and their supporters) could manage to be above all of that. But it is really hard to pull off effectively. So we have to live with some level unhealthy rhetoric in our society.
Still, not all uncivil language is created equal.
For instance, consider the following campaign posters from Germany between 1929 and 1933. At that time, Germany was a democracy (known as the Weimar Republic), but it was a fragile democracy.
These campaign posters reveal problems within the political culture of Germany at that time. Take a good look at the images.
Communist Party, Liste 3:
“An End to this System”
Nazi Party:
“Smash the World Foe, International High Finance”
Social Democrat Party, Liste 1:
“Clear the Way for List 1”
The People’s Party, Liste 6:
“Against Civil War and Inflation!!”
What underlies these forms of political rhetoric?
They are signs that Germany at that time lacked a tradition of a loyal opposition.
To review: healthy democracies assume that disagreement is legitimate, dissent is a healthy part of society, and political opponents should not be treated as if they are enemies to the nation.
Also this: citizens recognize that their loyalty to the system of democracy is greater than their loyalty to a particular party or politician.
The lack of a loyal opposition in the Weimar Republic was significant because, as you may know, Hitler was able to take over the whole system in 1933. That story is often told as if Hitler were some sort of “genius” who was able to dupe a bunch of gullible Germans. But that analysis misses some critical points about the political culture of the Weimar Republic.
Hitler was a skilled orator and political manipulator, but he was no genius. He was able to succeed because he took advantage of a number of serious political ailments in the Weimar Republic, ailments that many non-Nazi politicians and political parties also contributed to.
In other words, it would be helpful to consider what sort of ingredients went into the recipe of the Weimar Republic. What made it possible for a large number of people to accept the Nazis and the communists as legitimate political options? There were many, but let me list a few on the political discourse side of things.
The cover of Evans’ book: Nazi Brown shirts attacking political opponents in the street.
First of all, several political parties in the Weimar Republic intensified a sense that force and violence were valid measures to turn to, under the right circumstances. Parties actually had their own private para-military units which would intimidate, beat up, shoot and sometimes kill political opponents and supporters. For the Nazis, these were the Brown Shirts. Other parties had their own uniformed gangs. Can you imagine Republicans and Democrats with their own uniformed military force, dressed in red and blue shirts, roaming the streets outside of polling places?
But here is my key point: some forms of rhetoric, images and discussion encouraged many German citizens to accept violence in politics as legitimate. Take another look at those campaign posters. Several political parties, particularly the Nazis and the Communists on the extreme right and left, (who together captured 52% of the vote in 1932) did not treat other parties as if they were legitimate. Even the less extreme parties, like the Social Democrats and People’s Party, were pulled into this kind of campaigning. Politicians commonly accused opponents as “enemies of the Reich.”
And once you have labeled political opponents as enemies of the nation, it is easier to attach the “enemies” tag to all sort of people. German Jews, of course, were the most notable victims of this process.
Of course, Hitler was not loyal to the system of democracy. Neither were the communists. Hitler exalted himself and his party above the system. He equated his ideology with the nation of Germany.
There were many other factors that went into the rise of the Nazis. But political rhetoric was a key part of the process.
Americans (and other stable democracies) can be thankful for a tradition of loyal opposition. American politicians rarely refer to their opponents as “enemies” of the nation. They do not argue that violence is a legitimate tool to use against their opponents. That’s the part we do well, without realizing it.
But we need to tend the garden. What we say and how we say it matters. There are ways that our rhetoric and discourse can start to slip in unhealthy directions. Some politicians treat criticism as if it is not just incorrect but illegitimate. Some people revert to rhetoric that characterizes political opponents as enemies of the nation. And some people (fortunately they are usually non-politicians without much influence) will speak of violence as if it were an acceptable response to political opponents.
Our challenge? Rhetoric is a very slippery and difficult substance to assess. What kinds of rhetoric are constructive forms of dissent and what kinds of rhetoric pull us into unhealthy spaces? The extremes are easier to identify than the fuzzy places in the middle.
So, let us think carefully, and humbly about what we are saying and how we are saying it.
Yes, they are humorous: Monty Python is proof of that. And I could tell you stories about a couple of my British friends who make me laugh.
But I’m thinking of a different kind of funny. I mean funny as in a bit strange. And I could tell you stories about a couple of my British friends who…well, no, let’s not go there.
Instead, let’s go here: the British are funny because their government actually pays the leader of the party that loses the national election. They give her or him a post in government with a salary equivalent to a cabinet member. This person gets a car and a paid staff. The loser.
It is both “funny ha-ha” and “funny strange.”
And yet…..it is crucially important for the successful operation of their democracy.
The Right Honorable Jeremy Corbyn: Labour Party leader and the current Important Loser — OK, Her Majesty’s Official Opposition –in Great Britain right now
The official title for this person is “Her Majesty’s Official Opposition.” That title encompasses an idea, “loyal opposition,” that is not used in the U.S. very much. That is why it may seem funny to Americans.
But there is something very important here. Back in 1992, when I found myself observing the political strife around me in Kenya, I heard the U.S. ambassador to Kenya give a speech in which he said that a problem Kenya was dealing with was that they did not have a tradition of a “loyal opposition.”
That phrase has stuck with me ever since. What is it?
The concept of the “loyal opposition” actually encompasses many things. Among them lies the thinking that disagreement is legitimate, that dissent is a healthy part of democracy, and that political opponents should not be treated as enemies to society. In 1937, Great Britain went so far as to officially create this position, to protect dissent in their parliamentary system.
Putting up with dissent is not easy, though. In fact, because of our sinfulness as humans, I would argue our default mode is to try to ignore, silence, or even eliminate those who disagree with us. People in power don’t want to have to listen to those who criticize them.
This is one thing that makes building a democracy so difficult. When Kenya got its independence in 1963, it had to build a nation from more than thirty different ethnic groups. Fearing division and fragmentation, the leaders created one political party, KANU, that was supposed to encompass all people. They effectively outlawed all other parties. The result was that Kenya did not develop healthy practices of dissent and disagreement in politics. Political opponents, journalists and protesters were jailed if they got too critical. Some were killed in mysterious circumstances. Those in power solidified their grip on the system. After thirty years, the nation had a grand total of two presidents and the first, Jomo Kenyatta, only vacated his post because he died. During the 1992 elections, a time when I was wondering if my family would have to be evacuated, political strife ran deeply because opponents were pushing for an alternative party. The ruling party, KANU, saw these dissenters not only as a threat to their power, but as enemies to the nation.
Unlike those funny Brits, the United States does not officially have a position of loyal opposition built into its system It does, however, have many of the principles embedded in other ways. Checks and balances ensure that one branch of government will be able to disagree and even block another branch. The federalist system of dividing power between the national government and state governments is another way of doing that. The Bill of Rights guarantees rights of assembly, speech, religion and press, thereby implicitly promoting dissent.
But it was not easy to establish practices of loyal opposition.
The clearest example of this were the Sedition Acts. In 1798 — after the Constitution had been in effect for more than a decade — the Federalist faction in Congress passed laws that leveled fines and imprisonment for anyone writing anything “false, scandalous, and malicious against the government.” President John Adams, a Federalist, signed it into law.
A newspaper editor, Thomas Callendar then wrote “the reign of Mr. Adams has, hitherto, been one continued tempest of malignant passions. As president, he has never opened his lips or lifted his pen without threatening and scolding. The grand object of his administration has been to exasperate the rage of contending parties, to calumniate and destroy every man who differs from his opinions.” He was fined $200 and jailed for nine months.
Another newspaper editor, Luther Baldwin, wrote that he wished that a cannonball that had been fired in honor of Adams’ birthday had landed instead in the seat of his pants. Baldwin was fined $100.
Some politicians thought Adams’ opponents really were enemies to the nation and threats to democracy. And they tried to silence them.
When you think about it, these are the kinds of shenanigans that we think about happening in many African or Latin American nations. Or Russia. Or Egypt. Or Turkey. Or Myanmar (if you think about Myanmar, that is).
Fortunately, the United States worked through it, for the most part.
John Adams made a grave error by signing the Sedition Acts into law, but he later did something that was crucial for American democracy: he lost. More importantly, he lost well. In the 1800 presidential election, he was defeated by Thomas Jefferson, who was supported by a different faction, the Democratic-Republicans.
And what did John Adams do? He left Washington DC and went back home to Massachusetts.
Consider this, though: it was the first significant peaceful transfer of power in modern times. Adams did not try to take over the military. He did not claim voter fraud. He did not arrest his opponents. He did not try to change the Constitution in ways to keep him in power. Those are all things that politicians facing electoral defeat have done in many places in the modern world.
John Adams: A Truly Great Loser
Adams knew how to lose. It was, in my estimation, his greatest moment.
Thomas Jefferson should get credit, as well.
In a rather famous inaugural address in 1801, he said, “we are all Republicans, we are all Federalists.” He meant that the loyalty to the democratic system should be greater, than loyalty to one’s party or political allies. Meanwhile, dissent was critically important. “All, too, will bear in mind this sacred principle, that though the will of the majority is in all cases to prevail, that will to be rightful must be reasonable,” Jefferson declared, “that the minority possess their equal rights, which equal law must protect, and to violate would be oppression.”
The Sedition Act had punished Jefferson’s allies. But in 1801 he did not try to arrest his opponents as payback. Jefferson did not try to pass a new set of Sedition Acts (which had expired) to silence the opposition. He did not turn to the military to solidify his power.
Jefferson knew how to win in a manner that was healthy for the nation. Believe it or not, I seriously think that this was his finest moment — maybe more so than that Declaration thing.
We need to keep the loyal opposition idea in mind. In a rather crazy election year when passions and anger seem to be running more deeply than in the past, in an election when many are behaving badly, let us remember that there are principles that are higher than our particular candidate, our particular party and our particular political issues.
I learn things from my students. I don’t tell them, because then they’ll want to grade me on it.
One thing I learned from them is that there is a democratic characteristic that Americans do well. I learned this through an anecdote I gave in class. Yes, this post is an anecdote about an anecdote.
Spoiler alert for those of you who are really bad at history: it did actually end.
One day, several years ago, I brought up the 2000 presidential election in class. I explained how it was essentially tied between George W. Bush and Al Gore after election night. Florida, which was still too close to call, would decide the election, based on which way it went. They had to count and recount the votes, and then get rulings on which votes were valid or not and why. I explained that this went on for weeks.
The United States faced a major electoral conflict.
I then fast-forwarded my anecdote. I explained to my students that about a year later I was talking to a guy who had been a missionary in Macedonia during this election. He was talking to some Macedonians during the weeks when the results in Florida were disputed. These Macedonians explained that the solution to this problem was really quite easy. Look, they reasoned, it is clear that most Americans want Gore to be president because he got more popular votes than Bush. (As you know, we have this funky electoral college system where every now and then the candidate who won the most popular votes did not win the election. Even though Gore had more popular votes than Bush, the winner of Florida would gain the majority of electoral votes to win the presidency.) Gore was Vice-President, which means he had President Clinton’s support and authority over the military. So here, according to these Macedonians, is how to solve the problem:
Gore should just take over the military, roll into Washington DC with the tanks, and declare that he is the rightful president.
At this point in my anecdote, a couple of students laughed. They guffawed.
Now, my intention in telling this story was to get my students to think, “Hmm, this is interesting. These Macedonians sure think about government and elections differently than us.” (It’s a quixotic and perennially idealistic hope I have as an educator: that students would think that something, anything, I bring up for discussion is interesting.)
I realized upon reflection after class, however, that these students did not think the Macedonian solution was interesting, so much as it was absurd.
The semester after that, I told the same anecdote. And the semester after that and after that. I always got similar reactions. A few students would guffaw. Those who commented on the anecdote viewed the Macedonians with some incredulity, as if they were absurd.
After several semesters of reflecting on this sort of thing, something else occurred to me:
My students’ reaction to my anecdote was a very good thing.
My students know, in their bones, that it would be absurd to think Al Gore should or would use the military to solve an electoral crisis like this. And actually, this idea is absurd to Americans (and Brits and Germans and Belgians and Japanese and some others). We are convinced that this is an inappropriate and even dangerous use of the military. It is, in fact, a serious threat to democracy. Our reaction of incredulity shows we do this well, without realizing it.
But this is what is interesting (and not absurd): The idea that you should turn to the military to “solve” a political crisis is not absurd to many people around the world.
In fact, if I could bring a bit of basic Christian theology into this, I would argue that the default tendency of human beings, because of our sinful nature, is to think we are justified in using the military to solve deep political problems. Because, of course, all the evils of society lie with our political opponents. They are the threat to what is good and right. They deserve to be forced to come to the truth. Grab the guns.
It is actually rather strange and uncommon to think these things should be worked out peacefully. Authoritarian systems, however, foster the belief that the military can “solve” political crises. This is why it is not surprising these Macedonians thought this way. They did not have a history of democracy. For the last half of the twentieth century, they lived under the communist government of Yugoslavia. Before that, it was a Yugoslav dictatorship. Before that, it was the Austrian Empire. Before that, it was the Ottoman Empire.
Savior of the nation! Right….?
Separating military force from politics is a very difficult task for democracies to achieve. I could point to hundreds of historical examples. (I am not exaggerating that number.) Take, for instance, the French Revolution, which attempted to overthrow monarchy and give power to the people in 1789. A noble goal, but things got….messy. (Can you say “Reign of Terror” boys and girls? I thought you could.) After several years of political disorder, Napoleon, at the head of the military, staged a coup and took dictatorial control of the nation, later crowning himself Emperor. So much for democracy. But most of the French loved him for it.
Dating back to the 19th century, Latin America has had a long tradition of turning to a figure called the caudillo. The caudillo was a popular military leader who takes over by force when there is disorder or conflict in the nation. He was often a charismatic figure, supported by masses of people who want somebody to bring order. He did not bring democracy — in fact, he often used force to restrict liberties, but his supporters were fine with this. This is a cultural tradition that democratically-minded people in Latin America would like to bury.
In any given year, one or two of the four dozen nations in Africa will experience a coup or an attempted coup. In Asia, Thailand has had two coups in the last decade. In July of this year, the military in Turkey attempted a coup and failed. The Turkish prime minister, Erdogan, has used that event to stomp on a whole host of democratic freedoms and arrest political opponents. Coups, regardless of whether or not they succeed, are not good for democracy.
In 2000, the U.S. solved its electoral crisis in the courts. It took several weeks. It was messy. Some people were embarrassed or critical of the process. And certainly, the electoral process had its problems.
At its core, however, the 2000 electoral conflict was actually an example of a great strength of democracy (and would have been equally so if the courts had ruled in Gore’s favor). The United States did not turn to the military to solve its political dispute. Given human nature and the examples of history, this is not something to brush off as trivial.
Many Democrats thought the result was wrong and unjust. They sincerely believed that Gore should have been ruled to be President. But Al Gore and the Democrats did not even entertain the idea that he should grab the guns to make right what they thought was wrong. It wouldn’t have worked anyway, because Gore would not have had the support of the American people, the military, or even those in his own Democratic party. The same would have been true if it were the other way around and the ruling had gone against George W. Bush and the Republicans.
Americans do this well. As do other solid, stable democracies. Without realizing it.
So, as long as my students continue to guffaw at my anecdote, I will feel very good about this part of the American political culture.
The cold hard truth: we Americans love to believe there are easy solutions to complex problems.
Want to build a democracy in southeast Asia? If we were to believe Sargent Muldoon in The Green Berets, simply defeat the bad guys and write a Constitution. There it is! Happy Ending!
These guys know everything! Why don’t we have more shows like this?
Right. In moments like these, it can be helpful to get some perspective from Monty Python. In this case it is an old sketch, “How to Do It,” satirizing a popular children’s TV show in Britain, in which they explain how to do all sorts of amazing things. It takes the Pythons all of thirty-four seconds to describe how to play the flute and rid the world of all known diseases. There it is! Happy Ending! (Yeah, click on the link above. It’s worth watching and it is short).
Come to think of it, want to fix America? Our political candidates will explain how to do it in one TV ad, which is about as long as the Pythons took to rid the world of all known diseases.
Gosh, the Pythons didn’t have to satirize a children’s show — they just as easily could have done the same thing with our politicians.
But before we get too self-righteous here (a great temptation when writing blogs or discussing politics or, heavens, doing both) keep in mind that most politicians know these problems are very complicated. They grossly oversimplify complex issues because they want our vote and we respond positively to those who give us simple solutions to complex problems.
Real life, of course, is complicated. Very complicated.
Take, for instance, the establishment of democracy. As I mentioned in my last post, the U.S. and the new Latin American nations had a number of important factors in common in the early 19th century. But it didn’t go well in Latin America. Between 1820 and 1990, twenty-two nations of Latin America wrote, implemented and scrapped between 180 and 190 constitutions (depending on how one counts them). Not sure what Sargent Muldoon would say about that.
Why do some nations develop democracies and others fall short?
It is complicated. Did I mention that?
Here are just a few things that the American colonies had going for them upon independence that Latin American colonies did not have:
widespread literacy among ordinary people
practices of religious freedom that had been established for decades before independence (Christians in Rhode Island and Pennsylvania getting a jump on this before Enlightenment thinkers caught on).
not just capitalism, but a particular kind of capitalism in which land (critical for an agricultural economy) was available to ordinary people (if they were white). A while back I described how I have personally benefited from ancestors who took advantage of this situation, which would not have been possible in Latin America, where almost all the land was controlled by elites.
a couple of centuries of political developments, conflicts (and a civil war) in England in establishing practices that divided power between the legislature and the executive. These developments produced…..
a tradition of representative government (on local levels) that goes back 150 years before independence. Virginia got the ball rolling with the House of Burgesses in 1619 and every colony established a legislature shortly after they were founded.
And here is a rather odd and disconcerting factor:
Racism in America helped extend democracy to (some) ordinary people, while racism in Latin America worked against extending democracy to ordinary people. How does that work? In essence the whites in control of new Latin American nations simply did not want to grant “consent” in government to ordinary people, because the majority of ordinary people in most places were Indian, black or mixed-race (mestizo). For instance, in an 1881 election in Brazil, 142,000 people were able to vote, out of a population of 15 million. That’s 1% of the population, folks. American founders were more willing to grant “consent” to ordinary people because a majority of Americans were white. The American founders did not, for the most part, extend government “of the people, by the people and for the people” to the people who were black or Indian. But the people of color were a minority, so they did not scare the American elites like the vast majorities scared the elites in Latin America. (A reminder that it took the United States a long time after 1776 to grant basic democratic rights and opportunities to people of color).
Not a pleasant historical point, but there it is.
And finally, a factor that does not have to be a factor:
it has been common among many Americans to declare that one has to fight militarily to gain freedom and democracy. But Canada, Australia, New Zealand, India and several other nations have shown that it is possible to achieve democracy without employing soldiers to fight for it. So there is one factor that is often thought to be a necessary condition that is not necessarily necessary.
And I haven’t mentioned all the factors. In fact, you might know of other issues or factors that should be added in the mix.
Democracies are very, very difficult to develop.
So, what can we take away from this? Many things, but here are a few thoughts I have:
First, democracies take a long time to develop. Americans had at least a two-century jump on new Latin American nations in many of these areas. Americans are not superior to African nations because they are trying to achieve in fifty years what took America several centuries to achieve.
Second, we should resist supporting policies based on oversimplifications. The United States has sometimes underestimated these complexities. The Vietnam War showed that it was very difficult to “win the hearts and minds” of the people. In 2003 the U.S. invaded Iraq and defeated Saddam Hussein and his military in about three months (which was what the U.S. military had calculated). However, our government did not have an effective, or even well-developed plan for how to help Iraq move to democracy after Hussein was gone. We sort of assumed the Iraqis would just embrace freedom. A long, painful and protracted civil war followed that ensnared us since, well, we helped create the disorder that produced it. So, think carefully about simple promises that we can bring freedom to other places in the world.
Third, if you think about the factors above that helped establish democracy, you will see that many are built on ordinary people doing what is good and right in caring about other people, even if they are quite different from themselves. Teachers teaching. People of faith, and business people and politicians working to ensure that all people have economic opportunities. Ordinary people granting respect and freedom to people of different religions.
In fact, a number of months ago I mentioned a ground-breaking study by Bob Woodberry that shows that the work of missionaries in history has actually helped build democracies around the world. So, we should support our missionaries, our non-profits and those who are serving others particularly the “widows and the orphans,” as the Bible reminds us regularly. We should do it anyway, but we can add the development of democracy to our list of motivating factors.
