When the world says, “Give up”,
Hope whispers, “Try it one more time.”
~Author Unknown~
Hilary Clinton criticized her election opponent for offering voters false hope. I began to wonder whether my writing would be perceived as offering my readers false hope as well. In everything I write I try to help them see the effect of their thoughts and actions on others and realize that they have the option of acting in ways which will better themselves and maybe even the world community.
What are the alternatives to hope? As I see it, they consist of despair and rage. In the news, we see more dramatic suicides which to my mind indicate a growing level of despair in our society. We read almost weekly of equally dramatic killings which seem to be prompted by rage whether for religious, political or other reasons. We call those responsible sick or deeply troubled.
I’m not suggesting there is any easy answer to despair or rage. They don’t seem to be related only to life circumstances. Some people living in what to us is squalor seem somehow content. Others of apparently good circumstance can become suicidal or homicidal. So where does hope fit in?
Hope alone is not enough. Hoping things will get better does not in itself bring about a betterment of our circumstances. But what if we mean by hope the possibility of life getting better? What if we act on that hope, start listening to each other and treating each other as valuable and important? Hope gives us the possibility and acting on it makes for a better world.
I remember many years ago reading Aesop’s fable describing the argument between the Wind and the Sun about which was stronger. They decided on a contest to see which could get a man to remove his cloak. The Wind went first. The harder the Wind blew, the more tightly the man clutched his cloak. In turn, the Sun smiled in all its glory and off came the cloak. The moral was that we can get farther with kindness than with brute force. This fable has been a theme of my writing over the past few years.
I have seen the futility of rage and despair and have never seen either lead to an improvement in anyone’s life situation. The more bitter a person becomes the more difficult life is and the harder it is to make it through each day and the easier it is to give up or lash out at someone. When something happens to bring us a ray of hope, life somehow seems again possible to manage. We might think we are being realistic instead of wallowing in negative emotions. But if our sense of realism includes not being able to do anything about our lives, we are still stuck.
Action Steps
Is there anything in your life you think can never change?
If this were a friend’s problem instead of yours, what would you suggest?
Even if you can see some options, do you think changing is too hard?
Maybe you just haven’t tried the right approach yet.
If you’re stuck, maybe you need to humble yourself and ask for help.
Selection from my book, Navigating Life: Commonsense Reflections for the Voyage, available from Amazon
In 1996, at the age of 37, I was a brain scientist at Harvard when I experienced a major hemorrhage in the left half of my brain. Over the course of four hours, my brain completely deteriorated circuit by circuit, ability by ability. After experiencing this rare form of stroke, I lost my ability to walk, talk, read, write and recall any memories from before the event. Although I was left in a neurologically devastated condition, I did not die that day. After I had brain surgery at Massachusetts General Hospital, it took me eight years to use my understanding of the brain to completely rebuild my neural circuits and recover all lost functions.
In 2008, more than a decade after my stroke, I gave the first TED Talk to ever go viral, I was chosen as one of Time magazine’s 100 Most Influential People in the World, and I was interviewed on Oprah Winfrey’s daytime TV show, alongside Dr. Mehmet Oz.
If you have been following Oz’s campaign for a Pennsylvania Senate seat, you know stroke has played a prominent role in the race between him and John Fetterman, the state’s lieutenant governor, who suffered one in May. Because there is clearly a lot of misunderstanding about stroke, I wrote a Times Opinion essay about the brain and its amazing ability to recover from trauma. Take for instance Fetterman’s recent interview on NBC, during which he used a closed captioning device to read questions. After watching it, I was relieved to note not only how quickly and intelligently he responded, but also how he reached back into his experience as lieutenant governor to defend his record on not being soft on crime.
But perhaps the part that impressed me the most was the patience he displayed with his interviewer. While she chose to raise questions about his abilities and medical records, as opposed to asking him policy questions and observing how well he processed and communicated information, Fetterman remained calm and continued to focus on his platforms.
Strokes are as unique as people are, and each experience with brain trauma is unique. While the brain is a complex organ, it would benefit society to better understand the fundamentals of how our brains work, how they fail and how they can recover — even completely, as mine did.
It might not seem like it, but the Jan 6th Committee just delivered its coup de grace. A punishing, final blow in the case against Donald Trump — and in defense of American democracy. What happened at yesterday’s hearing was a remarkable series of moments — whose cut and thrust were to begin to finally do real justice for the indignities and abuses of the Trump Years.
What do I mean? What’s the coup de grace? The Committee began by summarizing its case to date. American media had spent quite a while falling for the oldest trick in the book — “It was just a tourist visit!” cried the fanatics, and so pundits replied, “no it wasn’t! It was a riot!” LOL, job done, catastrophe minimized, Big Lie spread. And so the Jan 6th Committee’s first job was to establish that, no this was no mere “riot.” It was something far, far darker: as they put it, a “sophisticated, multi-part plan” with the aim of thwarting the peaceful transfer of power.
In other words, Jan 6th really was a coup attempt. To put it even more precisely, the culmination of a series of coup attempts, which, following the usual pattern of autocrats, go from soft to hard. First come the legal challenges, then the procedural attacks, and when all that doesn’t work, usually finally, as all that fails, there’s a bloody, violent attempt by the autocrat’s forces, on the seat of democracy itself. All that was exactly what happened on Jan 6th, and in the months leading up to it: a long series of baseless legal challenges, then attempts to intimidate and pressure figures charged with certifying and counting votes (“I’m just looking for 11,000 votes!”), then fake slates of electors — and when all that wasn’t enough, finally, Jan 6th itself.
The Committee did stellar work establishing all that. And while it might have even been obvious, it’s crucial that such facts become part of the formal political record — as we’re going to shortly see.
So Jan 6th was no mere “riot” — but a link in a larger plan. The next stage was to establish that Jan 6th was made of no mere rabble, no mere spontaneous upwelling of justified anger, but something darker, too: a true hard coup attempt, made of armed paramilitaries, fanatics, led by extremists, itself planned and organized. The Committee, too, did stellar work in establishing this crucial fact as well: those weren’t “tourists,” and they were hardly just disgruntled farmers, either. They were formal members of supremacist paramilitaries, of right wing “militias,” who’d trained and practiced for just such an opportunity — to bring down the government, violently. They wore tactical gear and were heavily armed. They attacked the Capitol using military tactics and formations, like “stacks.”
This was a very real hard coup attempt — not just hillbillies rattling pitchforks, but fanatics and extremists who thought of themselves as officers and soldiers in armies, whose aim was to violently overthrow democracy itself. Incredibly serious stuff — especially given the context, which, remember, was much of the media insisting it was a “riot,” gullibly falling for the bait that it was just a “tourist event,” patting themselves on the back for disproving that lie, but in the process, only becoming complicit in another one. The Committee showed, beyond a shadow of a doubt, that this was a serious hard coup attempt — an attempt to use hard power, real force, organized violence, to overthrow democracy.
But all of that left one question. How much was all of this Donald Trump’s responsibility, fault, how much of it a product of him? How much, specifically, was Jan 6th, and the events which led up to it, to be laid at Trump’s tacky doorstep?
To understand why that question matters, remember the point of the Jan 6th Committee hearings. It’s whether or not to issue a criminal referral to the Justice Department. To recommend, in other words, whether or not the President should be criminally charged. If the Committee doesn’t recommend a criminal referral, the President’s both legally acquitted and morally exonerated, because, well, then it’s unlikely the Justice Department tries him. But if it issues a criminal referral, pressure — significant, stern pressure — is put on the Justice Department to bring criminal charges, precisely because the Jan 6th Committee has at least morally implicated the former President. By saying, yes, this was his fault.
That was the point of this hearing. Not the criminal referral itself, yet — but the final element necessary for it. And that’s what lawyers call mens rea. Mens rea is basically “mindset,” or the “motive” in “motive, mean, opportunity,” if you like. The point of this specific hearing was to examine Trump’s mens rea — his mindset and motivation.
Why does mens rea matter? Well, let’s think of a murder case. There are degrees of murder — from first to third down to manslaughter. And what makes the difference between them isn’t really how bloody the crime is — but what the criminal’s mindset was. Was it a crime of passion, born in the heat of the moment? Was it merely an accident — a preventable one, due to negligence? Or was it something cold, calculated, planned — premeditated?
That, of course, is the highest form of murder there is. And so what the Jan 6th Committee was doing was saying something like this: “Over the last few months, we’ve established that, yes, this really was an attempt to murder democracy. But what degree of murder was it? Murder in the third, a crime of passion? Mansalughter — negligence, an accident? Or was it first-degree murder: premeditated, cold, calculated?”
Perhaps you see why all that matters. Let me make it even clearer. To send the strongest possible criminal referral to the Justice Department means establishing a clear mens rea. Indisputable evidence of a mindset, a motivation — of premeditation. Find that, and the highest possible burden of proof has been met: we have not just the smoking gun, but the murder plan itself. And having met that burden of proof, it becomes a duty to try the crime, or at least send the referral to try the crime.
In other words, the J6 Committee is trying to do as much work as it’s possible to do for the Justice Department, so that whatever referral it sends is bulletproof, indisputable, beyond any reasonable debate, and way past any reasonable doubt. In turn, that gives the Justice Department a slam-dunk of a case — one which it has little excuse not to try.
Hence, this hearing’s focus was on the last element necessary to really make legal fireworks happen, the missing link between smoking gun and violent crime: did the offender in question premeditate this murder attempt, plan it out, plot it, did he fire the gun himself, and always want to pull the trigger? Mens rea. Perhaps you see why it matters so much in legal circles — and why it does in this instance, too. Because here we’re examining something almost surreal: an American President, allegedly leading a murder attempt on American democracy. Did it really happen at his hands?
The evidence the Committee aired was remarkable. It had assembled an incredibly strong case — a bulletproof one, really — of mens rea. Meaning that the President knew he’d lost the election, didn’t much care, and then pressed the button on January 6th precisely to try and thwart the peaceful transfer of power. This was no accident, the Committee said: it was a potential case of premeditated murder. An attempt at it, anyways.
How so?
“The committee also shared an email from Tom Fitton, head of the conservative group Judicial Watch, to White House aides Dan Scavino and Molly Michael. The email was dated Oct. 31 — days before Election Day — and featured the words ‘We had an election today — and I won.’ It suggested that Trump should claim that the ballots ‘counted by the Election Day deadline’ showed he had won.
In a follow-up email, from Nov. 3, Fitton indicated he had spoken with Trump about the matter: ‘Just talked to him about the draft below.’”
How damning is that? By Oct 31 — well before the election — the President apparently was in on a plan to declare himself the victor even if he lost.
Then there was more from Cassidy Hutchinson, the former aide, who “added that, at another point, Meadows told her of Trump: ‘He knows it’s over. He knows he lost. But we’re going to keep trying. There’s some good options out there.’”
The point? “Claims that President Trump actually thought the election was stolen are not supported by fact and are not a defense,” Cheney said. “There is no defense that Donald Trump was duped or irrational.”
That part’s crucial. Trump knew the election wasn’t stolen. All the machinations to try and “take it back” were merely instrumental.Mens rea. He wasn’t crazy, he wasn’t stupid, he wasn’t misinformed. Not a defense. He knew exactly what he was doing. Premeditation.
I can keep going, but it’s worth watching for yourself if you haven’t. There’s no need for me to rewrite all that testimony here.
That brings us to the dramatic, unexpected ending of the hearing. The Committee members voted, in public, to subpoena the President. And they did it on camera precisely because — to paraphrase — they thought this matter was so crucial to a democracy they wanted to vote in the public eye, to show freedom from any interference. Subpoenaing a President is a big, big step.
Now, Trump’s probably not going to testify. If he does, he’ll just plead the Fifth, like so many of his odious ilk. But again, all this is about the point of the Committee’s work — the criminal referral, or not. It’s basically saying to Trump: this is where the evidence has taken us. And it confirms what your worst critics were saying — that this really was a hard coup, which followed numerous attempts at a soft coup, it was hardly a mere riot, instead it was made of armed paramilitaries. And you seem to have attempted to create it.
By telling them a Big Lie that you knew was a Big Lie — the election was stolen. Thus setting in motion a chain reaction of violence. Repeating the Big Lie, over and over, even though you admitted in private you’d lost, even though you knew you’d lost. The violence was created by you. Then directed by you. It was used by you, just a like a gun aimed at the heart of democracy. You pulled the trigger because you meant it — and nobody else pulled it but you. You’d thought it through — and you attempted this murder, knowing full well what you were doing.
See what all that does? Like Liz Cheney said, it rules out all kinds of defenses — ignorance, incompetence, negligence, an accident. And that, in turn, is what a genuinely powerful criminal referral has to be about, and to have a criminal referral at all, since this is a grave matter, concerning a President, it has to be powerful, beyond a shadow of a doubt. The Committee is doing its work carefully, but with incredible care and grace and concern. And it is setting the stage for a damning criminal referral.
Last night, the Committee made the case — an incredibly powerful one — that this was a premeditated murder attempt on…democracy itself. And that, it appears to be saying, will make us have to send a criminal referral onwards. Because while a President might have been able to plead many things — ignorance, negligence, the heat of the moment — and still get away with it, given the pressures and strains of such a position, this goes well beyond that. To the place where the law itself can’t be made to bend one iota of an inch. The place where democracy is, or isn’t. If you can’t try a case of attempted murder on democracy itself — premeditated, planned, calculated — by a President who used fanatics and lunatics as surely as a killer uses a gun…then what good is the word “democracy” at all?
Last night might not have seemed like it. But it was a triumph for American democracy. And more than that, a triumph of American democracy. Nations in which former heads of state can be brought to account this way, in public, through careful deliberation and bipartisan investigation, with painstakingly assembled evidence? They’re vanishingly rare. The Committee shows us that America still is one — a democracy of that grandeur and scale, despite all its flaws and problems and challenges.
We all know what’s coming next now, because this hearing left little doubt. A criminal referral, of historic proportions. We will see if American democracy is up to that challenge, too. For now, though let us take a moment to reflect on all the above, thank the Committee, and if not celebrate, then at least breathe a sigh of relief, that at least American democracy has some fire and might and truth left in it — especially in a world like this, going backwards at light speed. Last night wasn’t quite a turning point for American democracy, yet. But it might just have been crossing the final crucial miles before one.
It might not seem like it, but the Jan 6th Committee just delivered its coup de grace. A punishing, final blow in the case against Donald Trump — and in defense of American democracy. What happened at yesterday’s hearing was a remarkable series of moments — whose cut and thrust were to begin to finally do real justice for the indignities and abuses of the Trump Years.
What do I mean? What’s the coup de grace? The Committee began by summarizing its case to date. American media had spent quite a while falling for the oldest trick in the book — “It was just a tourist visit!” cried the fanatics, and so pundits replied, “no it wasn’t! It was a riot!” LOL, job done, catastrophe minimized, Big Lie spread. And so the Jan 6th Committee’s first job was to establish that, no this was no mere “riot.” It was something far, far darker: as they put it, a “sophisticated, multi-part plan” with the aim of thwarting the peaceful transfer of power.
In other words, Jan 6th really was a coup attempt. To put it even more precisely, the culmination of a series of coup attempts, which, following the usual pattern of autocrats, go from soft to hard. First come the legal challenges, then the procedural attacks, and when all that doesn’t work, usually finally, as all that fails, there’s a bloody, violent attempt by the autocrat’s forces, on the seat of democracy itself. All that was exactly what happened on Jan 6th, and in the months leading up to it: a long series of baseless legal challenges, then attempts to intimidate and pressure figures charged with certifying and counting votes (“I’m just looking for 11,000 votes!”), then fake slates of electors — and when all that wasn’t enough, finally, Jan 6th itself.
The Committee did stellar work establishing all that. And while it might have even been obvious, it’s crucial that such facts become part of the formal political record — as we’re going to shortly see.
So Jan 6th was no mere “riot” — but a link in a larger plan. The next stage was to establish that Jan 6th was made of no mere rabble, no mere spontaneous upwelling of justified anger, but something darker, too: a true hard coup attempt, made of armed paramilitaries, fanatics, led by extremists, itself planned and organized. The Committee, too, did stellar work in establishing this crucial fact as well: those weren’t “tourists,” and they were hardly just disgruntled farmers, either. They were formal members of supremacist paramilitaries, of right wing “militias,” who’d trained and practiced for just such an opportunity — to bring down the government, violently. They wore tactical gear and were heavily armed. They attacked the Capitol using military tactics and formations, like “stacks.”
This was a very real hard coup attempt — not just hillbillies rattling pitchforks, but fanatics and extremists who thought of themselves as officers and soldiers in armies, whose aim was to violently overthrow democracy itself. Incredibly serious stuff — especially given the context, which, remember, was much of the media insisting it was a “riot,” gullibly falling for the bait that it was just a “tourist event,” patting themselves on the back for disproving that lie, but in the process, only becoming complicit in another one. The Committee showed, beyond a shadow of a doubt, that this was a serious hard coup attempt — an attempt to use hard power, real force, organized violence, to overthrow democracy.
But all of that left one question. How much was all of this Donald Trump’s responsibility, fault, how much of it a product of him? How much, specifically, was Jan 6th, and the events which led up to it, to be laid at Trump’s tacky doorstep?
To understand why that question matters, remember the point of the Jan 6th Committee hearings. It’s whether or not to issue a criminal referral to the Justice Department. To recommend, in other words, whether or not the President should be criminally charged. If the Committee doesn’t recommend a criminal referral, the President’s both legally acquitted and morally exonerated, because, well, then it’s unlikely the Justice Department tries him. But if it issues a criminal referral, pressure — significant, stern pressure — is put on the Justice Department to bring criminal charges, precisely because the Jan 6th Committee has at least morally implicated the former President. By saying, yes, this was his fault.
That was the point of this hearing. Not the criminal referral itself, yet — but the final element necessary for it. And that’s what lawyers call mens rea. Mens rea is basically “mindset,” or the “motive” in “motive, mean, opportunity,” if you like. The point of this specific hearing was to examine Trump’s mens rea — his mindset and motivation.
Why does mens rea matter? Well, let’s think of a murder case. There are degrees of murder — from first to third down to manslaughter. And what makes the difference between them isn’t really how bloody the crime is — but what the criminal’s mindset was. Was it a crime of passion, born in the heat of the moment? Was it merely an accident — a preventable one, due to negligence? Or was it something cold, calculated, planned — premeditated?
That, of course, is the highest form of murder there is. And so what the Jan 6th Committee was doing was saying something like this: “Over the last few months, we’ve established that, yes, this really was an attempt to murder democracy. But what degree of murder was it? Murder in the third, a crime of passion? Mansalughter — negligence, an accident? Or was it first-degree murder: premeditated, cold, calculated?”
Perhaps you see why all that matters. Let me make it even clearer. To send the strongest possible criminal referral to the Justice Department means establishing a clear mens rea. Indisputable evidence of a mindset, a motivation — of premeditation. Find that, and the highest possible burden of proof has been met: we have not just the smoking gun, but the murder plan itself. And having met that burden of proof, it becomes a duty to try the crime, or at least send the referral to try the crime.
In other words, the J6 Committee is trying to do as much work as it’s possible to do for the Justice Department, so that whatever referral it sends is bulletproof, indisputable, beyond any reasonable debate, and way past any reasonable doubt. In turn, that gives the Justice Department a slam-dunk of a case — one which it has little excuse not to try.
Hence, this hearing’s focus was on the last element necessary to really make legal fireworks happen, the missing link between smoking gun and violent crime: did the offender in question premeditate this murder attempt, plan it out, plot it, did he fire the gun himself, and always want to pull the trigger? Mens rea. Perhaps you see why it matters so much in legal circles — and why it does in this instance, too. Because here we’re examining something almost surreal: an American President, allegedly leading a murder attempt on American democracy. Did it really happen at his hands?
The evidence the Committee aired was remarkable. It had assembled an incredibly strong case — a bulletproof one, really — of mens rea. Meaning that the President knew he’d lost the election, didn’t much care, and then pressed the button on January 6th precisely to try and thwart the peaceful transfer of power. This was no accident, the Committee said: it was a potential case of premeditated murder. An attempt at it, anyways.
How so?
“The committee also shared an email from Tom Fitton, head of the conservative group Judicial Watch, to White House aides Dan Scavino and Molly Michael. The email was dated Oct. 31 — days before Election Day — and featured the words ‘We had an election today — and I won.’ It suggested that Trump should claim that the ballots ‘counted by the Election Day deadline’ showed he had won.
In a follow-up email, from Nov. 3, Fitton indicated he had spoken with Trump about the matter: ‘Just talked to him about the draft below.’”
How damning is that? By Oct 31 — well before the election — the President apparently was in on a plan to declare himself the victor even if he lost.
Then there was more from Cassidy Hutchinson, the former aide, who “added that, at another point, Meadows told her of Trump: ‘He knows it’s over. He knows he lost. But we’re going to keep trying. There’s some good options out there.’”
The point? “Claims that President Trump actually thought the election was stolen are not supported by fact and are not a defense,” Cheney said. “There is no defense that Donald Trump was duped or irrational.”
That part’s crucial. Trump knew the election wasn’t stolen. All the machinations to try and “take it back” were merely instrumental.Mens rea. He wasn’t crazy, he wasn’t stupid, he wasn’t misinformed. Not a defense. He knew exactly what he was doing. Premeditation.
I can keep going, but it’s worth watching for yourself if you haven’t. There’s no need for me to rewrite all that testimony here.
That brings us to the dramatic, unexpected ending of the hearing. The Committee members voted, in public, to subpoena the President. And they did it on camera precisely because — to paraphrase — they thought this matter was so crucial to a democracy they wanted to vote in the public eye, to show freedom from any interference. Subpoenaing a President is a big, big step.
Now, Trump’s probably not going to testify. If he does, he’ll just plead the Fifth, like so many of his odious ilk. But again, all this is about the point of the Committee’s work — the criminal referral, or not. It’s basically saying to Trump: this is where the evidence has taken us. And it confirms what your worst critics were saying — that this really was a hard coup, which followed numerous attempts at a soft coup, it was hardly a mere riot, instead it was made of armed paramilitaries. And you seem to have attempted to create it.
By telling them a Big Lie that you knew was a Big Lie — the election was stolen. Thus setting in motion a chain reaction of violence. Repeating the Big Lie, over and over, even though you admitted in private you’d lost, even though you knew you’d lost. The violence was created by you. Then directed by you. It was used by you, just a like a gun aimed at the heart of democracy. You pulled the trigger because you meant it — and nobody else pulled it but you. You’d thought it through — and you attempted this murder, knowing full well what you were doing.
See what all that does? Like Liz Cheney said, it rules out all kinds of defenses — ignorance, incompetence, negligence, an accident. And that, in turn, is what a genuinely powerful criminal referral has to be about, and to have a criminal referral at all, since this is a grave matter, concerning a President, it has to be powerful, beyond a shadow of a doubt. The Committee is doing its work carefully, but with incredible care and grace and concern. And it is setting the stage for a damning criminal referral.
Last night, the Committee made the case — an incredibly powerful one — that this was a premeditated murder attempt on…democracy itself. And that, it appears to be saying, will make us have to send a criminal referral onwards. Because while a President might have been able to plead many things — ignorance, negligence, the heat of the moment — and still get away with it, given the pressures and strains of such a position, this goes well beyond that. To the place where the law itself can’t be made to bend one iota of an inch. The place where democracy is, or isn’t. If you can’t try a case of attempted murder on democracy itself — premeditated, planned, calculated — by a President who used fanatics and lunatics as surely as a killer uses a gun…then what good is the word “democracy” at all?
Last night might not have seemed like it. But it was a triumph for American democracy. And more than that, a triumph of American democracy. Nations in which former heads of state can be brought to account this way, in public, through careful deliberation and bipartisan investigation, with painstakingly assembled evidence? They’re vanishingly rare. The Committee shows us that America still is one — a democracy of that grandeur and scale, despite all its flaws and problems and challenges.
We all know what’s coming next now, because this hearing left little doubt. A criminal referral, of historic proportions. We will see if American democracy is up to that challenge, too. For now, though let us take a moment to reflect on all the above, thank the Committee, and if not celebrate, then at least breathe a sigh of relief, that at least American democracy has some fire and might and truth left in it — especially in a world like this, going backwards at light speed. Last night wasn’t quite a turning point for American democracy, yet. But it might just have been crossing the final crucial miles before one.
Respect cannot be learned, purchased or acquired- it can only be earned.
~Bits and Pieces~
When I worked at a day treatment center for delinquent boys in Philadelphia, the words “Yo’ Mama” were enough to provoke a fist fight or worse. Outside the inner city, people have more subtle ways of reacting to feeling disrespected: road rage, tailgating, being surly with store employees, writing nasty letters to the editor. I think people sometimes act this way because they feel they are due respect which is not forthcoming.
As a psychologist, I have worked with parents, usually fathers, who demand “respect” from their children while at the same time treating them with disrespect. “I’m the parent!” Psychologists call this a sense of entitlement, a feeling that one is owed something.
So why is respect so important to many people? Some grow up in families where they were treated as valuable and worthwhile. Their parents listened to their fears, interests and desires and took them seriously. Products of such families don’t usually have an issue with respect. What if your parents treated you as a bother, didn’t care about your feelings and thought only of their own needs and desires? Respect is a two-way street, but parents can’t expect their children to make the first move. It is up to parents to show their children how to be respectful.
I don’t think the problem with respect is entirely the fault of parents. I’m not sure whose fault it is or how we got this way as a culture. We have been very blessed in our country in many ways. Our lifestyle is more comfortable than that of people in many other countries. It seems to me that we take for granted what we have and see our well-being as our birthright. Any inconvenience in our daily life seems like an imposition and outrages or at least annoys us. We deserve what we have and then some. The American dream is to grab all we can in our journey through life. We want a little more, even if it means others must make do with a little less.
There is another side to our way of life. We have a history of coming to the aid of those who need help, protecting those who can’t fend for themselves and making room for other cultures while they assimilate into our way of life. There are many who have gone out of their way to help others throughout our history. Maybe we learned from the example of native peoples who helped our early settlers through the first difficult winters.
You can’t go back to your childhood and choose parents who respect themselves and who will respect you and then grow up again. You can practice being grateful for your good traits and whatever measure of good fortune comes your way. You can learn to respect others by giving them a chance to share their fears, hopes and dreams. Understanding is the first step. You can also show your children how to respect others by valuing them and by your example in how you approach everyone you meet.
Action Steps
Make a list of all the wonderful things about you.
List all the blessings you have in your life.
Tell your spouse and children what is wonderful about them.
Look first for the goodness in people you meet.
If you find yourself being critical, read over the above lists.
Selection from my book, Navigating Life: Commonsense Reflections for the voyage, available from Amazon
When you are content to be simply yourself and don’t compare or compete, everybody will respect you.
~Lao-Tzu~
I once wrote about an incident of inner city violence. A young man felt that someone was looking at his girlfriend in a way which did not appear respectful to him. Was that just his feeling or is there a connection between respect and violence?
John Lampman wrote in the Christian Science Monitor in February, 2006 about violence as being rooted in disrespect, leading to feelings of shame and humiliation, resulting in people feeling inferior, or at least as if they are viewed that way by others. If a person does not feel good about himself or herself to start with, he or she often feels there is nothing to lose and sometimes lashes out in violence.
Violence is a tactic some people use to seek recognition by others and in some way remind us that they have some power. It usually doesn’t work, and we end up disparaging the person further, leading to more shame and humiliation and eventually more violence. The cycle of disrespect and violence tends to self-perpetuate.
Why are some people more likely to react to perceived disrespect than others? Think what it would be like to be born into a poor family and see others around you with plenty while your family lacks the basic necessities. Imagine having parents who don’t think much of themselves and pass on to you their lack of self confidence. What if your parents resented you for even being alive or look down on a disability or shortcoming you have through no fault of your own?
Imagine your teachers making fun of your limitations or resenting your efforts to think for yourself. What if other students take up your teacher’s disrespect and make your life a constant torture? What if you have a hard time finding a good job and being able to take care of your own needs not to mention those of your family?
All of these experiences can lead you to feel shame about who you are, embarrassed about being seen in public and helpless to do anything about your situation. As a result you become angry and frustrated. Since you already see others as not having much use for you, you might just as well show your anger and lash out at others. What have you got to lose?
One answer is for those more fortunate to find ways to respect those less fortunate. We can listen to what it is like for others rather than dismissing them as worthless. We can offer our help to get them started in a new direction if they ask for it. We can address our differences, starting with understand them before telling them what we think. We can make a difference but we must start with knowing what others are about and seeing how we can work together.
Action Steps:
Start by understanding your own strengths and weaknesses.
Think about what traits of yours make you feel less worthy.
Start working on what you can change about yourself.
If you are stuck, think about who you could ask for help.
After you work on yourself, try harder to understand others, especially those who differ from you.
Selection from my book, Navigating Life Commonsense Reflections for the Voyage. available from Amazon.
Wait, What? covers the right from over on the left.
Yesterday, following a months-long investigation, The New York Times published that “more than 370 people—a vast majority of Republicans running for these offices in November—have questioned and, at times, outright denied the results of the 2020 election despite overwhelming evidence to the contrary.” Earlier this month,The Washington Post reported similar findings: More than half of all Republicans running for congressional and state office this midterm cycle are 2020 election deniers. Forty-eight out of 50 states have Big Lie supporters running for some kind of office, from governor on down.
Since former President Donald Trump took control of the Republican Party, the party’s platform has evolved into a bizarre hodgepodge of election denialism and owning the libs. The owning-the-libs part is annoying but probably not terminal. However, the election denialism could, if left unchecked, end American democracy.
That isn’t hyperbole. The stakes boil down to a single basic question: If one of two major political parties no longer believes in free and fair elections, how can democracy still function?
It feels like we’re on the precipice of a disaster. And yet, the tone of most mainstream political coverage rarely reflects the terrifying possibilities implicit in the very news they’re covering. As the former New York Times public editor Margaret Sullivan told me, “The mainstream press doesn’t seem to quite get that American democracy is on the brink, or be willing to clearly state who’s driving that movement.” Should an election where one side no longer embraces democratic norms be treated like business as usual?
Whatever the case, this election season is very much not business as usual. Take, for instance, Nevada’s Republican Secretary of State candidate Jim Marchant, who told the crowd at an October 8 rally that he would “fix” elections if he wins his race. He added, “When my coalition of secretary-of-state candidates around the country get elected, we’re going to fix the whole country, and President Trump is going to be president again in 2024.”
Of course, it’s been well established that the 2020 election was completely fair, and ditto its outcomes. But in the alternative reality of election deniers, is it possible that people will believe it’s not cheating if they interfere with election results they disagree with? Will they think that stealing an election is well within their rights—or, perhaps, that doing so is merely making the results fair? These are terrifying considerations to draw from a political candidate’s speech just weeks before a major election. Yet, as Media Matters pointed out, Marchant’s remarks went all but ignored by Nevada news outlets.
One of the most worrying election deniers on November ballots is the Arizona GOP gubernatorial candidate Kari Lake. Essentially a female Donald Trump, Lake is already famous to many Arizonans from her time hosting Fox 10 local news. And also like Trump, Lake has a knack for stoking feverish support among her party’s base; she’s currently polling neck and neck with her Democrat opponent, Katie Hobbs. An Arizona Republican operative told The Atlantic’s Elaine Godfrey, in an article published last week, “[Lake] could talk about lizard people and you’d be like, ‘What is up with those lizard people? That is a great point!’” What happens when a truly magnetic politician is elected governor of a swing state on a “Stop the Steal” platform? How will someone whose entire campaign has hinged on election denialism help administer fair elections?
In September, President Joe Biden tried to highlight the election-denialism problem and gave the GOP an opening to answer these questions. Speaking in Philadelphia, Biden told the gathered crowd that he believes “MAGA Republicans do not respect the Constitution … [or] the rule of law.” He continued, “They do not recognize the will of the people. They refuse to accept the results of a free election. And they’re working right now, as I speak, in state after state to give power to decide elections in America to partisans and cronies, empowering election deniers to undermine democracy itself.”
But instead of sparking bipartisan dialogue, Biden’s speech “for the soul of the nation” was met with Republican fury. The party’s response was swift—in fact, it began before Biden’s speech even started. Citing Biden’s recent remarks declaring Trumpism a philosophy of “semi-fascism,” GOP House Minority Leader Kevin McCarthy delivered a pre-buttal to the president’s Philadelphia address, stating, “When the president speaks tonight at Independence Hall, the first lines out of his mouth should be to apologize for slandering tens of millions of Americans as fascists.”
The message from McCarthy and his ilk, both before and after the speech, was clear: How dare you accuse us of doing what we’re doing. Hell hath no fury like a Republican called out for something they’re doing—such as denying the basic premise of the democratic process. Media outlets covered the GOP response; there was little reflection on its effect. We’re now just a few weeks from the midterms, and Republicans are continuing their election denialism with zeal. So we find ourselves in a country where one party no longer trusts our electoral system. This is uncharted territory.
Can democracy work if only one party upholds its tenets? We simply don’t know. The American democratic system has been through a lot, but it’s never sustained a prolonged period of attack by a significant number of elected officials and candidates running for offices across the board.
Now, less than a month out from the 2022 midterms, mainstream-media narratives are still approaching the upcoming election as though today’s political landscape reflects more or less the same stakes as a pre-Trump America. Meanwhile, ‘Big Lie’ Republicans are playing by their own truly scary rules. They are obsessed with changing the very system that has given us peace and prosperity for so many years. We know that these midterm elections will be fair—but will they be our last?
It is best to live from your heart
and speak from your heart in all things
yet, if you cannot always speak from your heart,
live from your heart and let the speaking come in time.
~Laura Teresa Marquez~
Remember the childhood saying, “Sticks and stones will break my bones, but names will never hurt me?” A brave defense, but usually not very successful. Most people do more damage with their words than with their fists or weapons. Words don’t leave visible marks but what we say to others can leave them feeling ashamed, embarrassed or enraged.
I remember attending high school in a seminary out of town. One of my classmates decided to start calling me “Chester” since I was from Rochester. I was somewhat overweight and had larger breasts than most of my classmates. The same classmate took to calling me “Chesty” or “Breasty” when he was in a particularly nasty mood. I could have made up a nick name based on his last name, but it was too frankly sexual. I might have been able to beat him up, but outright violence was definitely frowned on in the seminary. As it was, I frequently felt humiliated and self conscious. Names and comments can certainly hurt us.
I dare say none of us would relish being called names or being the subject of gossip or rumor. Before you engage in destructive speech, think back to a time when you were the recipient of such a verbal attack. You are about to engender in your target the same feelings which once plagued you. Is it worth it? Speaking of worth, how do you know if something is worth saying? There is a three-fold test.
First, is what you are about to say true? Have you observed first-hand what you are about to say? We have no way of knowing whether gossip is true. I remember a classroom experiment in which the teacher whispered something to one student and told him to whisper what he heard to the next student and so on. By the time the last student whispered to the teacher, what she said bore no resemblance to the original statement. Even something that starts as true has a strong chance of being distorted as it passes through the rumor mill.
Second, is it kind? Will what you say make the subject of your statement feel any better? Will it improve the quality of his or her life? Repeating gossip is not a kind thing to do. Gossip poisons the network of people we hear it from and pass it on to. In the process, we poison our own thinking and tip the balance of our thoughts a little more toward the negative. We become a little more bitter-tongued each time.
Third, is it purposeful? What is the point of what we say? Do our words contribute anything positive? Gossip is usually a way to make us feel better. We find faults in others we don’t want to see in ourselves. Even if we know something bad to be true of someone, we would accomplish more by offering sympathy or assistance to the victim of gossip, if we think it would be well received.
Another option in the face of gossip would be to say we would rather not discuss things we know nothing about. We can also pass back something good we have heard about the person in question. We have a choice of what we listen to and a choice of what we say. Choosing wisely will make the world a better place a little at a time.
Action Steps
As a child did anyone give you a hated nickname?
How did it make you feel?
Have you ever seen you words hurt someone?
Was it worth it?
How can you use what you say more constructively?
Selection from my book, Navigating Life: Commonsense Reflections for the Voyage, available at Amazon
I remember going to a Christian youth camp back when I was a teenager, where I first heard the “true love waits” message.
This “don’t-have-sex-until-you’re-married-kids” sermon included a slide show of genitalia infected with sexually transmitted diseases and videos of young people lamenting how miserable their lives had become because they became pregnant when they were teens.
At the end of it, I was sure that having sex resulted in either pregnancy or a sexually transmitted infection, 100% of the time — unless you were married. Then you were protected.
Following the sermon, the camp leaders, perhaps in an attempt to be interactive and relevant, decided to run a “Question-and-Answer” panel where a line-up of so-called experts could respond to our questions.
But the Q&A panel didn’t go well.
In fact, it was an unmitigated disaster. Why? Because at one point, one of the panelists, in a moment of rare honesty, let it slip that she and her husband hadn’t waited for marriage before having sex. She concluded by saying, “So yeah… we had sex when we were engaged, and that was okay for us.”
This wasn’t in the script.
The response was swift and brutal. There was an uproar—the room filled with a cacophony of disapproval. Supposedly spirit-filled Christian young people were up out of their chairs — yelling, heckling, shouting the panel down. I vividly remember a red-faced teenage girl shaking her fist in outrage and yelling, “NO! NO! NO! THAT’S WRONG!” It was the closest I’ve come to being in a Christian riot. The camp director had to intervene and remove the ‘premarital sex-offender’ from the room.
We didn’t see her again.
Later, they sat us all down again and explained why this woman was wrong. “But,” they explained cheerfully, “There is forgiveness for sinners.”
The black and white world of fundamentalism
As I was thinking back to this experience again recently, it occurred to me that this question and answer panel was not really designed to be a forum for honest questioning or discussion.
No. It was merely a ruse to ram home the message that the camp leaders wanted to deliver. We were invited to ask our questions, but only so the panelists could politely explain why we were wrong and then reinforce the view that sex before marriage is sinful.
There was no other way of seeing it. It was black and white.
By the way, there is no statement in the Bible that says, “Sex before marriage is wrong.” But that’s another story. I’m not here to talk about sex. I’m here to talk about how certain corners of Christianity are experts in reinforcing what they already “know” but are seemingly unable to critique it, question it, or reform it.
After thirty years sitting in church and ten years preaching at people, I am convinced that many people in the church want to hear a sermon that merely confirms what they already believe. They don’t want their long-held convictions challenged or questioned. Nope. They want them reinforced.
Why some Christians can’t see what they can’t see
I read an excellent book recently by Brian McLaren, who has done some fascinating research about what makes people see things so differently from one another. In his book, he identified a number of biases that prevent people from seeing beyond that which they already know.
McLaren says, “People can’t see what they can’t see. Their biases get in the way, surrounding them like a high wall, trapping them in ignorance, deception, and illusion. No amount of reasoning and argument will get through to them unless we first learn how to break down the walls of bias.”
Of course, having biases is not unique to Christians. Everyone has them. However, in this article, I want to have a look at how these biases manifest and operate uniquely in the evangelical Church world because I believe they explain why it’s near impossible to change the mind of someone who is entrenched in a fundamentalist belief system. So, here they are — the seven reasons why it’s hard to change an evangelical Christian’s mind:
1. I judge new ideas based on old ideas
Human beings judge new ideas based on the ease with which they fit in and confirm the only standards they have: old ideas, old information, and trusted authorities. As a result, our framing story, belief system, or paradigm excludes whatever doesn’t fit. This is known as confirmation bias.
This is why many Christians would prefer a sermon that fits neatly within the paradigm they already possess without really being aware of that paradigm in the first place. For example, many Christians fail to see that they view the world through a particular lens — namely, the glasses of their own tradition. Almost always, those glasses are handed down to them by their spiritual ancestors. Instead, they believe things like, “God revealed himself to me,” which may be true — but only in part, at best.
The German evangelical theologian W. Schlichting wrote: “The blind spot of the biblicists is that they do not realize the extent that their own thinking is influenced by the time in which they live, by their predecessors and their surroundings — while they criticize this attitude severely in others.”
It is easier to believe a simple falsehood than to do the hard work of understanding a complex truth. This is known as complexity bias. The human brain naturally resists anything that requires it to labor too much. Yes, we have lazy brains.
When I was a kid in Sunday School, I knew the answer to the question was always “Jesus.” I would raise my hand and dutifully parrot the responses that the Sunday School teacher required. Maybe Jesus is the answer. Maybe Jesus isn’t. But it sure is easier to just go with the answer I’ve always been told is the answer rather than pulling it apart and critically examining it.
Yes, it’s easier to believe a simple lie than a complex truth.
What is more, people are even more susceptible to lies that are confidently delivered by charismatic leaders. Surely the 1940s proved this true. Nothing has changed. Research tells us that we are more likely to believe something if it’s delivered confidently, even if it’s not true. In fact, we are more likely to listen to a confident fraudster than an unassuming expert.
3. I cannot see what my community doesn’t see
It’s almost impossible to see what our community doesn’t, can’t, or won’t see. This is known as community bias.
In the church, belief is a community exercise. Belonging is given to those who fit within the spoken and unspoken beliefs and behaviors that are considered orthodox. People who deviate from what is deemed to be orthodox are shamed and shunned. It could be behind their backs on the gossip circuit or even from the pulpit when the alarmed Pastor seeks to correct any wicked heresy before it takes root and leads others astray.
Rejection is a powerful motivator for not “seeing” beyond what your community sees. Most people care so much about belonging that they suppress and bury any uneasy feelings or doubts they have about Christianity for the sake of fitting into their Christian community. After all, we have seen what happens to people who refuse to conform: They always end up on the outer.
4. I won’t listen to you because you’re my enemy
Growing up in the church, I was taught a dehumanizing and objectifying view of people deemed as “non-believers.” I was taught that it is “us vs. them.” We lived inside a Christian bubble where we were protected from what Christians call “the world,” which was basically anything and anyone outside the church.
We stuck to our kind. We homeschooled our kids so they don’t have to engage with people who are different from us nor encounter their “dangerous” and “evil” ideologies.
The thing is, when I don’t have intense and sustained personal contact with “the other,” my prejudices and false assumptions go unchallenged. This is known as contact bias.
The undoing of these views occurred for me when I actually started to meet some of the “thems.” For example, the first time I met a member of the LGBTIQ+ community was when I was almost 20 years old. Yes, I was “protected” for two whole decades before I even encountered someone with different sexual preferences to me. And what I realized, almost straight away, was that these “others” that the church had demonized were genuinely good-hearted people.
When you actually have contact with people who are different from you, it becomes difficult to pontificate about the supposed wickedness of their lifestyle choices.
We don’t know how much (or little) we know because we don’t know how much (or little) others know. In other words, incompetent people assume that most other people are about as competent as they are, and as a result, they underestimate their own incompetence. Or to put it another way, the more stupid a person is, the less likely they are to believe that someone is smarter than them.
This is known as competency bias.
What does it look like in Christian circles? Well, it manifests itself as certitude. We congratulate people in the church for being certain and unwavering in their beliefs. What is more, they are unlikely to be open to anything you might have to say to them if they are certain they are already right in their beliefs.
In fact, a dialogue is utterly impossible with someone who believes that they are right and you are wrong. After all, whatever you might share with them is merely an opportunity for them to help you know what they know so that they can fix and correct you. Since they are sure they know more than you, you cannot change their mind.
The irony is that for faith to even exist, it requires us to be uncertain in the first place. Therefore, I would argue that the more spiritually mature person is not the person who is certain, but the person who is comfortable with mystery, paradox, and not knowing all the answers. Or, to put it another way, the more you know, the more you realize you don’t know. When you think this way, you are able to believe that just about anyone can teach you something you don’t know.
6. My living requires me not to see things differently
This one is for all the paid ministry workers and clergy. I speak to pastors all the time who have significant issues with the church system or theological hang-ups with evangelicalism that really should cause them to hang up their Bible and walk away.
But they don’t, and they won’t.
And there’s a simple reason for that. It’s hard for anyone to see something when their way of making a living requires them not to see it. You don’t bite the hand that feeds you. This is known as cash bias.
7. I am not the villain; I am the victim or the hero
Did you know that under stress or shame, our brains are attracted to stories that relieve us, exonerate us, or portray us as innocent victims of malicious conspirators?
This is known as conspiracy bias.
No one is prepared to admit that they might be the villain in the story. Everyone likes to think of themselves as either the victim or, better yet, the hero. After all, if I am the victim, it absolves me of responsibility. And if I am the hero, well… hooray for me!
Christians love conspiracy theories. Research tells us that evangelical Christians are statistically more likely to believe in the conspiracy theories collectively packaged as “QAnon,” for example. The thing that conspiracy theories are great at delivering is the message that “Someone out there is out to get us. We are the good guys, and they are the bad guys!”
A mature person can take one step back, look at the bald facts and say to themselves with brutal honesty, “Wait a second… maybe I’m the bad guy in this story!” Sure, people in general struggle to do this at the best of times. But, there are a few reasons why a Christian might struggle more than your average Joe.
Firstly, when you believe that God has appointed you to save the world by sharing a message of salvation through Christ alone, there is a risk of you having a hero complex. You believe you have a higher calling, and you will do whatever it takes to be the hero you think God wants you to be — even if it means offending some people.
Then, when people are actually offended by you telling them they are going to Hell, you swap the hero card for the victim card instead. You act shocked when people avoid you, call out your hypocrisy, and ultimately cut you out of their lives. In fact, some Christians go further and suggest that it is an attack on religious freedom.
Often when someone suggests to the church that perhaps it is the villain in the unfolding drama that is the radical decline of the church, the church scoffs and says, “Impossible! We are the good guys!”
You cannot change your mind if you cannot entertain the idea that you might be wrong.
The renewal of the mind
There is a verse in Romans 12:2 that Christians love to quote:
Do not conform to the pattern of this world, but be transformed by the renewing of your mind. Then you will be able to test and approve what God’s will is — his good, pleasing and perfect will.
The thing is, often, when Christians quote this verse, they believe that “conforming to the patterns of the world” refers to “wicked” things like affirming the LGBTIQ+ community, being pro-choice, or, dare I say it, engaging in pre-marital sex.
But what if the renewal of the mind that is spoken of here actually refers not to belief and behavior but to a different way of thinking where we are honest enough to own our biases and to test our thoughts on the scales of truth? What if knowing God’s will depends on our ability to see beyond our own?
Hey… let’s be honest. It’s not like you or me are the “enlightened ones” and those poor Christians are trapped inside their own old ways of thinking. We all have trouble seeing beyond our own biases. It’s just that when you add religious fundamentalism into the mix, you really can end up with a level of closed-mindedness that would make the Pharisees seem accommodating.
Many who would not take the last cookie
would take the last lifeboat.
~Mignon McLaughlin~
Being polite may seem trite. I am sure we all remember our parents asking “Now what do you say?” if a please or thank you was required. There was also the mild embarrassment of needing to be reminded.
Does it really matter if we show good manners? Do others get anything out of it? Do we? Is it worth the extra effort? Think about the choices we have in social situations. Take for example buying a cup of coffee at a restaurant. We can be perfunctory and just say thanks. We can go beyond this and complement the clerk on their quick service or sunny disposition. We can complete the transaction without any comment or gesture. We can also find something to complain about or throw our money on the counter rather than handing it to the clerk directly.
The answer to the question above is yes, it does matter. Everything we say, do or don’t do has an effect both on the other person and on ourselves. The consequences of a brief interaction may not be profound but they do exist.
There are several implications for the other person. If we complete the transaction in a totally neutral way with no meaningful comments or gestures, we are treating the other person as a machine with no feelings.
If we are critical or nasty in our comments or mannerisms, the other person will see us as threatening. We may be upset about something totally unrelated, but attacking the other person will only leave them feeling defensive or angry.
We can also be pleasant, find something to compliment, or find a pleasant way to convey any concerns we have without framing them as an attack.
Whether or not we are polite also has implications for us. If we are completely neutral in our interactions, we act less than human as well as treating the other person mechanically.
If we are critical or nasty, we move a little closer each time to viewing the world as hostile. Every negative interaction takes us further into an attitude of belligerence toward everyone else. At a very basic level a warlike attitude also has negative effects on our blood pressure and other aspects of our physical well being.
If we are polite, even in conveying our concerns, we will have an easier time staying at peace with ourselves, feel better about those we meet during the course of the day and keep our bodies tuned as a side benefit.
Of course, we don’t have control over how the rest of the world acts. Another thing I remember my mother saying was, “It’s up to you to set a good example.” We can do this for everyone we meet. Although our example might not change them radically, it might give them something to think about. We started out talking about a minor example of buying a cup of coffee. What if we took our polite manners with us into more important interactions as well?
Action Steps
How important is politeness to you?
Are people polite to you?
Are you polite to others?
Do people treat to you the way you treat them?
Maybe your example can influence how people treat each other.
Selection from my book, Navigating Life: Commonsense Reflections for the Voyage, available from Amazon
Lt. Gov. John Fetterman of Pennsylvania campaigning in Greensburg, Pa., in May.Maddie McGarvey for The New York Times
