Expressions & Regulations

 

Emily Bazelon reminds us in her piece (Free Speech Will Save Our Democracy, NYT Magazine, October 13, 2020) that President Obama encourages us to allow all speech to occur, no matter how offensive, as we strengthen our speech so that the best ideas emerge as the most credible. Bazelon also reminds us of historically foundational thinkers upon which Obama's assertion rests, including Justice Oliver Wendell Holmes who in 1919 said "The ultimate good desired is better reached by free trade in ideas" and John Stuart Mill who wrote in (On Liberty, 1859) that it is wrong to censor ideas, because knowledge arises from the "clearer perception and livelier impression of truth, produced by its collision with error."

In Chapter 2 of The Free Speech Century by Lee Bollinger and Geoffrey Stone (2018), we find an essay titled Every Possible Use of Language? by Frederick Schauer. In it, Schauer cites Holmes as having given us the enduring idea that speech can be restricted on alleged dangerousness only if the danger is "clear and present." Most of us have understood this point by understanding the example he used to make this point, which is that no one is free to shout "Fire!" in a crowded theater.

What makes these traditional tenants of free speech challenging today is 1) the grotesque advances of technology that cause false information to spread like wildfire and 2) modern leaders like Donald Trump whose penchant for totalitarianism cause him to spread outlandish propaganda one day and on another day (when confronted by irrefutable proof of his earlier falsehoods) takes oblique and cynical cover by saying "I was just joking." 

Schauer argues that the First Amendment "cannot have been ... intended to give immunity for every possible use of language." In other words, some language is beyond the grasp of the First Amendment's protections. For example, when Trump's language inspired domestic terrorists earlier this year to devise a plan to kidnap and murder Governor Gretchen Whitmer, it would be hard for the First Amendment to kick in and regulate that speech because in the moment of Trump's language, dangers are likely speculative and likely distant. Not clear enough. Not present enough.

The good faith argument that all speech ought to be allowed in order for the best idea to win (a la Mill, Holmes, and Obama) may need further examination as we confront a modern context where our social media channels fuel the growth of totalitarian leadership-based dangers. Dangers that might not explode in the now but dangers that are dangerously flammable and uncomfortably adjacent to this moment.

TRUST by Pete Buttigieg

 

TRUST
"Laakum diinukum wa lii diinii" is the Arabic sentence that came out of Pete Buttigieg's mouth in a tense moment when he and another American found themselves in a marketplace, on the streets of Somalia (TRUST, Buttigieg, 2020). The tension began when rather than pretend that he and his friend were Canadians (which many Americans were doing while in the Middle East (in order to avoid receiving the negative attitudes toward Americans)) they declared to the people in the marketplace that they were from the USA. As tensions about politics and religion rose in that moment, Buttigieg (a devout Episcopalian) uttered that sentence which translates in English to: "Your religion for you, and my religion for me." Buttigieg explains that it is "the final sentence of a sura in the Quran about how Muslims are supposed to speak to unbelievers."

FREE WILL
At the heart of most faiths is that God wants me to believe. Not through force, but free will. Makes sense to me because like God, I want to receive love from others—not through force, but free will. Forced faith isn't faith. Forced love isn't love.

BIOREGIONALISM
After a string of blisteringly hot days, I see clouds rolling in as I look out the window from where I write. Much-needed rain will come. An isolationist would want me to believe that the rain that falls on me is MY rain, produced by MY land. America first. To hell with everyone else.

But science teaches that rain happens through a phenomenon called bioregionalism, where atmospheric rivers transport moisture from the tropics to other parts of the world, and that 30-50 percent of California's rain comes through "atmospheric rivers" that originate in places like The Philippines (How to Do Nothing, Odell, 2019).

CLIMATE CHANGE
Yesterday I attended a zoom conference held by The Hammer Museum where speakers were talking about the troubling lack of storytellers telling stories about climate change. One reason is that storytellers can more easily tell stories by looking at something that has happened in the past. Wars. Famines. Disasters. Climate change isn't something that happened in the past. It is happening.

To take action and care not only for what is mine or what I think is mine (e.g., God, rain, etc.) we need to find a way to strengthen trust in experts and institutions who provide not conspiracies based on innuendo and mistrust, but evidence through research, study and good faith. As addiction to conspiracies and misinformation continue to spread, it feels daunting. It feels like a tug of war between isolationism and global cooperation. Between forced faith and faux faith. As much as it feels tempting to give up and let go of that rope, I hold on, and meditate on the final sentence in this book where Buttigieg says: "I trust that we can meet that moment, if only because we must."

THE ABUNDANCE by Annie Dillard

 

As I was reading Maggie Nelson, I knew that I'd be reading Annie Dillard. Because when a writer I admire admires another writer, I jump to that named writer. The massive pile of books by assorted authors that has been waiting to be read will need to wait longer. I've got time, I think.

Within her book of essays titled THE ABUNDANCE, there is an essay titled The Deer at Providencia. In it, Dillard talks about a newspaper article titled "Man Burned for Second Time" that she has clipped and keeps taped to her mirror. It's about a man named Alan McDonald who as a young person was badly burned in an accident involving flaming gasoline. Dillard explains that severe burn victims have a high suicide rate: "Medicine cannot ease their pain; drugs just leak away, soaking the sheets, because there is no skin to hold them in." The article explains that years after this first burn accident, McDonald is involved in a second accident, causing him to be severely burned a second time. The article quotes McDonald as saying "Why does God hate me?"

I can barely read beyond this essay because I actually start sobbing for McDonald and all other burn victims of the world. And I want him to know that I hear the validity of his question.  

In the following essays, Dillard challenges me to wonder HOW I see by arguing that likely, I see what I expect. She cites author Stewart Edward White who writes about the way of seeing deer: "As soon as you can forget the naturally obvious and construct an artificial obvious, then you will see deer. " In other words, I am one who walks with a camera (from shot to shot) or without one, to allow an internal shutter to open as I see a new way, allowing me to become a true observer.

Dillard takes me with her on her own journey of sometimes seeing the mirage of immortality that gets constructed in between nature's harsh evidence that life is finite. And if I can see the mirage for what it is, I will take her advice when she says: "SPEND the afternoon. You can't take it with you." 

She asks: "What would you do if you had fifteen minutes to live before the bomb went off? Quick: What would you read?"

If I had that newspaper clipping about McDonald, maybe I'd read that. Or the cards my kids have written me over the years. Or nothing at all. And ask indignantly (mainly because I don't know whether I truly hate death), "Why does God hate us?" 

SOLUTIONS and OTHER PROBLEMS by Allie Brosh

 

That the title of this book explains the absurd nature of "solutions" by correlating it with "other problems" invites me in. 

When my brother took his life in 2013, I was feeling a lot of things and I wanted to say a lot of things. Mostly that nothing makes sense and that everything hurts. And when I tried to say those things, unsolicited advice came my way with "solutions" that I wasn't seeking and advice that I wasn't interested in. Turns out the universe is filled with people wanting to make a person who is feeling bad to either feel bad about feeling bad or to stop feeling bad. Like the only feeling worthy of having is a "good" one, or a brave one, or a choose happy one. Thankfully, my therapist at the time wasn't dispensing solutions or advice. He simply was and was helping me be.

In Chapter 10 of SOLUTIONS and OTHER PROBLEMS by Allie Brosh, we learn that Allie has also experienced heartbreaking loss. Her sister. Through her drawings and words, Brosh explains the sensation of the bad feelings that you want to explain to the world in such a grim situation. She does this in the most brutally untidy and most dignified way I've ever read.

Yesterday, I tuned into a zoom call where Brosh was interviewed by Marc Maron about this new book. It was lovely. When asked about her favorite comedians, she said that Dave Chapelle's optimism is one she can get behind, noting that Chapelle doesn't cover up the pointlessness and hurt to have the audience only notice the balloons and rainbows. She also stated a discomfort in the idea of advising anyone about anything, but prefers to be an "open source" for anyone who wants to observe how she is going through it. I realize that the most significant influencers in my life don't come at me with unsolicited solutions and advice. Rather, they live and open up the way they live, in case I want to observe it. And sometimes, I derive something helpful from the observation if it comes into view.

That's what this book is. It is an open source where I get to observe stories that allow me to strongly identify, that make me feel that Brosh is weird, that I'm weird, that life is weird, and sometimes, there are balloons.

If HYPERBOLE AND A HALF (Brosh's first book) is about coping with depression, SOLUTIONS and OTHER PROBLEMS is about coping with loss. I'm grateful for both.

THE ART OF CRUELTY by Maggie Nelson

The seventh chapter of THE ART OF CRUELTY by Maggie Nelson is titled The Golden Rule. In it, Nelson cites American composer and philosopher John Cage (1912-1992) as follows:

"I think the Golden Rule, which is often thought of as the center, really, of Christianity, is a mistake: 'Do unto others as you would be done by.' I think this is a mistaken thought. We should do unto others as THEY would be done by."

In other words, who is anybody to say that everybody should be treated or behave a certain way based on anybody's preferences? At the grocery store, the water cooler at the office, in front of the television, or at a theater. And of course, in bed. What is the Golden Rule in bed? Slow and gentle? Or rough and tumble?

Earlier in the book, Nelson cites Yoko Ono's performance art from 1964 titled Cut Piece where Ono sits on a stage with a pair of scissors placed next to her, with permission given to the audience to cut her clothing if they want to. Most don't want to. But some do. Nelson describes how after several nervous minutes of silence laced with giggles, a young man comes forth and cuts her bra straps, thus exposing her breasts.

What does Ono want? What does the young man want? Is he being cruel? What does the audience that stays to watch want? Are they being cruel? And who gets to decide that there should only be one want? Is there consent? What if this or something like this were on tv? 

Maybe a reality show. Like Survivor Island. Is it cruel to watch grown adults suffer from dehydration or gag from eating gross things? And what about American Idol auditions, asks Nelson. Is it cruel for us to watch bad singers get humiliated?  

How do we reconcile the paradoxes within the human heart? We love to tout the Ellen DeGeneres "be kind" narrative while simultaneously proving (through not only the classic Milgrim Experiment (1963) but subsequent experiments designed in like fashion over the years; as well as contradictions of workplaces like the DeGeneres studio) that perfectly average people choose (and perhaps enjoy) cruelty. Is reconciliation impossible because we are mysteriously and unpredictably both kind and cruel? 

GENTLE CAUTION: This book of art criticism cites many other works of art containing sexual violence. Though brilliant, it is not for everyone. Read it if YOU want to (or think you want to).

The Tragedy of Imitation

 

AVANT-GARDE
Elaine deKooning made a keen observation about the twentieth-century American abstract expressionist movement that she herself was part of. A movement where artists living in New York were experimenting, taking risks, and pursuing an avant-garde existence in the way they painted, the way they lived.

The observation as cited in NINTH STREET WOMEN by Mary Gabriel is as follows:

"And to those who clung to the notion that only pure abstraction could be avant-garde, Elaine pointed to the legions of imitators who had mastered the style and in so doing reduced the artists' abstract revolution to mere convention ... True art, she said, is that which reflects an individual creator in a particular time and place, and by its very nature must adapt and change" (page 562).

Couple that with messages we hear from the best. The best painters, writers, musicians, activists, thinkers ... that imitation is a valid and solid way to get into it. To move from a state of "I don't know how to begin" to a state of "I'm doing it" as we imitate the best.

There's an article out there somewhere by Joe Hill (son of Stephen King) who shares that the way he got into the flow of writing was to first sit down and transcribe excellent writing. Hill goes onto explain that after transcribing, the writer has to learn how to veer off and start writing his/her own words, with the benefit of having felt how superb sentences feel on the fingertips.

TRAGEDY

In THE ART OF CRUELTY by Maggie Nelson, we learn that Aristotle defines tragedy as an imitation of an action. Such a jolting synthesis by the one who writers and storytellers still turn to, as we pursue how to create compartments that make up the whole of a tragedy.  

I can't help but think that this point by Aristotle is what Elaine deKooning was pointing to when she said that imitation done en masse transforms revolution into convention.

But she was also saying that the tragedy of imitation happens:

1. When society insists that avant-garde can only be achieved through pure abstraction. Such purity tests persist today—in art and life where know-it-all purists insist that if it's not abstract, it's not art. Or if it's not French cuisine, it's not cuisine. Or if activism isn't free of compromise, it isn't activism. 
2. When imitators never learn how to stop transcribing and start writing. Where the imitator becomes a replicator, causing that which should inspire change become the opposite.

TOO MUCH and NEVER ENOUGH by Mary Trump

 

THE CRUELTY IS THE POINT
TOO MUCH and NEVER ENOUGH by Mary Trump provides a uniquely intimate look into the Trump family dynamics that helps readers understand the origin of Donald's penchant for grift and cruelty.

Sadly, the origin is Fred, Donald's father. Fred was father to a total of five kids: Maryanne, Freddy, Elizabeth, Donald, and Robert, in that order.

As the daughter of Freddy, Mary witnessed her grandfather dispensing cruelty to Freddy for veering off what was expected of him (to be a ruthless and unethical real estate dealmaker) by becoming an airplane pilot. Donald learned to mimic Fred's cruelty by repeating Fred's opinion to Freddy—that pilot work is glorified bus driver work.  

Imagine being told such a thing by one's parent. And imagine hearing such a thing being repeated by a sibling. So cruel.

THE HUMILITY PRACTICE
A colleague recently told me that it felt great to hear an unexpected compliment from her adult son. She loved hearing it and also she loved the opportunity that the compliment created, for her to practice humility. I hadn't heard anyone frame the humility practice in that way but when I think about it, I think that is how most parents intuitively teach our kids the humility practice—to love and accept compliments and then use those moments to practice humility.

As much as I dread Donald, this book also has me feeling deep sadness for him. Because Fred never taught him about practicing humility. Rather, he was taught that there can never be enough compliments and that anyone who doesn't compliment him is a loser. And that even the highest criminals deserve to be rewarded if they learn to give him compliments.

IT IS WHAT IT IS
I admire that Mary felt the need to write this book to try to help the nation wake up and course-correct. Her book is part of an enormous stack of books that have been written by people who have experienced the same cruelty and corruption. That stack seems to make little difference to his base and enablers, which is the ultimate tragedy.

Decent people on both sides of the aisle have hope that Donald will be defeated in November. But I think we are also bracing for a Donald who will reject the loss and kick and scream to try and hold onto power. I'm not looking forward to that blood bath. And I'm not looking forward to the decades it will take the world to heal from his wretched presidency and the sickness it has flamed.