Contingency, Community and Waffles

Claiming “Otherness” is a useful thing in political campaign.  It helps establish the perception of a moral center around which one’s allies can rally.  It assists in the creation of an antagonist to further a narrative. “They” are not “of us.”  “Their” preferences are alien to ours.  “Ours” is the authentic vox populi.

While it is within the bounds of fair play to have a civil discussion, where debates among reasonable people are grounded in reality, it is quite another case to insist that one’s opinions are true simply because…well…one believes them to be true.  “Your plan cuts down more trees than our plan.  Why?  Because it is your plan and therefore it must lead to bad things!” When one side adopts a “final vocabulary,” as Richard Rorty might say, it inhibits the ability of such a population to consider the validity of different perspectives.  It is a signifier of a closed mind.

Political language is meant to persuade.  Words and numbers are combined to develop the most compelling argument for (or against) one particular position or cause.  Rhetoric is employed to communicate that argument to an audience.  It is hoped that the language will move that audience to make a decision and take an action.  That said, when language is twisted and debased... or when the “others” are termed “enemies,” that coarsens the discussion and weakens the foundations of democratic governance.

Imagine if two groups were discussing waffles.  One group describes a waffle as “leavened batter or dough cooked between two plates, patterned to give a characteristic size, shape and surface impression" (source: Wikipedia).  Another group describes them as flattened disks of steaming evil and those who consume them are bad, ill-intentioned people.  Where is the ability to find common ground?  How can productive communication occur?

Of course that is what former Speaker of the House Newt Gingrich and certain GOP operatives did in the 1980s and 1990s when they sought to turn the word “liberal” into a vicious epithet.  Sully the group and make their ideas unpalatable.  In the short term, it might have given Gingrich and his coterie some victories….but it helped usher in an era of distrust, of hyper-partisanship, of gridlock and bitterness.

I have no hopes that his legacy will yield in favor of a newfound spirit of respect and cooperation anytime soon, not in DC.  That said, I hope in our corner of the universe, in Howard County, we can find ways to talk with each other civilly, and not at each other angrily.  

At least we should be able to agree on the definition of a waffle.

Stay tuned, as more will follow.

  

     

Community (disambiguation)

Civic engagement is important.  It offers the individual an opportunity to interact with his or her neighbors, to help build (or renew) a sense of community. 

Community can provide people with a feeling of belonging…or othering.  It is a source of identity.  It is what ends the phrase that begins with “We are…” 

Beyond the declarative, there are the interrogatives.  Are we simply people who live within close proximity or are we something more? What can we accomplish if we talk honestly about our fears and hopes about our common home?  What can happen if we reason together?

In Columbia, Maryland, service on a village board is one way to help shape programs and policies that impact our community.  There are some talented, thoughtful and caring people who serve on these boards.  I am glad they are my neighbors. 

Last May, when there was a vacancy on my local village board, in Wilde Lake, I decided to apply for a position.  I wanted to become more involved in my local community. I thought I could do some good. I was delighted to be appointed.

Thus far in the 2013 – 2014 term, we have worked on some important issues.  We have advocated for our residents and property-owners during a time marked by transition.  As anyone who visits our village center knows, revitalization is well underway.  Soon there will be new homes filled with new neighbors, all just a short distance from neighbors who have lived in Wilde Lake for years, sometimes decades.   Our merchants – those established and those yet to open their doors – will also help shape the latest evolution of our village.   This is a time for great optimism…for the progress-minded.

I hope to continue playing a role in these developments.  It just won’t be as a member of the Wilde Lake Village Board in the 2014 – 2015 term.

Between existing and emerging obligations, I did the math and realized I couldn’t dedicate the amount of hours necessary to do the position right.

Another choice. A tough one, but it feels like the correct one.

I will fulfill the responsibilities of my position for the remainder of the current term. 

I hope the next Board thinks very carefully about our community…not just the past, which is important to know, but also the present and future.   For the next Board, I hope there is a commitment to a pioneering spirit, a willingness to consider bold new ideas to help ensure the vitality of Columbia, and a rededication to the familiar principle that undergirds our larger Howard County community: Choose Civility.       

Stay tuned, as more will follow.

 

(Chalk) Dust in the Wind

A professor of mine once said that, “the older I get, the more I become like I really am.”  He said this during a lecture on personal identity, but (as an aside) the same logic applies to a community.

The most accessible interpretation of those words is that we get more comfortable with who we are as we mature, more willing to express our honest feelings, better equipped to embrace our idiosyncrasies.  To one extent or another, we reconcile with ourselves and find a place in the world. 

Another extrapolation from that sentiment is that, like a novel or movie, the most authentic version of our self can only be known when it is complete…when it is finished.  That anything less constitutes an incomplete narrative or picture of events.   In short, we are most like who we are the second before we shuffle off our mortal coil.

I am posting this in the morning, so are you enjoying your Wheaties yet?    

Are we all works-in-progress?  If so, are we the artist or the canvas?   

I know many of my dear readers are probably of a certain age and reflect on such questions.  We stand mid-life, equidistant from the end of our college days and the promise of our retirement years…the former recedes as time pushes us closer to the latter.  We wonder about what we have accomplished, and what we might yet create. 

“We are what we are, as well as the process of what we are becoming.” Same professor, same class period.  He was on fire that day.  I can see him standing there now, arms flailing as he stabbed the blackboard furiously with his chalk.  I thought he was On To Something.  Perhaps he wasn’t…maybe he was just running the short con in front of some naïve college freshmen but in the almost 25 years since that lecture, I still think about the meaning of what he said.   So I suspect he was imparting hard-earned Knowledge. That class, that lesson, was tuition well spent.

What will your novel be?  What words will be written next?

Stay tuned, as more will follow.

Esto perpetua

Yesterday, I began my blog by talking about turning points.  This post is about such a point, although it wasn’t apparent at the time. 

It was 1998.  I was 26 and in Coeur d’Alene for the Idaho State Republican Convention.  This was during the time of the militias, the rise of the Black Helicopter crowd.  Easily one third of the assembled believed that blue-helmeted UN soldiers were massing near Sandpoint, ready to swoop down on the gathering.  At least that was my perspective on their thinking. 

Going in, I knew that a well-known white nationalist outfit had an HQ in the general vicinity, that somewhere past the lake, past the pines and well-kept homes with unlocked doors and townies with easy smiles…there was a hate-filled menace.

I tried to put this out of my mind when I arrived at the hotel, a pleasant enough one-star lodging.  During the check-in, I must have been biting on a fingernail because the hotel clerk commented on it.  She mentioned that she did the same, but with her toenails as well.   I was focused on getting to my room, so I didn’t stop to consider the implications of her disclosure.  Perhaps that is what passes for idle chatter in the Pacific Northwest. Maybe The Uneasy Vibe was getting to her too? People say strange things when they are nervous.

For those who don’t know, I was working for the Republicans back in those days.  It was a dance-with-who-brung-ya situation, since a GOP polling shop hired me back when I was still an undergraduate.  In politics, once you pick a side, changing teams is no small thing.  The same logic applies with crime syndicates.

The main purpose of my visit was to brief a client on some poll results.  She was still riding the wave of the 1994 Republican Revolution, undaunted by President Clinton’s re-election two years later.  The strategy meeting itself went about as well as could be expected…. totally uneventful but, like the entire trip, vaguely disquieting. 

It was on the last day there, as I was having lunch at a restaurant overlooking the lake, that something odd happened.  My eyes became very sensitive to the light.  It was like the feeling you get from snow-blindness, but there was no snow, just a big lake with plenty of H2O in liquid form.  It was cloudy, so no sunlight was reflecting off the water.  Yet there I was, squinting like Mr. Magoo for no discernable reason.

According to Wikipedia, the “Inuit carve snow goggles from caribou antlers to help prevent snow blindness.”  Unfortunately, I had neither caribou antlers nor Wikipedia. 

As I was sitting there, trying to blink off this strange affliction, I was hit by the thought, “What am I doing here?”

“What am I doing here?” is a question that needs to be asked more often.  It pulls us, if only briefly, out of mundanity.  It compels us to consider our place in the world.  From it springs a host of other queries: what actions am I taking? Why? To what end?  Regardless of our ability to do something, should I be doing it? Is it fulfilling? Is it consistent with my values? Is it something that “The Best Me” would do or no?

This question lingered as I drove to Spokane International Airport to catch a plane home.  Eventually, it led to a decision to leave politics (for a while), switch party affiliation and chart a new career path.  It helped bring about change.

Of course there was a great deal of unnecessary frustration and foolishness that occurred after the question was asked, because sometimes accepting the answer is quite difficult.

That said, I am glad the question came to mind.

 [The next post will be shorter]

Stay tuned, as more will follow.