The Trait of the Strong

His heart was as great as the world, but there was no room in it to hold the memory of a wrong.
            Ralph Waldo Emerson, Letters and Social Aims, 1876

Forgiveness is a nebulous concept these days.  When I consider the things that have happen around the world and within my country, I wonder how things would be different with the concept of forgiveness.  What would happen to the cultural and societal quagmires if clemency could be employed?  All major religions have a great deal to say on the matter – making it more puzzling why the adherents of these many faiths forget their teachings.  When we despair at the state of the world and our own communities, it is refreshing and healing to look back and remember our teachings.   

In Judaism, one of the most amazing stories of forgiveness lies with the story of Joseph.  It might be known to readers that Joseph’s brothers sold him into slavery.  However, Joseph rose to prominence and was later in a position to confront his brothers during a time of famine and he in a position to distribute food.  As mentioned in Genesis, Joseph forgave them saying that God had brought him to his current position, not them.  The Talmud emphasizes this Mitzvah by stating, “Whose iniquities does God tolerate?  A person who forgives the transgressions of another.”   

The most telling story of forgiveness in Christianity is seen when Jesus address the masses during the Sermon on the Mount.  In Matthew, Jesus cautions that before one can go to God in prayer, in their heart, they must first forgive their fellow man.  The Lord’s Prayer is filled with the virtue of a forgiving heart while Jesus, in His last moments on the cross, forgave those who placed him upon it.  In Islam, there are many names of God including the “most Forgiving,” “the most Merciful” and the “most Compassionate.”  The Prophet Muhammad epitomized this trait and its importance when he forgave the leaders of Mecca who had attacked, belittled and railed against him since leaving his hometown seven years prior.  The Quran states, “The reward of the evil is the evil thereof but whosoever forgives and makes amends, his reward is upon Allah.”   

In Hinduism, forgiveness is such an honored trait that Vishnu said only one born with the virtues of the divine forgives.  Gandhi underscored this trait saying only the strong can forgive.  As an element of Karma, it is what defines one’s life and therefore, the lives that are yet to come.  As Hinduism emphasizes this trait, so does Buddhism.  The way one achieves Enlightenment is through something called the Eightfold Path.  A part of this path is “right thoughts.”  A begrudging heart can never achieve the right thought required of all Buddhists and therefore, forgiveness is an essential part to inner peace and spiritual awakening.  One who cannot expunge hatred or resentment carries it with them and is soon enveloped by it. 

As when I wrote about thankfulness a couple of years ago, I do not profess any expertise with the trait of forgiveness.  In some ways, I’m worse because I know what God expects from me but do not always meet His demands.  It is a struggle but one that I strive to overcome each day.  To forgive is to love – it eliminates hate and therefore, eliminates conflict.  Within each faith that I’ve alluded to here are simple guidelines to how to live with our brothers and sisters and ourselves.  If we can do this, imagine the world we can create. 

The Messiness of Democracy

Democracy is the worst form of government, except for all those other forms that have tried from time to time.
            Winston Churchill, 1947

The immediate failure of the Egyptian democracy experiment is not tragic – to call it such would suggest that it was unpredictable.  Unfortunately, the travails in one of our oldest civilizations are banal with a litter of broken civilizations lining the years since democracy was first conceived.  In the movie Body Heat, Teddy the arsonist (played by Mickey Rourke) says “you got fifty ways you can (screw) up and if you can think of twenty-five of them, you’re a genius and you ain’t no genius.”  So fall those who attempt democracy.  The situation in Egypt today is dangerous, regionally threatening and requires the strongest language and action from President Obama and other of the world’s democratic leaders.    

The United States undoubtedly was lucky.  Our government was put together by men who understood and valued the law.  Yet, despite the fact that our founding fathers were geniuses for their time, they screwed up and often.  The Federalist government during the Adams administration passed a law making it essentially illegal to criticize the government.  There was a presidential donnybrook in the aftermath of the 1800 presidential election when a tied electorate threw the outcome in doubt.  When President William Henry Harrison died in 1841, it created an uncertainty as to who was indeed the president.  Vice President John Tyler became president but was constantly challenged by Harrison’s cabinet, doubting his legitimacy.   

Civil War broke apart the country for five years over our inability to understand and implement the best intentions of our founding fathers.  Presidents during the Gilded Age of the late 1800s were mere bystanders to the events that transpired around them.  Historians have charged various presidents ranging from Abraham Lincoln to Franklin D. Roosevelt to George W. Bush of overstepping their power.  Leaders ranging from Andrew Johnson to Richard Nixon to Bill Clinton have broken laws.  We’ve denied rights to many of our citizens at one time or another.  Our country has faced scandal, defeat, embarrassment and uncertainty.  Yet, we are extolled as one of the oldest, operable democracies on the planet.  We are, as John Winthrop called us, a city upon the hill – an example to the rest of the world.   We take our mistakes and always try to learn from them in the spirit of creating a more perfect union. 

And so, we turn our war weary heads to the bedlam that is Egypt.  The worst thing that could have happened was the military control of the government and the imprisonment of Mohammad Morsi.  He is flawed, he is possibly corrupt and he was at times dismissive of the constitutional restraints of his office.  He was likely not what the majority of Egyptians wanted but for the sake of future democracy in the land of the pharaohs, it was paramount that he remain in office and finish out his term.  The course that the country is taking is not towards stability but towards anarchy and a permanent distrust of the will of the people.  The lasting gift of democracy is a people’s belief that the government will act as it needs to in times of turmoil and when faltering, right itself.  For a democratic government to work, the people must have faith in it.  The Egyptians, certainly the supporters of the Muslim Brotherhood, do not, though the aforementioned group does not help by persecuting various religious minorities. 

The military leaders are serving as an éminence grise but the beauty of democracy is that rule and authority are out in the open and available for all to see.  The world’s democratic leaders need to up their pressure on the Egyptian military while at the same time putting measures in place that could assist a righted Egypt back on the course of democracy.  George W. Bush was right in that all people have an inherent desire for the freedoms of democracy.  Yet, democracy demands a heavy responsibility from the leaders who wield authority and from the people who must accept the decision of the nation, however misguided they might think the majority to be.  Prime Minister Churchill was correct.  Let us hope that the Egyptians have the chance to understand and embrace that. 

The Case Against Howard Zinn

Over the last eighteen years, I have taught U.S. history with the last fourteen years spent teaching its Advanced Placement variety.  During those fourteen years, I’ve used American Pageant, one of the more popular textbooks used in AP classes throughout the country.  However, it is not the one about which people talk.  That distinction falls to the late Howard Zinn’s A People’s History of the United States.  It is a favorite among liberals and some university professors.  Mr. Zinn, who died of a heart attack in 2010, wrote this account, ostensibly, to give voice to the historically mute.  Instead, he created a book that is neither history nor particular deserving of its reputation.   

At the center of the debate is the role of the historian.  Famed American historian Arthur Schlesinger once said that Howard Zinn was not a historian but rather a polemicist.  Through various professions, we see people moving away from objectivity and towards personal opinion.  Journalists have forgone any and all pretense of objectivity and use their paradigm to present and comment on the news.  Mr. Zinn made a career of doing the same through the prism of U.S. history.  History professor Eric Foner of Columbia University called A People’s History of the United States as “deeply pessimistic” and this partly explains Mr. Zinn’s impact on the study of the United States history.  We complain about young people having little knowledge and even less appreciation of our country’s history.  Why should they?  When the mark of a “good professor” or history writer is based on how much one tears down the country and its efforts, is it little wonder that teens find nothing appealing. 

Mr. Zinn and his supporters would likely say that the United States, as a people and as a government, have done horrible things and it would be irresponsible to not present such events.  Fair enough but the “crimes” of the U.S. are presented as something unique and not common place when imperfect people seek to create a perfect union.  Every country has done horrible things but the mark of a great country is the tireless effort to get it right.  The U.S. has displayed their crimes for all to see and have openly attempted to deal with its past mistakes.  For every mistake the country has committed, it has been followed by a sincere attempt to right the wrong.  This does not invalidate a nation and its objectives – it is a mark of a great country.  Mr. Zinn’s pessimism is misguided and ultimately harmful to the country in the long run.   

The second major criticism of Howard Zinn’s work, in particular that of his famed textbook, is that it fails in its usage of historiography.  German historian Leopold von Ranke pioneered the usage of primary and secondary resources as a means of better understanding the past and to do so more accurately.  However, Mr. Zinn never approached his study in that manner.  It was so bad, that other history professors have railed against it for years.  Christopher Phelps, an American historian, once said that many historians have looked at Mr. Zinn’s work with equal portions of exasperation or condescension.  So bad was his use of primary resources, historian Oscar Handlin of Harvard University said it was unfair to critically judge A People’s History because, unlike a true historical tome, the survey book was “patched together from secondary sources…torn out of context.”  Herein lies the more heinous component of Howard Zinn’s textbook – it depends on people not understanding history to be effective.   

I’ve often said that just because Oliver Stone’s JFK was pure propaganda and not history did not mean it was not a good film.  The same could be said of A People’s History.  Still, within the walls of academia, standards should be higher.  Recently, Indiana Governor Mitch Daniels declared his opposition to Howard Zinn’s book from being used because of its bias makes it inappropriate.  If we are to rebuild the reputation of history instruction in the United States, we must begin with how we present the subject.  Mr. Zinn’s seminal work stands as the worst of historical scholarship and certainly, the American education system can do better.

An Economic Litmus Test

Just as a poetic discussion of the weather is not meteorology, so an issuance of moral pronouncements or political creeds about the economy is not economics.
            Thomas Sowell

Since 2006, Ben Bernanke has been the Federal Reserve Chairman.  The South Carolinian holds the highest position in the U.S. government’s economic structure.  Much more so than his predecessor, Alan Greenspan, Mr. Bernanke has had to deal with an economy for which few people want to be responsible.  Both Republicans and Democrats have attacked him and he has served both a Republican and Democratic president.  As the position was designed to be, Mr. Bernanke has attempted to carry out his duties without delving into the politics.  Yet, in a recent press conference, President Barack Obama said that he hoped the next Fed chairman would do their job considering the pains and suffering of the individual.  That kind of naïve thinking, not to mention a fundamental misunderstanding of the job, could land the country into worse economic troubles.   

In 1914, President Woodrow Wilson signed the Federal Reserve System into law to avoid the banking crisis that had cyclically hurt the country’s economy since the beginning.  By instituting a government oversight, in the progressive spirit that infected both parties of the day, it was hoped that the banking system would be stronger and less prone to bankruptcy.  Today, the Fed is responsible for the country’s monetary system.  In short, the Fed, through the Board of Governors and carried out by the twelve Federal Reserve banks, regulates the amount of money in circulation.  The Fed chairman is answerable to Congress but is responsible for carrying out his duties regardless of political pressure.  The goal of the Fed is to seek solutions that help the country as a whole.  

All this to say, President Obama’s litmus test is antithetical to the job of the Federal Reserve Chairman.  Mr. Obama’s declaration is not only symbolic of his administration’s difficulties but also part and parcel of the problems that lay within the liberal political framework.  Liberals often get themselves worked up over the plight of an individual.  They will refer to them ad nauseum in speeches and while politicking for a particular piece of legislation.  However, the president’s job (like that of Congress and the Federal Reserve Board) are responsible for what is good for the country as a whole.   

Addressing problems that affect individuals instead of a portion of the population can bring unintended consequences – such as meandering mandates and conflicting objectives (not to mention staggering funds required) as seen in the president’s health care law.  It is not that conservatives disregard the plight of the individual – no matter the demagoguery the Democrats often employ.  Conservative thought suggests that policy that engenders national growth and prosperity will uplift the country as a whole.  The appeal of the individual is an example of pathos – a form of rhetoric that is usually employed where logos fails.   

Meanwhile, the politicians in Washington, D.C. and the Federal Reserve chairman must make their decisions for the good of the state.  They must keep the broader picture in mind.  The Fed chairman is working on the principles of macroeconomics and that, as the name suggests, require him (or her) to work for what is best for everyone.  The plight of an individual might score political points and stoke the fires of populism however, it serves little purpose in setting a national economic course and that is the Federal Reserve chairman’s job.