It was a cool day, the last Wednesday of April in the year 2018. The locale: Washington, D.C. Behind a nonpareil rostrum stepped a slight, improbably youthful man who had only recently risen to international repute, a person otherwise familiar (formerly: “ordinary”) in political views, intellect and demeanor. His speech was unremarkable, almost boilerplate – the kind of address we are used to seeing and identifying as characteristic of competent, agreeably enlightened political leaders. He spoke for a predictable forty-eight minutes or so. He was well received. His name was Emmanuel Macron; he was the President of the French Republic, and his audience was the Congress of the United States of America.
The speech happened to be televised.
It is an infelicitous verity that goodness, decency and reputable citizenship are overlooked (for their very unoriginality), while fame has become the purest, most salient measure of political impression. It is also misfortunate that in 2018 opprobrium and succes de scandale of every sort bathes in the blithe fount of celebrity and propagates the reportage.
Macron is not a man of headlines.
His words rang sane and true, but attributes creditable in prior generations – honor, generosity, lucidity, dignity, respect, humility, coherence, wisdom and forbearance, for example – had, in the cynicism-saturated, self-medicating, media- and entertainment-obsessed, democracies-squabbling-amongst-themselves, terrorism-incrementally-gaining contemporaneity become stale and begun to whisper of peril-inviting “weakness” – code for effeminacy.
It is paradoxical that females gain substantially socially and politically in the United States and yet there is an unsettling simultaneity, a protean inconstant, a judgment – and not infrequently among females too – that looks askance and scowls disapprovingly at a leadership that is not or does not seem to be satisfactorily assertive – a doldrum, moxieless statecraft that has “lost its balls.” Our paternalism, like a cat that has used up only one of many chance exploits, does not so much expire as metamorphose and reconstitute; and, simple, unimaginative creatures, indolently preferring to give over the mantle of authority to others (an inherently undemocratic tendency, to be sure), or to fancy authority an ilk of aggressiveness, woefully, we twenty-first century occidentals do not seek redemption in the potentiality of inspired language. We might start with a far more careful and discerning treatment of the word “good“, and then move on to the equally familiar “great”. If the inquiry proved excellently instructive, might we find that the good was the superior?
Provident, meticulous, observant, punctilious and discerning words are and will remain the socio-tools of civilizational integrity, not undiplomatic bluster, prevarication, incivility, illiberal coercion, the defense of inequality, imperious condescension, aloofness, amoral double standards, threats and violence.
But we are without guides in an insouciant macrocosm – of notoriety for its own sake, images, status and dollars – at the claim of “success” in the realization of barest instrumentality. (The Messiah is no longer considered marvelous on account of what he does, but because he has marvelously attained to the presidency! The proof of uprightness is no longer in the “pudding” itself, but in the appellation, the thing being referenced by any of the time-tested monikers of sublimity!) We are lost in an unfamiliar, increasingly surreal, wasp-sting radius, a fey dream where the proceeds of conscience are outshined by a register of “charisma”, a cringe-worthy crucible where the responsible is also often the “unrealistic”, the bawdy and bloviating and shocking become commonplace, news and “fake news” become blurred, fatuous, immingled, and subjective; and politics, its players like so many tired fish in an ineluctable rush of whitewater, morphs into a specimen of non-self-aware performance art.
Callous non-self-awareness, very like insanity, offers the actor enormous latitude in what can be attempted. The crass becomes the “candid”, the foolish the “creative”, the irresponsible “independent”, and the foolhardy the exculpated bone toss to one’s base. And in this surreality, the totalitarian most eminent Player promises his lebensraum – to “make America great again.”
“Great Again?” The forty-fifth president’s immediate predecessor, Barack Obama, was a guy whose administration inherited the most dreadful economic downturn since the Great Depression of the 1930s, and (the Great Depression itself notwithstanding) probably the worst economic calamity in all of American history. The American economy was losing a consternating 700,000 jobs a month at the time Barack Obama took his oath of office in January 2009. He (Obama) also inherited a federal deficit that had ballooned in the previous eight years under a Republican president (George W. Bush, 2001 to 2009) from zero dollars to one trillion dollars per year. That’s a substantial percentage increase! Try figuring it on a calculator. Obama presided over the rapid (less than a year) end to the Great Recession and a halving of the trillion dollar deficits his predecessor left him. Interestingly, while all this was happening, none of us ever heard it said that President Obama was making America “great again.”
The notion of an America not great was certainly a kind of coded communication to nescient, racist white ears. The message was gobbled up by tens of millions as a realistic and fair appraisal. Many white Americans were ready to consider the notion, subtly presented, that their nation had gone off track, that it had lost its uniquely accomplished compass, its specialness, its mojo, in electing a black president. Millions supposed inwardly what they could not utter aloud in a socio-culture that had successfully stigmatized unapologetic and overt bigotry. Hence, the election of an African-American was aberrant and extreme, and something that needed to be immediately remedied.
As it happened, Communist China had reached nigh economic “parity” with the uber-state United States (marginally “equal” gross domestic product) in 2016. And this was the last full calendar year of Obama’s eight-year presidency. That this Chinese economic trajectory had been continuing for decades before Obama arrived as the nation’s executive was ignored by those only interested in corroborating their political worldview: that America had lost its way in allowing “babies” to be murdered in the womb, accommodating gays, etc., qualms about asserting American military preeminence, ridiculous lenity in the treatment of malefaction, and welcoming females into positions that required (or seemed to require) assertiveness and command.
Even the unapologetic bigot is uncomfortable with the political task unabashed, without nuance: the riddance of the 44th president was just a forthright progression toward “greatness”, and what righteous American could argue against that?
About twenty-six minutes into Macron’s April 25th address to Congress, his words communicated what many Republican legislators present were doubtless uneasy hearing. Macron said, “…Human rights, the rights of minorities, and shared liberty are the true answer to the disorders of the world…. Against ignorance we have education; against inequalities, development; against cynicism, trust and good faith; against fanaticism, culture; against disease and epidemics, medicine; against threats on the planet, science.”
That last reference – science – is politically awkward and contentious in a nation that has followed its corroborative bias to the point of unreason. About a century ago fundamentalist Protestantism found itself in an agonizing and embarrassing predicament. The erstwhile evolution “hypothesis” had evolved into evolution theory. And theory, reader, you must know, has a very different meaning in scientific terminology than its casual colloquial meaning – like, you’ve got a “theory” about why a certain variety of tomato isn’t available in the supermarket this month, or a “theory” about why your knee pain arrived inexplicably after six months’ absence. That term, theory, is used by the sciences for matters that have moved from conjecture to substantiation, from guessed to manifest. Several protestant religions – including Pentecostals and Southern Baptists – could not easily reconcile the new science with their many-decades-old teachings; they decided to double down on their original and continuing creationist stance.
Squirming becomes more and more awkward. What eventually happened is that these Protestant religions taught that those who began to believe evolution science were being led astray by the devil. The neo-dissenter is met then with an anguished (however inward) identity ultimatum: believe them and be not one of us “believers”, or believe us and remain faithful. Most could not surmount this spiritual hurdle, which came very near definitional emotional blackmail.
In the early years of the twenty-first century climate science came to the fore. Scientists and proactive, enlightened political leaders began to speak of a “carbon footprint” and “global warming” and “CO2 emissions.” The tens of millions of evolution deniers now had another reason to disdain science: “scientists” were out to harm our precious economic clout, our traditions, our industries (especially oil and automobile companies). And recent opinion polls show, incredibly, that about 40% of Americans believe the world is less than ten thousand years old!
Enter “great”. What would it take to make America great? Consider, first of all, that the “great” is not the superiorly good. The gist of the word “great” is in especial significance, status, notoriety, acclaim, attainment (especially material), etc. Peter the Great and Charlemagne (“Charles the Great”) were never “great” consequent to or in association with a superior goodness! They were called “great” because of their unique or significant accomplishments – disaffectedly good and evil. Peter the Great’s greatness stretched even to the unique achievement of himself torturing his own son to death on the rack! And Charles the Great? He ordered hundreds of thousands of Germanic people executed in what is today western Germany. Their crimes? It was really a single crime: refusal of Christianity.
And now back to our story. How are we to achieve greatness while exhibiting contempt for science? I will make several arguments here, and if they are true, future American greatness on this current track is a vile absurdity.
As we progress forward in time, it is increasingly obvious that economic viability among the most advanced and economically powerful countries in the world depends very much on advances in science and technology. Yes, there are always “priorities” aplenty, but to place dozens of values and agendas above supporting American government and American corporate efforts in the achievement of more and still more (economically and influentially) from the findings of cutting-edge scientific investigation and experimentation is foolish in the extreme. And importantly, the same is literally impossible!
Secondly, the United States is in the second decade of the twenty-first century far the most militarily formidable and technologically advanced in existence. The U.S., in a given year, might only account for about 40% of world military spending. But in that very same year the United States might account for 70% of spending on determinative (crucially superior, prevailing) technologies – those devices and innovations that prove invaluable and decisive (predator drone, satellite, stealth technology, nuclear triad, computerization, etc.) in the achievement of present-day military objectives. How is any sort of military greatness to be pursued sans science?
The United States still has many of the most accomplished and prestigious institutions of higher learning in the entire world, and literally hundreds of thousands of students from around the world attend American colleges and universities. These American universities conduct thousands of research studies every year, and many of these are obviously considered scientific. How is this status to be maintained while pursuing a policy of disdain for science?
American security (elemental, insightful protection from state enemies like Iran, Russia, Syria and North Korea, as well as from terrorists) is dependent on the increasing sophistication of the tools, methods, protocols and organization of the seventeen U.S. intelligence agencies. How is this to be maintained deficient strong attention to scientific advances? And, in the next forty years, experts expect artificial superintelligence to become a reality. Does the United States intend to allow another nation to become the first to attain this fantastical technology? We cannot keep Russian and Chinese researchers from their investigations and experiments. Neither can we keep actors in the European Union from working toward the manufacture of superintelligence. All that is in our (American) power is to work harder and invest more in this indispensable (and incomprehensibly important) innovation. But how is computer science to extend to such hyperbolic heights bereft scientific accomplishment? (Note: I am an intense critic of artificial intelligence, as my frequent readers know very well.)
Some readers of this writing will silently opine, All this is nonsense! Of course the United States will not turn away from science. Just because 40 percent of the people supposedly want a turning away, that minority cannot prevail and upset policy!
This claim is wrong on several counts. First, the idea that a minority cannot get its policies into action is absurd. This current president – number 45 – was “elected” not by the people, but by the American Electoral College! The literal minority has chosen this executive to lead the whole nation. And this is an irrefutable historical fact!
Additionally, the actions of the current president and his political party, the Republican Party, as well as his “political base,” have been to turn away from the Paris Climate Accord of 2015. Is this a respect for science, or an example of contempt for science?
Lastly, on this matter of “minority” import and impact, there is the example of ethnic and social and religious minorities coming to powerful influence in twenty-first century American politics (the election of 2016 notwithstanding). Republicans cannot possibly stop the influx of new, nonwhite, non-Christian and even non-democratic peoples from flocking to the United States. Though they may exert enormous time and energy to slowing and challenging immigration, they can only somewhat slow it, and slow it temporarily. And this is because the American economy is known to thrive with lots of arriving immigrants, professionals and others, and a growing population.
The point that must be heeded in this essay is that America is absolutely divided. The divide may be, in certain senses and instances, 60-40, but it is nonetheless divided! To discount that 40% is foolish in the extreme! The absolute need not to discount minorities is evident in the current Republican efforts to appeal to urban voters, women, youth, Latinos, and African-Americans.
There is always fallout to be reckoned with!
Ultimately, the American refusal of science traces its antecedents to the (organized religion-based) refusal of evolution science a century ago. It has been abetted since the 1990s by the clever Australian businessman Rupert Murdoch and his ideological “news” station, and by self-serving, intransigent automobile and oil industries and their very accomplished lobbies. It (science denial) has led, basically, to a wider and deeper political division of the American electorate. There is a very old and famous saying that goes, pithily, “divide and conquer.” And America is in the unenviable position now of dividing and conquering (debasing) itself!
Verily, is any sort of greatness likely to proceed therefrom?