Desultory Diary, Episode 28: Towards a Kinder and Gentler Nation

Recently, I saw a YouTube clip of a man in Texas who said to a few friends, "The worst day in America is better than the best day anywhere else." He might as well have said, "Jesus Christ is Lord," for the group around him smiled in pious agreement. O, the arrogance!

The United States is, hands down, Number One in the world regarding Covid-19 deaths, but it lags behind other countries according to many indicators. We are the only wealthy country that lacks universal health coverage; we rank 35th according to longevity statistics, (just below Lebanon and just above Cuba), despite spending twice as much on health care as other wealthy countries; among the 31 OECD countries, we rank last regarding obesity; we are certainly nowhere near the best regarding infant mortality and education. The American Dream is alive and well, well, in Denmark.

Something is rotten in the United States, and it's about time that we do something about it.

The patriotic hubris of the Texans is not an isolated incident.

How many times have you come across someone asserting that this is the greatest country in the world? If you haven't ever been told this by a neighbor, teacher, or friend, you have probably been living on a different planet.

I am 75. When in grade school, I had to memorize the doggerel line, "In 1492, Columbus sailed the ocean blue." At that time, Columbus was, in effect, a secular Messiah, who brought the gifts of Western Civilization to the New World. No mention of the Arawak Indians, who soon become extinct in Hispaniola, where Columbus first landed; not to mention the genocide against South American Indians, one of the worst genocides in history.

Regarding Thanksgiving, we were led to believe that Edward Hicks's painting, The Peaceable Kingdom, in which Pilgrims and Native Americans got along just fine, was historically accurate.

Later on, we were taught the concept of Manifest Destiny, namely, that it was God's will that the United States gain sovereignty from coast to coast, The wrong people in the wrong place at the wrong time, Mexican and Native Americans, had to be swept away like underbrush. And they were.

I remember the shock I felt, when, fairly recently, I picked up a bible with the American flag plastered all over it. It included on back pages a collection of religious hymns and patriotic hymns, and a mixture of both. America and God--there seemed to be no difference. An aria from The Messiah came to mind, with lyrics from the Old Testament, "Why do the nations so furiously rage together?/And why do the people imagine vain things?" Those lyrics were of course missing in that American bible.

I thought traditional religions taught that, while it is good to be patriotic, we live in a fallen world and every nation suffers from various degrees of fallenness. Not so in the American Religion, as the gaudy bible I had picked up proclaimed. It is dangerous, is it not, when the prophetic maxim, "walk humbly with your God," becomes, in effect, "God has chosen us to be on top!"

America's Original Sin

I grew up in the 1950s, and, like most white kids at the time, lived in a segregated neighborhood. (In a restricted sense, I still do, although my multi-racial family is no longer as unique as it once was.) Race was like rice in a pressure cooker over high heat--God had long since abandoned the kitchen--Pretty soon everything had to explode. And explode it did.

Blacks have had access to higher education; many have assumed positions of power. They are unwilling to be subjugated any longer. Progressive whites reject the racism of the past, as the multiracial protests in Portland attest. Yet not every white person is progressive.

When a pressure cooker explodes, expect a mess. I am firmly convinced however, that the mess can and will be cleared up.

Take the case of kneeling during the national anthem at NFL games. Colin Kaepernick--whose name sounds like that of a Dutch explorer--famously knelt in 2016 during the playing of the national anthem before a NFL game. He was protesting police brutality; his protest caused a furor in our divided country. God-and-country whites were deeply offended. Trump, in 2017, strongly advocated that players who refuse to stand during the anthem be fired. The NFL lost a lot of money.

The vehemence of the protests reminded me of the vehement arguments supporting either transubstantiation or consubstantiation, subtleties of Christian dogma over which people actually killed each other in the past. (Have people chosen to forget that the most important behavior is how we treat each other, not how we treat a flag? Colin Kaepernick has spent a lot of his money and time on children).

Things have since calmed down. On July 4, 2020, during a much-publicized game, it was left to the players to stand or to kneel during the anthem. A professor of African-American studies wrote, "I would have found it hard to believe it a year ago. I would have said something really happened in America to cause that. Clearly what has happened in America...fundamentally changed people's perceptions as it relates to racism in this society." The catalyst for this change was the brutal murder of George Floyd. You can be cynical and believe that the owners found a way for money to flow into their coffers again; nevertheless a change has occurred.

The intolerant God-and-country crowd, however, is still with us. I recently talked to some gym friends, who are mostly Trump supporters. When the topic of kneeling during the national anthem somehow came up, one of our friends went ballistic.

This person is vehemently against the removal of publicly displayed Confederate statues as well. Not much of a surprise there.

German Patriotism

I sometimes watch German-language TV. Once they had a segment regarding  teaching German teenagers the horrors of the Holocaust. Regarding the rabid anti-Semitism of those days, a teenager replied, in utter disbelief,  "Is this fiction?!" Yes, the degree of evil of the Nazi regime is beyond comprehension.

How do German patriots--and mostly everyone everywhere is, and should be, patriotic to some degree--fare these days? A teacher replied, "We love Germany. But we must love it with a broken heart."

I like that. America's racism has been, well, awful. America has also committed many atrocities around the world. Vietnam, Iraq, South America. There is a saying in Mexico, "Pity us. So far from God and so close to the United States." If you wonder why they could say something like that, ask a Native American.

There are of course many good things about our country as well. It is still--maybe not for long? a vibrant democracy. Long live the First Amendment--a variation of which in many countries simply doesn't exist. Despite many challenges, contemporary and in the past, the Constitution has been a beacon of light for the entire world.

Germany, with its sad history, is known as perhaps the least overtly patriotic country in Europe. It is also one of the most progressive. We could learn a lot from them, for our history has not been as good as many think. 


Maybe we could learn to love our country while we happily sing, "Hail, Columbia" without Columbus, and with a tear in our eyes. If we do, there is a good chance that George H. W. Bush's dream of a kinder, gentler nation would be fulfilled.

ET TU, BUDDHE?

Alas, Buddhists are doing it too.  No doubt about it The Song of the Evil Urge includes us all.  No exceptions.  The song is a parody of a Cole Porter standard, the content of which seems to be behind a lot of what's going on these days.  I will explain.


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Cole Porter was a great genius of American song.  Rarely have a gift for melody and a gift for language been so delightfully combined--like Wagner, he wrote the music and the words  One of his greatest songs is Let's Fall In Love which begins as follows:

                                        Birds do it, bees do it,
                                        Even educated fleas do it;
                                        Let's do it, let's fall in love.

While reading the news, I often hear a parody of this song, seemingly composed by the Zeitgeist, which I call The Song of the Evil Urge:

                                           You do it, I do it,
                                           Christians, Muslims and Hindus do it,
                                           Let's do it, let's act like thugs!

I am certainly not amiss in including Christians as prominent examples in the history of thuggery.  It is said, with reason I think, that a good way to evaluate the decency of a people is in the way they treat minorities.  To put it mildly, Christians have not treated Jews very well during the course of their common history.  Muslims must be included, too--there are hordes of unhappy, underemployed young people who do horrible things in the name of Islam.  (Islam is at fault just as much as Christianity is at fault in the first example.) Hindus, of course, aren't innocent either.  Often admired for their religious tolerance, Hindus have not scored high on social tolerance; yea, they do it too, and, increasingly, alas! in the name of their religion.

The song as above is not complete.  Jews, for centuries after Constantine's conversion,  lacked power and have been on the receiving end of acts of great evil.  However, after obtaining power with the creation of Israel, Israeli Jews have not been always fair to their minorities--a fact, which I'm sad to report, is becoming increasingly more obvious..

What about atheists?  Are the atheists justified in contending that religion is an evil in itself and once it's abolished a secular Peaceable Kingdom will arise?  As one says in the vernacular, Yeah, right. Cambodia. Rwanda.  Stalin.  The harsh treatment by Chinese atheists of the people of Tibet.  (It is obvious that the conflicts today, as always, are about  greedy, ignorant power struggles among people who refuse to walk a mile in the moccasins of their neighbors. I want to make it clear that I am convinced that the religions themselves are not at fault; the fault lies in the fact that they are not followed.  Evil acts are done by people who may or may not use religion as a cover for their lust for power. A quip by Gandhi is appropriate here.  When asked what he thought about Western Civilization, he replied that it is a good idea and should be tried sometime.  Similarly with Christianity at its best, and all religions at their best.)

In order to include atheists in the song, I coined a new word.  Richard Dawkins, a staunch atheist, refers to the community of non-believers as consisting of brights.  The English word troglodyte refers to cave dwellers, but, by extension, includes all those who act like boors.  Here's my word for boorish atheists: troglobrites.  (I changed the spelling of bright, since I don't think the implication that religious people are necessarily dull in  comparison to atheists  holds.)

So here is the expanded version of the song:

                                  You do it, I do it,
                                  Christians, Muslims, Hindus,
                                  Troglodytes and Jews do it;
                                   Let's do it, let's act like thugs!

Well you might have noticed, I left something out.  No longer.  There have been frequent reports of Buddhist atrocities against Muslims in Myanmar.  Thousands of Muslims are confined to concentration camps--there is no other word for the horrible camps in which they are confined.  The hatred of Muslims by large swaths of the population of Myanmar is painfully palpable.  In addition, today I read in the NY Times about  a group of Buddhist thugs, called the Bodu Bala Sena,  led by monks which has burned down houses of Muslims in Sri Lanka.

                                     Et tu, Buddhe?

(The word Buddha here is used as a synecdoche for all Buddhists; the founder of the religion is, of course, blameless.) Yes, Buddhists are noteworthy for their advocacy for peace.  Their activities around the world in this regard, and the wisdom it has brought to countless millions,  leave no doubt:  Buddhism has had a very positive effect for over two thousand years.  Yet, contrary to my own prejudice, Buddhists are apparently just like everyone else.  So the full version of the unfortunate song must be as follows:

                                        You do it, I do it,
                                        Christians, Muslims, Hindus,
                                        Buddhists, troglodytes and Jews do it--
                                        Let's do it, let's act like thugs!

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We live in an ambiguous world.  Fundamentalists might imagine they have certainties, but they do not.  Life is not clear-cut, , whether they like it or not.  The Good News is that the Song of the Evil Urge is not universal.  There is a lot of good things being done around the world by people of all faiths, including by those without a traditional faith.  I have witnessed some very good things volunteers are doing in the Dominican Republic.  In fact, much good is being done everywhere.  Doctors Without Borders.  Catholic Charities,  The Islamic Relief Fund, etc.  Many Hindu professionals have returned to India to significantly improve the lives of the poor.  Buddhists, Jews and atheists are struggling for justice and peace everywhere.  I admit I'm a seasoned optimist; I have faith that another version of the song, The Song of Justice, will eventually--eventually! there's the rub-- prevail:

                                        You can do it, we can do it,
                                         Christians, Muslims, Hindus,
                                         Buddhists, atheists and Jews can do it--
                                         Let's do it, let's live and love!

Which version of the song are you doing? Admit it--I certainly do, regarding myself--our moral lives are ambiguous.  But it's up to everyone of us to make the human condition less murky.  It can be done. If we put this version of the song into action, and, as it were, sing it together, the ghost of Cole Porter, and the good spirit in all of us, will be in for a very pleasant surprise.