Thomas Jefferson and the Idea of Revolution

Posted on May 31, 2016 by theamericanplutarch

Thomas Jefferson had a lifelong dream when he died on Independence Day, 1826. The epitaph that he composed to mark his passing highlighted the three great achievements of his life: creating the Declaration of Independence, penning the Statute of Religious Freedom, and founding the University of Virginia. These three trumped, in his mind, his other achievements: President of the United States, Vice President of the United States, Minister to France, Governor of Virginia, Secretary of State. The focus of Jefferson’s life, as he reflected on it during his final years, was human freedom. Jefferson thought radically about human freedom, even as he contradicted his grand ideas by participating in the enslavement of other humans. Jefferson owned slaves for fifty years after the penned the words: “we hold these truths to be self-evident, that all men are created equal.” His dream of a society that fully promoted individual freedom, of individuals such as himself being willing to take extreme actions for the sake of human freedom, died with him July 4, 1826, unfulfilled. But Jefferson believed, despite his personal failings, as well as the failings of the United States in regard to human freedom, that the actions of revolutionaries, marked by the Declaration of Independence in 1776, would someday fulfill the promise of the American Revolution, which transcended his life and the lives of his contemporaries. Jefferson believed, as wrote in 1818 to his old friend John Adams, that with their passing, even so, the phenomenon that they had created, the American Revolution, was far from over.

Jefferson was one of the most radical of the Founders. He clearly seems to have been years ahead of his time, although the many years since his death have failed to realize his dream of the unshackling of the individual from the constraints of the standards and institutions of modern society and culture. To be sure, multicultural awareness, the emergence of women and people of diverse racial and ethnic backgrounds as political forces, expanding suffrage, the democratization and integration of education and public facilities, points to expanded individual freedoms. But this conclusion is only true if one’s definitions of revolution and freedom are limited to an external, institutional, structural meaning. There is a more fundamental meaning to these two concepts, one that transcends the normal meaning assigned by historians and politicians. Revolution has several standard definitions: a cycle or rotation; a successful colonial revolt; a violent political change; or a novel and dramatic change that completely supplants the past. Revolution usually means an event that occurs over a specific time period with a clearly defined end. Jefferson’s use of the word revolution, however, implies an ongoing process without end.

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The Revolution never ended. The idea seems a bit absurd, but consider it. The idea of an ongoing revolution implies that revolution is made anew by each person who is willing to formulate, believe, and express his/her own singular experiences and ideals. The idea implies that revolution is not bound by war, government, or time, but is a more spiritual, amorphous phenomenon. It implies much about the time of the actual war for independence—that the people of the time had a personal experience. Below the surface lies a burning passion for freedom, for liberty of thought and conscience, for personal knowledge unencumbered by traditions, standards, institutions. One’s glorious cause, to use the phrase of the American patriots, is personal knowledge and liberty. Oppression comes in a variety of different forms: in the past it was the oppression of an imperialistic government; today it is the oppression of a well-meaning government built on a brilliant document, the Constitution, that was meant to provide order and stability more than freedom and liberty.

The perspective of history tells us that America has come closest to accomplishing freedom and liberty than any government of all time. Perhaps it is impossible to have a government that grants complete freedom. Indeed, as Thomas Paine noted two centuries ago, government and individual liberty are at odds. Government is often perceived as a “necessary evil”–necessary to prevent the chaos generated by rampant liberty. But deep inside, doesn’t the individual yearn to break from the oppression that forestalls complete freedom? It is there within us, this sense of wanting to do anything in one’s power to overcome oppression so to breathe free, unimpeded, unstructured air. Freud figured that such a sense of freedom, if realized, would yield random acts of sexual and abusive terror. Indeed, there have been those in American history who view liberty through pessimistic eyes. The Hamiltonians among us seek freedom as granted through government rather than government granted through freedom. No wonder Jefferson distrusted the Constitution, which was created while he was in France, in 1787. For it countered his meaning of revolution.

The great error of Madison, Washington, Adams, and Hamilton–the Federalists–was to make government an end in itself, rather than a means to an end—the means to the “end” of government. The wise parent who raises the child to be independent knows that the consequence is complete and utter independence. The best teacher teaches the student to be an independent learner. The old cliché, “the government that governs best governs least,” should perhaps be reworked to conform to the philosophy of Jefferson: “government should govern itself out of existence.” John Adams once wrote that he studied politics so that his sons and grandsons could study architecture, music, and art. But he clearly failed. His son John Quincy Adams lived his life in government and politics, as did his grandson Charles Francis Adams. Adams should have studied politics so that politics would never again exist.

The American Revolution first implemented the humanistic ideals of the European Renaissance and the 18th century Enlightenment. Renaissance thinkers, reaching the limitations on freedom of thought imposed by Aristotelian logic and Medieval Scholasticism, argued that individual experience was the cornerstone to knowledge, and the government that promoted this individual quest for knowledge would gain the greatest allegiance of its citizens. Such was the “civic humanism” of Renaissance city-states. Machiavelli’s other great work, the Discourses, argues precisely this point. The poet and orator Petrarch, not a statesman but the leader of the Italian literati, developed a historical perspective that established the uniqueness of a given historical epoch—and the uniqueness of the individual as well. Michel de Montaigne, the sixteenth century French essayist, though a conservative thinker who resisted political change, nevertheless fought to retain the sanctity of personal knowledge and free thought. Montaigne was an intellectual revolutionary who fought battles against oppression from the library of his Bordeaux chateau. But was he therefore any less a revolutionary than Jefferson?

The battle for the ideas of freedom of conscience are most grimly fought within one’s own mind. It is an easy thing to give in to the ways of culture, the standards and trends of another’s choosing rather than one’s own. The great challenge of human existence is to formulate one’s own views independent of one’s times, then to live accordingly, “to live appropriately,” in Montaigne’s words.

Portrait of Jefferson in his late 50s with a full head of hair

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George Washington: The First (and Best?) President

Posted on May 30, 2016 by theamericanplutarch

In Philadelphia, the summer of 1787, the members of the Constitutional Convention, following the lead of James Madison and Alexander Hamilton, decided that the office of a single executive, with his power checked and balanced by the Congress and Courts, was too advantageous to negate. The assumption among the members was that the president of the convention, George Washington, would be the first President of the United States. There was no better choice. Washington combined patriotism, self-sacrifice, and devotion to the cause and his duty with the same fears of his countrymen in excessive, unrestrained power. Washington was the perfect person, the “indispensable man,” to trust with such power at such a delicate time, when the new United States of America had just won independence yet was vulnerable both in foreign as well as in domestic affairs.

The debate over the Constitution in the state of New York during the autumn of 1787 led to the writing of the Federalist Papers by three statesmen, Alexander Hamilton, James Madison, and John Jay. These papers set out in logical and historical detail the basis for the Constitution, explaining the reasons for a strong executive, bicameral congress, and independent judicial, the purpose of the electoral college, and how the Constitution would be able to mitigate factions, which is the root of evil in governments. Alexander Hamilton of New York wrote a series of papers describing the Executive Branch, and the power of the President.

Hamilton had served under Washington during the War, became a close adviser, then the first Secretary of the Treasury. He was the leader of the Federalist faction. The Federalists believed in the importance of having a strong central government focused on order, but not at the expense of liberty. They believed in a flexible interpretation of the Constitution, that words and phrases in the document, such as “necessary and proper” in Article I, Section 8, imply rights and powers that the federal government can use. They argued that a focus on states’ rights had already been tried with the Articles of Confederation, and had failed. The Federalists advocated a strong executive enforcing the laws. They believed that the government should encourage the economic development of the United States and expanded world trade. They tended to focus their attention on the health of the economy, and believed that as the richer became more wealthy, the economy as a whole, hence the poor, would be helped as well. Because of the Federalist focus on manufacturing and trade, they tended to have more support in the northern states, and quickly became the party in opposition to slavery.

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George Washington perceived his role as President to eschew taking part in the factionalism of political parties, to rise above such disputes to provide an anchor for the ship of state amid the storms of political controversy. Such controversy was, ironically, a repeated occurrence during his presidency, as his two chief advisers, Secretary of the Treasury Hamilton and Secretary of State Thomas Jefferson, were inveterate enemies of one-another, both personally and politically. Jefferson constantly advised the President to take a strict interpretation of the Constitution, to use restraint in the role of Commander in Chief, to make friends and be at peace with the two great powers of the day, the British and the French. Jefferson especially advised Washington not to push the French away, even though that country was engaged in a Revolution that swept away the power of the king, aristocracy, and church in a bloody series of executions. Hamilton, on the other hand, abhorred the disorder of the French Revolution, advising Washington to prefer the stability of the English. Hamilton believed that the Constitution implied powers to the federal government, and that the President should provide an example of firm, military leadership in domestic as well as foreign affairs.

Washington tended to listen to Hamilton more than Jefferson, as he feared disorder and chaos, and believed that the federal government, and the President, must provide for the safety and security of the citizens of the United States. Even so, he refused to identify himself with one particular political faction, and tried to hold himself aloft in such disputes. The President therefore often seemed aloof and removed, which was Washington’s intention. He believed the office of the Presidency was one of great symbolic force, that the President should not appear to be a political animal, rather a leader of state not swayed by the opinions and feelings of the moment.

Washington was aware of the burden he carried, for as the first President of the United States his actions would establish the policies and traditions of the office for years to come. Of the many titles by which he could be addressed–your excellency, your highness, your grace–he chose to be addressed in simple fashion, as “Mr. President.” Washington’s Cabinet of executive branch officials answering to him–Secretary of State overseeing foreign policy, Secretary of Treasury overseeing finance, Secretary of War overseeing military affairs, and Attorney General overseeing the enforcement of laws–became the kernel of the cabinet of the executive branch that now comprises fifteen departments. Opponents of the Presidency feared that the president could be re-elected continuously, becoming little more than a king. Washington laid this fear to rest by declining to run for a third term. His standard of two terms at the most held up until 1940, When Franklin Delano Roosevelt decided to break with tradition and run for an unprecedented third term. Six years after his death the 22nd amendment made the two-term limit law.

Washington’s decision not to run for a third term was expressed in his Farewell Address to the American People at the end of his second term, in which he also assessed the strengths and weaknesses of the American Republic, and advised the American people on what course to set to accomplish their aims of peace, order, and tranquility. Washington addressed the concern, expressed since the United States was formed and the Constitution was adopted, that the American Republic was too large. He believed that the Union of such a large country worked toward its advantage rather than disadvantage. He argued as well that a strong republic with a strong executive provided the leadership and power to accomplish successful foreign policy, such as treaties with other countries, including Great Britain and Spain, who were jealous of America’s rise to power. One concern that Washington had, expressed by other Americans as well, was the party spirit, or factionalism, that threatened to tear the republic apart. In Federalist #10, James Madison had argued that the biggest threat to a free nation is factionalism, that is, the formation of interest groups that push their own ideas and try to achieve their own ends. One phrase in Madison’s essay, “Liberty is to faction what air is to fire,” was precisely the point of contention between the two emerging parties during Washington’s presidency. The Federalist response was to control the effects of faction. The Democratic Republican response was to allow liberty its fullest extent, for to control it was to snuff out its flames.

Washington, influenced more by the Federalists, argued in his Farewell Address that the order of government was the means to control the effect of faction. Washington also warned the Americans of conniving people who would try to change the Constitution and the nature of government to fit their own ends. He counseled that patience and experience would indicate that the Constitution should rarely be altered, or amended. He believed that religion and morality are the cornerstones of good government and liberty. Further, Washington counseled wise expenditures in government to prevent the build-up of a national debt. He advised Americans to have a disinterested view toward other countries, to let reason not passion dictate foreign affairs. Americans should avoid alliances with other countries that entangle us in their affairs.

The symbol of George Washington the President long outlasted Washington the man. His name came to symbolize the capitol of the United States; a state; the highest mountain in northeast America (Mount Washington, New Hampshire); and countless towns and places throughout America. After his death biographers rushed to put out glorified accounts of his life. Some, such as clergyman Mason Weems, produced fabricated accounts of Washington’s life including stories (such as Washington and the cherry tree) that have become inextricably linked with Washington’s life.

There have been 43 other Presidents since Washington left office in 1797. How does he rank next to his predecessors? Was he as great a leader as Lincoln? Did he have the same force of personality as Theodore Roosevelt? Did he have the same genius as Jefferson? Was he as much of a consummate politician as FDR?

Besides the many other things I have written about Washington above, in favor of my vote that he was the best, is the following: First, he was admired by contemporaries in a way no one living today has seen a President admired. When Washington made journeys to the South and North after his inauguration, the crowds who assembled, the hymns written, the verse composed, the joy at his coming, were incomparable. People saw him as the savior of the United States, the man who had guaranteed Independence. At the same time people believed him modest, and humble before God, knowing that he was, after all, but a man. Second, and most important, is my belief that Washington was perhaps the only person who served as President who did not seek the office. He served because the people wanted him to serve.

Think of it: a person who serves as President not because he/she is hungry for power, not because he/she is arrogant and narcissistic and immodest enough to seek the office of the most powerful person in the world, but for the simple reason that the American people think that such a person is best, and, notwithstanding the individual’s humility and modesty, he/she agrees to serve, knowing that the work and pain will overwhelm the glory and pleasure. Such a person was George Washington.

Painting by Howard Chandler Christy, depicting the signing of the Constitution of the United States, with Washington as the presiding officer standing at right

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Alexander Posey and the Vernacular of Nature

Posted on May 27, 2016 by theamericanplutarch

Alexander Posey was a poet. His poems about nature are some of the most beautiful ever published. Growing up on a farm in the Creek Nation, near Eufaula, Posey’s native language was Creek, but his “vernacular,” as he once wrote about all American Indians, was poetry: “not necessarily the stilted poetry of books, but the free and untrammeled poetry of Nature, the poetry of the fields, the sky, the river, the sun and the stars.” Posey’s gift of poetry blossomed during the years, from 1889 to 1895, when he attended and worked at Indian University, the school founded by Almon Bacone in 1880. At Indian University, later called Bacone College, the young mixed-Creek studied, served as librarian, contributed to school publications, and discovered himself to be a gifted artist of the English language.

Raised by his Creek mother Pohas Harjo and Scotch-Irish father Lewis Posey, Alex spoke Creek growing up at home until one day, as he later related, his father forcefully requested that his son henceforth speak in English, which the young man embraced and mastered. Alex matriculated at Indian University in 1889, when the school had been located in Muskogee for four years. There was a single large academic building, Rockefeller Hall, that served as dormitory, classroom building, administrative building, dining facility, and chapel. Almon Bacone was a Baptist missionary from New York who had traveled west a decade earlier to teach Cherokees in Tahlequah; he envisioned a school for all North American Indians, and worked with the Creeks to create a campus on Creek land north of Muskogee. Alex’s mother was Baptist, and he was raised in a Christian household, so he found Indian University, a Christian school teaching the liberal arts to American Indians, a perfect fit.

Alex was a secondary school student in the “Academic Department” until 1891, when he became a college student and school librarian. A bookworm and literary artist, Alex was a natural librarian. He was a prolific writer and helped two of his teachers, history professor Marion L. Brown and science professor C. H. Maxson publish a weekly newsletter, the Bacone Indian University Instructor. In the only surviving issue, from May 20, 1893, Alex contributed a story on the mythical Creek anti-hero, Chinnubbie Harjo, and alter-ego and pseudonym who appeared in many of Posey’s writings.

Alex Posey at Indian University was typically very well dressed, charming and elegant; he made a fine orator, would in time be something of a statesman, and believed wholeheartedly in the means and ends Almon Bacone envisioned for Indian University. In a surviving photo from 1891, Alex sits in the front row with a carnation in his lapel and a book, characteristically, in his hand, not bothering to lift his gaze from the written word even for the photographer. Such studious manner enabled Alex to form sophisticated ideas about learning, human character, politics, and nature. In 1892, for example, in response to a call from the American Baptist Home Mission Society for students at Indian University to respond to the question, “Why do I want an education?”, A. L. Posey, “a Creek,” responded:

“The world’s noblest citizens are educated men and women; they are the ornaments of human society and the gems that adorn the sea-shores of human progression.  Nothing contributes more to the intellectual wealth of the world than the education of its inhabitants.  And nothing imparts more happiness to man than the consciousness of a well disciplined mind to govern and control the higher aims of life.”

With such a personal philosophy of lifelong learning, Posey, upon graduating from Indian University, became a leader in the Creek community, serving in the House of Warriors, as well as Superintendent in succession of the Creek Nation Orphan Asylum, of Public Instruction for the Creek Nation, of the National High School in Eufaula, and of the Wetumpka National School. Posey the man of letters worked for the Indian Journal in Eufaula and the Muskogee Times. He wrote a series of satirical letters, featuring Fus Fixico and his Creek friends, writing about the Dawes Commission, land allotments, and the tense relationship between Indians and the U. S. federal government. His bilingual ability served him well as a worker for the U. S. Indian Agency in Muskogee, during which he sought to administer fairly the allotments of land to Creeks as prescribed by the Dawes Commission. In 1905, Posey served as secretary for a convention of Indian Territory leaders who met in Muskogee to compose a constitution for the proposed state of Sequoyah. Posey suggested the name of the proposed state and wrote a good part of the constitution.

During his busy, short life Posey married and had children and worked a farm near Eufaula. Death came to him early, when he drowned in 1908 while attempting to cross the Canadian River. His poems suggest that he was not unprepared for his final moments on Earth.

When flowers fade, why does

    Their fragrance linger still?

Have they a spirit, too,

    That Death can never kill?

Is it their Judgment Day

    When from the dark, dark mould

Of April and of May

    Their blooms again unfold?

His, poem, “To a Daffodil,” suggests that Posey felt at one, in life and death, with all forms of life:

                When Death has shut the blue skies out from me,

                               Sweet Daffodil,

                                 And years roll on without my memory,

                                 Thou’lt reach thy tender fingers down to mine of clay,

                                      A true friend still,

                                 Although I’ll never know thee till the Judgment Day.

When Almon Bacone founded Indian University in 1880, he hoped that the Whites and Indians would be able to live and learn together. Posey, a mixed-race Indian, believed in, and represented, peoples coming together to live in Oklahoma:

I pledge you by the moon and sun,

As long as stars their course shall run,

Long as day shall meet my view,

Peace shall reign between us two.

I pledge you by those peaks of snow

As long as streams to ocean flow,

Long as years their youth renew,

Peace shall reign between us two.

I came from mother soil and cave,

You came from pathless sea and wave,

Strangers fought our battles through–

Peace shall reign between us two.

One can imagine a day in October in the 1890s, when a young Creek-American, Alex Posey, wandered the fields and meadows surrounding Indian University, pondering life:

In the dreamy silence

Of the afternoon, a

Cloth of gold is woven

Over wood and prairie;

And the jaybird, newly

Fallen from the heaven,

Scatters cordial greetings,

And the air is filled with

Scarlet leaves, that, dropping,

Rise again, as ever,

With a useless sigh for

Rest—and it is Autumn.

Amid the peace and quiet of Indian University, there was conflict in Oklahoma and the surrounding nation. Near the end of his career at Indian University, in 1895, Alex Posey declaimed before an audience of students and teachers his view on how a thoughtful, reflective person should act in a world filled with movement and change:

“If a calm sea never made a skillful mariner, a calm life never made a great man.  Time, toil and vicissitudes; these are the cost of success.  The world can use the man who is willing to pay this price.  Its progress is dependent upon just such men; verily, upon men who are the devotees of mental embellishment and excellence of character; upon men who scorn from their soul’s inmost recesses the vanity of fashion and the folly of luxury.”

In the end, Posey bridged the gap between the two cultures, White and Indian, and identified both as American, proclaiming that America gained her independence from England because of the “persistence and determination” of the “forest born sons of America,” both those indigenous to this land and those who had arrived to start a new life in the 1600s. Posey the American was “like the tree, he strikes root, grows, puts forth his leaves and becomes the giant of his surroundings before the world is aware.”

Posey’s widow Minnie published Alex’s collected works in 1910: The Poems of Alexander Lawrence Posey (Crank & Co., Topeka, Kansas).

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War Story

Posted on May 25, 2016 by theamericanplutarch

Bob lived in an old two story tenement, thin, tall, and long with clapboard exterior badly in need of paint. Other tenements of similar age and quality lined the street, which was crowded with parked cars, some working but others in stagnant decay. Children ran and played, darting in and out among the cars, on a bright sunny day in August. The house on Franklin Street was in the industrial town of Haverhill, Massachusetts, where Bob had grown up and spent his life.

Bob had attended Haverhill High School when the Japanese attacked Pearl Harbor; he enlisted at the end of his junior year, and returned to the town after the war to spend a large part of the remainder of his life.

 

He lived with his parents during the years of declining health, their’s and his. When his father died in 1973, Bob continued to live with his mother until she went to the nursing home and died, after which he lived in the tenement alone.

Bob lived on the second floor. One entered the house from the outdoor stairs at the rear of the dwelling. The door opened to the kitchen.

When I first met Bob, he had the look of a recluse. The house was dark, save for the generous sunlight entering the window above the kitchen table. The darkness of the shadowy rooms provided an appropriate background for his drab, dark clothing, dark hair, and black-rimmed glasses. His eye-contact was brief and retreating, his mannerism nervous, betraying discomfort, his voice hesitant, soft and raspy. Bob was not one to shake hands. Yet he had a pleasant if shy smile and said hello weakly if sincerely. He held his right arm close to his side and performed all actions using the left. He was terribly stooped over, his back and hips dominating, his arms and chest appearing fragile.

The house was warm, as the windows were closed, and the air was still save for gentle currents stirred by an old fan that rotated methodically. Bob was dressed in blue-gray trousers and a colorless short-sleeve button-down shirt. He wore black leather shoes and dark socks. He was clean-shaven and his hair well-groomed with hair tonic, the parting meticulously formed. The atmosphere of reclusiveness tempered the conversation, which focused on mundane matters of family.

Bob rarely left the tenement. He infrequently saw his mother, who was in ill health, living in a nearby nursing home. Bob stayed connected to the outside world by television and, in particular, radio. Bob loved listening to his small portable that he kept on the kitchen table. He would spend hours sitting and listening to the music of his youth, the big band sounds of Glenn Miller, Benny Goodman, and Tommy Dorsey.

Bob in middle age began to suffer from the effects of spondylitis, a degenerative disorder of the spine, which caused him to progressively stoop over. The doctors told Bob that an operation could perhaps alleviate some of the spinal curvature, hence some of the pain he suffered. But Bob had seen enough of hospitals–one and a half years of recovery was enough for anyone. The best solution, he reasoned, was rest, sameness, and immobility. Bob could not, of course, work by this time, and his VA benefits helped him get by with the few necessities he required of food, coffee, shaving cream, hair tonic, comb, toothbrush, radio, and television. The list had once included cigarettes, but as Bob watched his mother increasingly suffer from the effects of emphysema, he found his smokes, once a necessity, now repulsive.

Bob ordered his solitary existence the best he could. The great tunes of the 40s, the screaming trumpets and melodic clarinets, helped to pass the time, as did the television. Bob also enjoyed reading magazines about electronics and automobiles—Popular Science and Popular Mechanics. His daily regimen rarely changed. He awakened late in the morning, having stayed up to midnight or beyond listening to the radio or watching an old movie. Upon rising Bob ate brunch, washing down the food with strong black coffee, which he called “high test.” Bob sat long over his meals, sometimes an hour or more. His favorite dish was salt fish dinner–boiled new potatoes covered with sugar beets and a white sauce made of salt cod and salt pork. With his mother in the nursing home, Bob currently relied on TV dinners delivered from the local market.

Bob’s daily toilet was extensive. He could spend an hour at shaving, and almost as long combing his hair. Everything had to be in its place.

Bob’s unusual slowness was due, not only to his methodical obsessions, but also because of his arm, injured so long ago, that permanently crippled him. His back made him stoop terribly and his arm disabled him, to be sure; but these were symptoms of the underlying disability, which was of the mind and spirit.

Being a student of human nature, I was intrigued by this strange man. Settling down in nearby New Hampshire, I took the opportunity whenever possible to observe Bob. Uncle Bob, as the family called him, was tortoise-like, peaceful, harmless, usually staying securely in his shell, though sometimes popping his head out to eat and converse with the few people that he trusted.

One of these was Milt, like Bob a veteran of World War II, who was Bob’s complete opposite. Milt was loud, gregarious, active, and charming, a successful businessman and corporate executive. The happenstance of marriage had brought these two men together, Milt having married Bob’s sister Shirley. Every summer Milt and Shirley made a pilgrimage to the family summer cottage at Country Pond, New Hampshire, which Bob’s family the Newcomb’s had owned for years. Bob, and his mother and father while they were still alive, spent the summer months at the cottage.

Bob would disrupt his normal routine when Milt arrived, and would tag along wherever Milt went, asking questions, making observations, allowing his loneliness to exude from him, attempting to make up in a few weeks for the long months of emotional solitude. Milt was an engineer who could understand Bob’s unrelenting questions about automobile suspensions, wheel bearings, disk brakes, horse power, cylinders, and more. Bob loved to talk long into the evening about whatever sedan Milt had brought on his month-long summer sojourn in New Hampshire.

Milt spent his vacation doing repairs to the cottage. As Milt painted the walls Bob stood nearby, humped, right arm safely out of the way in his pants pocket, watching Milt work, unwilling to help but filled with admiration and happiness. It was a sad time indeed when Labor Day approached and summer ended, Milt and family departed. Bob returned to Haverhill, the days grew shorter, and the long winter set in. Bob retreated to his table and his radio and into the past, reliving, trying to explain it, wondering what if things had been different.

Bob at first never spoke of his experiences during the war. Indeed, most veterans of World War II were silent about the war. Some were reluctant to bring up the memories of a horrendous past. Others had made a promise to themselves to live only in the present and forget the past. Some were unwilling to de-mythologize the war with stories of personal involvement. Bob had submerged memories of the past deep within the mundane experiences of the present moment. Nevertheless, the horror, the shock, the pain, the torture, the fear, the waiting, the boredom, of the past revealed itself in Bob’s mannerisms and actions.

As the few years that I knew him passed, Bob began to talk about his experiences to me in response to my queries about the war. He recalled the sights and sounds of the war. He loved recounting the great speeches of FDR and Churchill. He began to tell me about how he came to be a part of D-Day. . . .

Private First Class Robert Newcomb of Haverhill, Massachusetts was part of the D-Day invasion in June, 1944. Bob was still in high school when he enlisted in the infantry. He had watched the war throughout his school years, and had tried to support it by buying stamps to support the effort. Upon enlistment, he was transported to Texas for basic training, then on to Camp Meade in Maryland, for more extensive training, during which he developed into a sharpshooter.

Training materials included pamphlets on what to expect in Europe. A Short Guide to Great Britain told those heading toward England that “you are going to Great Britain as part of an Allied offensive—to meet Hitler and beat him on his own ground. For the time being you will be Britain’s guest. The purpose of this guide is to start getting you acquainted with the British, their country, and their ways. America and Britain are allies. Hitler knows that they are both powerful countries, tough and resourceful. He knows that they, with the other United Nations, mean his crushing defeat in the end. So it is only common sense to understand that the first and major duty Hitler has given his propaganda chiefs is to separate Britain and America and spread distrust between them. If he can do that, his chance of winning might return. We can defeat Hitler’s propaganda with a weapon of our own. Plain, common horse sense; understanding of evident truths.”

The men, destined for France, read the Pocket Guide to France: “You are about to play a personal part in pushing the Germans out of France. The Allied offensive you are taking part in is based upon a hard-boiled fact. It’s this. We democracies aren’t just doing favors in fighting for each other when history gets tough. We’re all in the same boat. Take a look around you as you move into France and you’ll see what the Nazis do to a democracy when they can get it down by itself.”

The goal for soldiers like Bob was to reach Germany, where, according to the Pocket Guide to Germany: “Whether you fight your way in, or march in to occupy Germany under armistice terms, you will be doing a soldier’s job on the soil of the enemy. The occupation of Germany will give you your chance to build up a personal guarantee that as soon as you turn your back to go home, the German will not pick up his shooting irons and start throwing lead and lies at an unsuspecting world once more. One of the greatest challenges of the Peace to come is to make certain that the German people will take their place as law-abiding, useful citizens in the family of nations.”

Bob was transported along with his company across the Atlantic to England, where he spent months preparing for the invasion of Europe. June 6, 1944, Operation Overlord began. The 29th infantry was ferried across the English Channel on transport boats.

During the voyage, the water was choppy, and the men were seasick. Approaching Omaha Beach, Bob’s craft hit a mine and exploded. Although most men on board died, Bob was thrown from the craft into the sea, where he swam to shore, all the while under attack from bullets and shrapnel from German defensive positions. After several days, he reunited with his unit, and they marched inland to a town called St Lo. There, on August 1, Bob was wounded when a shell exploded near him. He lost the use of his arm. Taken to a field hospital, he was eventually transported back to Britain, then America. Eventually he was sent to a resort in West Virginia to recover from his wounds. He was in various hospitals for almost a year.

Bob, now aged 20, returned to Haverhill a changed man. He could not use his arm for the rest of his life. But the emotional wounds were deeper, more profound. He became an emotional cripple who lost his zest for life, and spent the remainder of his years yearning for what could have been, but never was.

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Private Robert Newcomb

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Reflections on “Uncle Tom’s Cabin”

Posted on May 22, 2016 by theamericanplutarch

First, I will admit that I have been teaching American history for almost 35 years and have never, until recently, read Harriet Beecher Stowe’s Uncle Tom’s Cabin.

Why?

For several reasons, I suppose. First, it was never assigned in any high school or college courses. Second, my specialty was early American rather than the 19th century. Third, Uncle Tom’s Cabin was always one of those books that a person knew about (like Alice in Wonderland) and never quite got around to reading. Besides, everyone knew what the story is about: the horrors of slavery’; the heroic slave, Uncle Tom; the abolitionist point of view; the book that helped inaugurate the Civil War. What else could be gained by reading it?

So, the book has been on my bookcase since the 1980s, unopened, unperused. Until now. I finally read it. And, to my surprise, it was good, really good.

Unlike what I expected, the book was not just a polemical treatise against slavery, but a moving, dramatic tale that showed how slavery enslaved everyone, Whites as well as Blacks—and indeed, the memory, and continuing effects of slavery on American culture, still entangles everyone regardless of race or color.

Stowe’s writing is superb. The best part of the book is the portrayal a conversation between Augustine St. Claire and his cousin Ophelia. St. Claire, who is a handsome, young New Orleans planter who inherited his slaves and allows them a fairly easy existence; who is indolent; who despises slavery but has neither the courage nor the will to do anything about it, tells Ophelia:

“This cursed business, accursed of God and man, what is it? Strip it of all its ornament, run it down to the root and nucleus of the whole, and what is it? Why, because my brother Quashy [read, every slave] is ignorant and weak, and I am intelligent and strong,–because I know how, and can do it, –therefore, I may steal all he has, keep it, and give him only such so much as suits my fancy. Whatever is too hard, too dirty, too disagreeable, for me, I may set Quashy to doing. Because I don’t like work, Quashy shall work. Because the sun burns me, Quashy shall stay in the sun. Quashy shall earn the money, and I will spend it. Quashy shall lie down in every puddle, that I may walk over dry-shod. Quashy shall do my will, and not his, all the days of his mortal life, and have such chance of getting to heaven, at last, as I find convenient. This I take to be about what slavery is. I defy anybody on earth to read our slave-code, as it stands in our law-books, and make anything else of it. Talk of the abuses of slavery! Humbug! The thing itself is the essence of all abuse! And the only reason why the land don’t sink under it, like Sodom and Gomorrah, is because it is used in a way infinitely better than it is. For pity’s sake, for shame’s sake . . . .” (pp 190-191, London: 1852)

Over time in America, beginning a few decades after the publication of Uncle Tom’s Cabin, a pejorative term emerged, Uncle Tom, for the Black who kowtowed to Whites, who like the stereotypical Sambo would do whatever was necessary to fit into to the dominant White culture.

The Uncle Tom stereotype, however, seems in no way to be based on Harriet Beecher Stowe’s book.

Uncle Tom in the book is anything but a cowering, subservient Black dedicated to ingratiating himself into White culture. Indeed, I find his character to be quite the opposite.

Stowe’s Uncle Tom is a heroic figure, a person whom I wish I could be like, a person who will do right no matter what the cost, who is good in all ways, who has not allowed an evil institution to drive away the divine spark of goodness and righteousness within him.

Often over the years, slavery has been interpreted by scholars as a total institution that would, like Nazi concentration camps, attempt to make the slave a childlike blithering idiot whose only goal was to please his/her master.

Subsequent scholarship has shown this was far from the case, as Harriet Beecher Stowe knew, for her Uncle Tom has been able to rise above the total institution of slavery to keep his dignity and humanity.

It would be nice if there was a new stereotype of Uncle Tom, to represent self-sacrifice, for doing what is good and right, for Christian virtues, for love of fellow humans.

Uncle Tom was able to see that all humans are children of God, that all lives matter.

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Blessed are the Poor?

Posted on May 15, 2016 by theamericanplutarch

In the Sermon on the Mount, the Beatitudes, as recorded in the Gospels of Matthew and Luke, Jesus taught his disciples as well as others what he considered to be the most important lessons by which to live.

Matthew and Luke agree on the general scope of the Beatitudes, though they differ on some particulars. Matthew, for example, records Jesus as having initiated the sermon with the comment, “Blessed are the poor in spirit, for of them is the kingdom of the heavens.” Luke records a terse, less confusing comment, stating simply, “Blessed are the poor, because yours is the kingdom of God.” Whereas Luke then records Jesus as saying, “Blessed are the ones hungering now, for you will be satisfied,” Matthew records a comment of more depth: “Blessed are those hungering and thirsting for righteousness, for they shall be satisfied.” Luke’s gospel has Jesus say, “Blessed are those weeping now, for they shall laugh,” while Matthew’s gospel says, “Blessed are the mourning, for they shall be comforted.”

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The Beatitudes are mystifying in today’s world because they contradict everything that our modern world culture is based on: materialism, power, wealth, comfort, pleasure, entertainment, indulgence. Jesus blesses the poor, the weak, the sorrowful, the meek, and proclaims, in Luke, woe to the wealthy, the full, the happy, and the self-satisfied. And yet what do we see today, but that the rich and powerful seem to be experiencing something very different from anguish.

How, indeed, can the poor be blessed? The New Testament Greek word for poor is ptochoi, plural of ptochos, to crouch like a beggar, straitened, to be distressed, to be a mendicant. Why would Jesus bless such people? Because the poor have not yet been rewarded while the rich have? Because the poor are more aware of the simple blessings in life? Because there is a connection between material and spiritual poverty and according to Matthew one is blessed if spiritually poor?

Pre-modern poverty was characterized by no modern conveniences, by periodic bouts of famine, by recurrent hunger . . . and consequent humility and acceptance, among some, in the face of such uncertainty.

Famine, hunger, and poverty have declined in the modern world, which is materialistic in so far that constantly more items are acquired, wanted, hence there is a growing restlessness, lack of acceptance, and growing hubris as possessions provide false and fleeting self-esteem. A society therefore that declines in poverty and increases in wealth will decline in humility and increase in hubris. The pre-modern poor were desperate for food and shelter; the modern poor are desperate for wealth and power.

Jesus said, “you will always have the poor.” Indeed, there have always been poor and notwithstanding the plans of countless Utopian thinkers there apparently always will be. Why? In part because human society will never have answers to the questions of humans, “who live for a day.” Time dooms humans to ongoing anguish, because the future is never settled and clear, hence humans live a life of foreboding and fear that the next moment will bring suffering, war, disaster, and so on. So those with the most fear make sure they will never know such a day. Hence they plan and save and exploit and steal and whatever else to ensure that they will not be in want. In so doing they will take or keep what could be or belongs to another. In some ways we live in a world of material limits where there is enough for everyone in a communist society, but humans because of our peculiar temporal situation will never allow such a society to work–hence there will always be abundance for some and want for others.

The Apostle Paul of Tarsus, in his second letter to the Corinthians, echoed the teachings of Jesus in Matthew and Luke, proclaiming that God’s power is perfected in weakness. “For whenever I am weak, then powerful I am.” How great is the gap between the message of Christianity and the message of modern society and culture! How can weakness be better than strength, poverty better than riches? The New Testament has a disconcerting teaching: Woe to the rich, the filled, the laughing, for God does not bless these people–the beautiful, confident, powerful, and secure. God blesses, rather, the hungry, sick, suffering, the ugly, insecure, and frightened. Jesus tells adults to act as children before God. His teachings contradict what humans naturally strive for, to feel important, to be strong, to be seen as beautiful, to gain wealth and power, to find security.

Jesus’s great gift as a healer was his ability to see deep within the human psyche, to see that humans profess but do not feel so important, strong, wealthy, and powerful, because there is always present the fear that riches, power, beauty, and youth will vanish. His was a message of acceptance. Life is about acceptance, not resistance. Accept, he told his listeners, your lot, your poverty, your weakness, your ignorance, your nakedness, the thorns of your flesh, your ugliness, your obesity, your fears, your mortality, the fleetingness of life, the movement of time, the coming of death.

Deep down inside we all are poor. But this is a blessing. Beware being filled, because then one becomes like a Pharisee, satisfied, knowing. No, remain empty, remain poor, always await the reward. Humans are becoming, always in each and every minute. We are never satisfied, never have, never know, never filled, never rich, always just becoming. As riches increase, hubris increases, humility decreases. The very poor are the most open to God. When I am weak, then I am strong.

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Images of Lincoln

Posted on May 13, 2016 by theamericanplutarch

When I was a teenager–not very thoughtful and focused mostly on baseball and basketball–my grandfather, a retired custodian whom I would have never thought would read such books, gave me a three-volume biography of Abraham Lincoln by Carl Sandburg. The books appeared well-used, so clearly my grandfather had read them again and again. They must have been his favorite books, and now he was giving them to me—perhaps my grandfather’s wisdom and Carl Sandburg’s wisdom and Abraham Lincoln’s wisdom would combine to provide the sixteen-year-old inquisitor with wisdom itself! And so, despite the fact that most of the books I read were about sports, I began to read Sandburg’s portrayal of Lincoln.

Sandburg’s Lincoln was a humorous storyteller and practical joker; a shy, introspective man; a thoughtful, caring, honest, empathetic man; a great wrestler; a strong and dedicated worker: flat-boater, rail-splitter, store-keeper, postal-clerk, and self-taught lawyer; and a Good Samaritan—who became President of the United States. Sandburg’s Lincoln cared for people, for all people of whatever color, and for this care he became a martyr, a sacrifice to the principles of equality and freedom.

Sandburg’s Lincoln became part of the myth of Lincoln: the Great Westerner, the Great Emancipator, the Log Cabin President, Honest Abe. The reality of Lincoln, who Lincoln really was, is tougher to get at, especially with the profusion of biographies and other nonfiction books about Lincoln; the wide variety of fiction and fantasy; movies, both serious and absurd; portraits on coins and bills, art, photography, and statues; anecdotal stories told for generations; musical portraits, such as by the composer Aaron Copland; and other stuff of legend.

The real Lincoln, detached from legend, is more human: he suffered from depression, what he called melancholia, as well as from constipation; he was a consummate politician as well as statesman; he became rich serving as a lawyer for railroads; he advocated the colonization movement (to send freedmen back to Africa); he was a segregationist, and not an abolitionist; and the Great Emancipator’s Emancipation Proclamation did not, initially, free anyone.

At the same time, Lincoln, a northerner who was born in Kentucky, a slave state, but grew up in Indiana and Illinois, and spent his life in Illinois, which were free states, was a lifelong opponent of slavery. When in 1828 he worked on a flatboat taking goods down the Mississippi River to New Orleans, he saw slavery and developed a lifelong opposition to it.

Lincoln settled in Springfield, Illinois, and taught himself law; in the 1830s Lincoln ran for state office as a Whig (a party created in the 1820s out of the old Federalist party—it was a northern, anti-slavery, pro-business, pro-federal power). He served in state office in Illinois. Not until 1846 did Lincoln serve in national office, when he was elected to the U.S. House of Representatives. The President at this time was James Knox Polk, who presided over U. S. involvement in the Mexican War, which Lincoln opposed. Lincoln was not, however, opposed to federal power, nor to the increasing power of the Presidency. Lincoln believed in the Declaration of Independence, and the words: “we hold these truths to be self-evident, that all men are created equal.” The federal government, he thought, should have power to enforce the ideas of liberty and freedom, which were the bases of the U. S. Constitution.

At the same time, Lincoln professed a literal reading of the Constitution. The Constitution declared that Congress decided issues of slavery or freedom in territories. The Constitution also did not make slavery illegal. Lincoln believed that neither the Congress by legislative action nor the President by executive order could end slavery in the United States.

Lincoln retired from federal politics after his term as U. S. Representative ended in 1849. He left the Whig party after what he considered to be the disaster of the Compromise of 1850, which introduced the idea of popular sovereignty, wherein the people of a territory or state could determine the legality of slavery. After the 1854 Kansas-Nebraska Act, which confirmed the idea of popular sovereignty, and which was introduced by Illinois senator Stephen Douglas, a Democrat, Lincoln re-emerged on the political scene. When he ran for the U. S. Senate against Douglas in 1858, Lincoln was a member of a new political party, the Free Soil Republicans, the platform for which was that Congress had the right to decide on the spread of slavery to U. S. territories. Most Republicans, like Lincoln, were opposed to slavery, but most did not think that Congress or President could end slavery, so they believed the way to end slavery was by stopping its spread to other territories or states.

Lincoln ran as a Republican for the Presidency in 1860; he won without gaining a majority of the votes, nor by winning any southern votes. Indeed, Southerners declared that they would not stay in a United States with an abolitionist for a president, which led to the secession of seven states, forming the Confederate States of America, by January, 1861. When Lincoln was inaugurated in March, 1861, eight slave border states had not seceded from the Union. Then in April, South Carolina attacked Fort Sumter, and Lincoln responded by calling up 70,000 militia troops, and the Civil War began. Four of the border states seceded.

In April, 1861, the nation was split into two countries, the Union (U. S. A., governed by the Constitution) and the Confederate States of America (governed by their own constitution). The country was so badly split, that many families split, communities split, states split. When the war began in April, the North had the industrial power, factories, steel, armaments, more weapons, more money, more population than the South, which had some factories, but not as many as the North, and was bankrupt for most of the war.

The new President was against slavery. He thought slavery was immoral and wrong. But he believed the Constitution would have to be amended to end slavery. Further, he believed that the Civil War was not about slavery, rather about maintaining the union of the states. Lincoln believed the United States was perpetual, and the South had no right to secede from the Union. He never recognized the Confederacy, and only referred to the secessionists as rebels.

Lincoln embraced a broad interpretation of the Constitution when war came to America. When Fort Sumter was attacked, Congress was not in session, nor did Lincoln call Congress into session until July. The President embraced Congressional powers for a time: he called the militia out; he engaged in war; he provided for the army and navy; he suspended the writ of Habeas Corpus (the right of all citizens to be charged after arrest); he declared martial law; he repressed newspapers; he proclaimed the emancipation of slaves; he put in motion Reconstruction: Lincoln assumed that all of these powers fell under his rights as President to take care that the laws are faithfully executed and administered, and to serve as Commander in Chief.

In short, Lincoln embraced during wartime the ethical standard of moral exigency: “the end justifies the means.” Questions: Should war provide the justification for a President to embrace and use unusual power? Should war be the reason to abandon traditional moral standards to embrace moral expediency?

A bearded Abraham Lincoln showing his head and shoulders

 

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Moral Expediency and the Atomic Bomb

Posted on May 9, 2016 by theamericanplutarch

The Manhattan Project that resulted in the development of the Atomic Bomb was one of the most creative moments in world history. American scientists accomplished what only a few years before was considered unthinkable–exploiting the power of the atom in a release of tremendous, deadly energy. Other countries–Germany, Japan, Soviet Union–had programs to develop such a weapon during World War II, but the United States alone succeeded. Using an international team of scientists and engineers and the wartime resources of the U.S. government, in less that three years, from 1942 to 1945, the U.S. developed two atomic weapons that were used to end World War II against Japan in August 1945.

The story of the atomic bomb begins with the work of early 20th century physicists and chemists exploring the structure of matter. The discoveries and theories of scientists Marie Curie, Ernst Rutherford, Neils Bohr, and Albert Einstein provided the foundation for the explosive relationship between energy and matter. In 1932, Englishman James Chadwick discovered a neutral force surrounding the atom, the neutron (+-), which led, in 1934, Hungarian scientist Leo Szilard to theorize on the possibility of a chain reaction of the fission of uranium that could produce a massive amount of energy. In 1938, German scientists Otto Hahn and Lise Meitner demonstrated the fission of uranium in a laboratory in Germany. At this time, Germany was beginning its move toward the domination of Europe. The Nazis appointed world-famous physicist Werner Heisenberg to head of the Nazi nuclear program. Meanwhile Szilard, in America visiting Albert Einstein (who had fled Germany in 1933) at Princeton University, convinced Einstein to draft a letter to President Roosevelt warning of the possibility of a nuclear weapon. The scientists discussed scientific developments over the recent years leading to fission of a uranium atom, but emphasized that it seemed improbable that a workable bomb could be developed.

When Japan bombed the U.S. naval base at Pearl Harbor in December, 1941, there were already government teams investigating the science of fission, but nothing had officially begun. This changed when in 1942 President Roosevelt asked Secretary of War Henry Stimson to organize an official U.S. effort to build an atomic weapon. Code named Manhattan Project, Stimson appointed General Leslie Groves head of the military aspects of the Manhattan Project. Physicist J. Robert Oppenheimer of the University of California was appointed the head of the scientific aspects of the project. Three laboratory facilities were quickly constructed, the most important at Los Alamos, New Mexico, where the engineering of the Bomb took place. At Oak Ridge, Tennessee, a laboratory manufactured the fissionable isotope Uranium 235. At Hannford, Washington, a laboratory manufactured plutonium. The University of Chicago was also involved in experimenting with the chain reaction of uranium. Oppenheimer recruited a host of world famous scientists to work on the Manhattan Project. Many of these scientists, such as Edward Teller, Hans Bethe, and Enrico Fermi, were immigrants from Nazi or Fascist occupied countries in Europe.
President Roosevelt and Secretary of War Stimson meanwhile worked out a plan for using the bomb should it be successfully developed. Roosevelt believed that the U.S. alone was sufficiently responsible to hold the keys to atomic power, hence he wanted the U.S. to hold a monopoly on the Atomic Bomb. The U.S. could use the power of the threat of the Bomb to diffuse situations around the world, promoting world peace. Although he shared information about the Manhattan Project with Winston Churchill, he refused to inform Joseph Stalin, who nevertheless knew something was up and had spies in the United States who informed the Soviet Premier of the U.S. atomic project.

By the beginning of 1945, the Manhattan Project was nearing a successful conclusion at the same time that American and Soviet armies were surrounding Germany and Japan was surrounded by the U.S. Navy. The American army captured the German atomic program and discovered the Nazis were nowhere near accomplishing their objective. The German threat of having the Bomb ended, and Germany nearing defeat, American scientists and policy-makers asked, what should be the plan for using the Bomb? Some scientists, such as Leo Szilard, had grown to oppose military implementation of the Bomb. Others believed it was a means to bring the war quickly to a close and to save lives.

Such was the opinion of Secretary of War Stimson, who although he realized the dangers of proliferation of atomic power, anticipating rogue states using the weapon for terrorist purposes, he nevertheless believed that the needs of the moment—to end the war and save lives—was paramount over future concerns. When he informed President Truman (upon the death of Roosevelt) of the Manhattan Project and his (and Roosevelt’s) plans for implementation and monopolization, Truman concurred.

Truman wrote in his diary in July 25, 1945:
“We have discovered the most terrible bomb in the history of the world. . . . Anyway we “think” we have found the way to cause a disintegration of the atom. An experiment in the New Mexico desert was startling–to put it mildly. Thirteen pounds of the explosive caused the complete disintegration of a steel tower 60 feet high, created a crater 6 feet deep and 1,200 feet in diameter, knocked over a steel tower 1/2 mile away and knocked men down 10,000 yards away. The explosion was visible for more than 200 miles and audible for 40 miles and more. This weapon is to be used against Japan. . . . I have told the Sec. of War, Mr. Stimson, to use it so that military objectives and soldiers and sailors are the target and not women and children. Even if the Japs are savages, ruthless, merciless and fanatic, we as the leader of the world for the common welfare cannot drop that terrible bomb on the old capital or the new.”
(Quoted in Robert H. Ferrell, Off the Record: The Private Papers of Harry S. Truman (New York: Harper and Row, 1980) pp. 55-56. Truman’s writings are in the public domain.)

Official portrait of Harry S. Truman as president of the United States

Scientists, policy-advisers, and military experts had advised Truman during the late spring and summer months of 1945. In the end, Truman chose to use it. Three bombs were made by the summer of 1945. One, a plutonium bomb, was tested July 1945 in the New Mexico desert. A second, uranium bomb, was used on the Japanese city of Hiroshima on August 6, 1945. A third, plutonium bomb, was used against the city of Nagasaki on August 9. Japan surrendered on August 10, 1945.

Questions remain: for example, did the atomic bomb force the surrender of Japan, and if so, how? Although Japan was ostensibly a monarchy, the emperor had little authority, rather possessed a massive historical, symbolic presence. A war council had come to power after World War I, and this war council ran the country during the decades of Japan’s rise to power. In 1945, the war council, made up of six leaders, were evenly split as whether to surrender or to keep fighting to the death. They rejected the Potsdam Declaration of July 25, 1945, demanding surrender, as “unworthy of public notice.” Even after Hiroshima was bombed, and the Japanese realized it was an atomic weapon, that one bomb destroyed an entire city, the council was still split three to three. The destruction of Hiroshima, however, impelled Emperor Hirohito to act. In an unprecedented move, Hirohito informed the council that it was his will that Japan surrender. This broke the deadlock. About the same time that the U.S. dropped a second bomb on Nagasaki, the Japanese had determined to surrender. The A-Bomb had, apparently, swayed but one man.

A larger question, in light of the ensuing seventy years of Cold War, nuclear proliferation, and the potential of terrorists to use a nuclear weapon, is: was it moral, just, and right for the United States to use, and introduce to the world stage, such a Weapon of Mass Destruction? Critics and commentators have been divided on this question. Some have argued that the Bomb prevented, at least up to now, World War III. Others argued that the Bomb was a blatant show of force by the United States to gain the upper hand against the Soviet Union. Others have said that it heralded the rise of unrestrained human technology that is ultimately, uncontrollable.

It is obvious that Stimson and Truman embraced the moral theory of the end justifies the means. Indeed, has this not been the moral stance of the United States (as well as most other countries) during the 20th and 21st centuries? Although the West, including the United States, has generally embraced Just War Theory to justify military action, usually the moral standards for war are very simple: if the end seems just, then it is justified to use whatever evil means are necessary to accomplish it.

The end justifies the means, or to put it more simply, moral expediency, is the natural moral response to the human experience of time. When we are subject to the tyranny of the never-ending present, always balancing our memory of what has happened in the past with what we anticipate might happen in the future, we make decisions on what makes us feel best at this moment. Never mind how it once made us feel. Never mind how it might make us feel. Rather, how do we feel about it, now? When the pursuit of existence is feeling good, now, then there is no way behavior and the underlying motives can be otherwise than what is expedient, now.

Philosophy and religion tell us that by belief and religious/spiritual practice we can rise above moral expediency, to do what is right and good: not just now, in the moment, but in all moments, past/present/future, transcending time. Contemplating such virtue can make people feel good, though at the moment of action they resort to what their instincts, formed in time, tell them to do: what is expedient for survival, to live, to feel good.

Ultimately, then, what Truman and Stimson did was what anyone would have done: use the Bomb according to moral expediency, to save lives, to end the war, to feel good, in the moment, disregarding what religion and philosophy has taught, disregarding what the future results of their actions might bring, disregarding what Jesus or Buddha might have done. Such are the consequences of human time and its consequences, such as war, violence, murder, death, destruction. As long as we can avoid for now, put the inevitable (our own demise) further into the distant future—it is as much as we can do. To profess the ability to do something more is, after all, quite impossible.

Or is it?

 

J. Robert Oppenheimer

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Montaigne Revisited: Do I Play with My Dog, Or Does My Dog Play with Me?

Posted on May 6, 2016 by theamericanplutarch

Humans have long considered themselves the masters of creation. The Book of Genesis declares that humans are made in God’s image. The implication is that other forms of life do not reflect the image of God. Genesis declares further that all of the Creation, all other life, is to serve, or be at the disposal, of humans. The Pentateuch of the Old Testament goes even further, picking and choosing what forms of life are clean and what are not, which is an absurd idea, as what is clean or appealing or beautiful is in the eye of the beholder. (A bat or skunk might consider a human as disgusting as a human commensurately considers it.)

Also in Genesis, we find that after the act of creation, God considers His Work to be Good. This moral, qualitative declaration and judgment that the Creation is good implies that all things, animate and inanimate, alive as well as dead, past, present, and future, are good. Humans therefore have the moral obligation to treat all things, all of existence, as good, to cherish, to embrace, to love, to preserve. Is this not what all of the world’s philosophy teaches us? Do we not find such ideals reflected in Greek philosophy, Chinese philosophy, and Indian philosophy?

One of the great philosophers of all time, the French thinker Michel de Montaigne, was a combination Christian, Skeptic, Humanist in 16th-century France. He wrote wonderful essays in which he questioned human knowledge, questioned the human assumption that of all creatures the human is best, that of all sentient beings the human knows most. He asked pointedly, in one of his essays, The Apology for Raymond Sebond: “When I play with my cat, who knows if I am not a pastime to her more than she is to me?”

Indeed!

Why do we assume that animals are lesser creatures, lower on the old Medieval chain of being, that we are higher, next to God and the Angels? That we control the Earth with our technology is not an excuse. One could as easily say that an employer is better than an employee, or that a master is higher up that a slave. Why should we assume that life is graded according from best to worst, master to slave, essential to nonessential?

Perhaps we humans do not really understand what the essence of life really is; perhaps we are still in the state of preservation of species, like any animal. Do we have all of the senses necessary to know the truth? Are we superior to other creatures in this regard? If our reason is dependent upon senses, and if our senses are faulty, what then?……..

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The Sanctity of Life

Posted on April 30, 2016 by theamericanplutarch

In my last post, I discussed Just War. To continue…

The key to solving the issue, the plague, of war, just or unjust, is for humans to adapt a culture of life.

We are raised from infancy in a culture of death. Whenever anything is uncomfortable, inconvenient, or fearsome, we kill. So if a spider appears, I kill it. If a fly is on my hamburger, I swat it. My hamburger itself, of course, comes from a dead animal that was killed for my convenience. Because my culture is so advanced, I can eat anything I want anytime I want from a variety of forms of life killed for my convenience. If my yard is being destroyed by a mole, poison will do the trick. If a mouse is haunting my pantry, a mousetrap will stop it cold.

Death is all around us, and death caused by the human propensity to kill at will. We have few compunctions about taking life for our own purposes. Girls and women are taught that if a pregnancy is inconvenient, that it can be terminated—i. e., the fetus, a life, is killed. Some prospective parents will terminate pregnancy because the fetus has been determined to be “deformed,” hence kill and try again.

War is just an extension of the human propensity to kill other forms of life, now brought to the same life-form, ourselves. Because a person looks or acts differently, they are fearsome, and humans have long figured out that the easiest way to deal with fear is to cut it off at its apparent source—of course, the fear remains, often now combined with guilt.

Fear of the other combined with narcissism leads us to assume that we have a right to our possessions, have a right to defend ourselves (defensive war has long been the explanation for going to war), have a right to take another life to preserve our own life or our culture. Life as a thing of wonder and beauty is lost when all we can think about is me: my convenience, my safety, my rights, my possessions.

Jesus taught in the Gospels that life is to be treasured, life is sanctified. God concerned himself with even lowly forms of life such as birds. How much so does God concern himself with human life? Jesus said, “I am the way, the truth, and the life”—that last word, life, is the essence of the Creation, the essence of God, the essence of who we are.

Who, in short, has given us the right to determine who should live and who should die?

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