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I think the engine underneath the rejection of Hillary is that people =
look at her and see a face that they think believes itself better than =
them and that looks down on them. For people who were already under the =
power of resentment, that sets it on fire and opens this thing that is =
weirdly borderline with hatred. All the other stuff, news items or =
whatever, is just opportunistic window dressing that gets recruited =
after the fact as rationalization. Nobody cares about emails. If that =
hadn=E2=80=99t been available, it would have been something else. What =
they care about is indulging in rage at being =E2=80=9Cdisrespected=E2=80=9D=
.=20
I acknowledge the sophistication as well as the goodness of the Dalai =
Lama, and I defer to the willful positivity of the Buddhists who have =
been thinking about this systematicaly for nearly a thousand years, and =
I understand that they know things I don=E2=80=99t know. But I also =
work with primatologists, of which anthropology is a sub-discipline. =
The meanness of chimpanzees is probably retained from the recent =
ancestor, and it isn=E2=80=99t that far below the surface in humans. =
Whatever it is about social status, that gets wrapped up in the phrases =
=E2=80=9Clooking up to=E2=80=9D or =E2=80=9Clooking down on=E2=80=9D is =
big in us like it is big in them. Humans on some occasions have other =
layers of culture that put some checks on it, but that superstructure is =
not all that robust. I am not compelled by the Dalai Lama=E2=80=99s =
interpretation (for which I am nonetheless grateful) that this is about =
the loss of feeling needed. It is much meaner and more primitive than =
that; it is the resentment of feeling looked down on. =20
But now we have trouble. Americans seem to have a kind of negligent =
optimism that the mechanisms of democracy will still be there as a path =
to backtrack from mistakes they didn=E2=80=99t escape before. But the =
keys to everything have just been given to a strange hodge-podge of =
people, to none of whose members are the mechanisms of democracy =
anything particularly desirable. They are merely obstacles to their own =
small and predatory ambitions. I don=E2=80=99t take for granted that =
there will be mechanisms of backtracking the next time a calendary cycle =
rolls around.
The motive power here is the power of resentment, at the bottom. But =
mechanisms matter too, and individuals matter. A few articles here and =
there seem to me to capture large chunks of this in a way that seems =
coherent and clarifying.
There are architects like Newt Gingrich, as he is called out in the =
article from (2012) =E2=80=9CLet=E2=80=99s just say it: the Republicans =
are the problem=E2=80=9D. There is a systematic effort on all fronts =
all the time to dismantle the institutions of democracy to capture =
spoils in a competition. The method, for me, is best brought into =
clarity in the Malcolm Gladwell parable on David and Goliath, about the =
girls=E2=80=99 basketball team that won without particular skill by =
implementing the full-court press on every play of every game. Gladwell =
dwells on this as an honorable strategy because it employs conditioning =
as the thing that can be bought with discpline when there isn=E2=80=99t =
native talent. He comments, obliquely, that the teams of more skillful =
girls who were beaten in games were annoyed at being beaten by a =
full-court press. He doesn=E2=80=99t develop this, but I think it =
matters. For the skilled girls, they were in a _game_. The point of =
winning was to be a reward for being good at the play of the game. =
Their upset was that suddenly there was no game any more, there was no =
skill, there was no aesthetic to be aspired to or served. Winning =
became its own currency separate from whatever art the game had been =
meant to enable. The story has both sides, and there is credit due both =
where Malcolm calls it and where he bypasses it. But the analogy to me =
here is what happens when winning is separated from the game=E2=80=99s =
having a purpose in doing something else, which one might call =
=E2=80=9Cbigger=E2=80=9D. In basketball, the bigger thing was the =
cultivation of an art. In politics, it is the preservation of a =
society.
We have seen the full-court press. It is middle-American right-wing =
talk radio. It is the constant campaign of hysteria, over everything, =
everywhere, all the time, that Paul Krugman notes over and over in his =
columns. It is the congress=E2=80=99s commitment to demolish =
everything, to obstruct and to block everything. Because there is =
nothing they are trying to build or to accomplish, there is no currency =
with which to negotiate with them. Where there are no values, there is =
no foundation for rules of play. It is the district gerrymandering, and =
the voter disenfranchisement acts of closing polls and DMVs in southern =
states. These things work. Once a democracy is dismantled, the tools =
to oust the ones in power can only come from outside. But where is =
=E2=80=9Coutside=E2=80=9D when the keys to everything are handed over at =
the level of a country.
There are those who aren=E2=80=99t =E2=80=9Carchitects=E2=80=9D, like =
Gingrich, but rather these skinny venomous little blonde women who come =
out of the woodwork to fill local roles, or minor con men like Paul =
Ryan, or various slimy and disgusting and yet dangerous things like Ted =
Cruz.
I feel like these are the machery that channels the motive power of =
resentment and enables it to do things. The machinery matters, but if =
the motive power of resentment were not there, the machinery would have =
nothing to drive it or flow through it. Conversely, as long as the =
motive power is there, there are always architects and local operators =
who can come in and try their hand at machinery, and a kind of Darwinian =
dynamic will filter out the ones that succeed.
Under the power of resentment, there is no choice so mean, or so stupid, =
or so self-defeating that people cannot be led to make it. The ones who =
thought this was a good idea will plough themselves under as fast as =
they take down others, but there is no value in looking forward to that =
in vengeance. Facts matter in the real world of cause and effect, but =
in the choice world of resentment, they are beside the point. People =
under the power of resentment are unreachable in all those terms; they =
have shifted into a different space.
Somehow that is what we have to deal with. Any pleasure or luxury in =
analysis or speculation is no pleasure now. There is just what options =
are left. I do think that the mistake was, and will continue to be, not =
finding ways to stop the growth of resentment. A line in one of the =
English-language translations of the Dao de Jing goes =E2=80=9CThe wise =
rule by emptying hearts and stuffing bellies.=E2=80=9D I won=E2=80=99t =
claim to understand what original Chinese political theorists intended =
this to mean, but I do think the failure to take seriously the need to =
stuff bellies (and the more subtle and perhaps honorable human needs for =
safety, fulfillment, and freedom from want) hasn=E2=80=99t been taken =
seriously enough, for decades now, by any of those who were comfortable.
Now that all the keys are in the hands of the predators, we have fewer =
tools to work with than we had before. It would have been good if the =
sense of urgency to stop the undermining and the feeding of resentment, =
which I think Bernie felt and tried to speak for though without a =
serious plan to deal with the complexity of the mess, had weighed on =
more people before. But we are where we are now, and the question is =
what can hold off or reverse the coming active damage from here.
Locked
