There are things one believes even though they're unknowable. I, for example, believe that since the advent of the elevator every child has wanted to push the button. I believe that soap bubbles will be chased hither and thither, vainly but gladly, for a brief period across generations. I also believe there's a solemn ritual that has taken place in a greater number and variety of homes than you could shake the most prolific stick at. It goes like this:
A friend of the parents who is a stranger to the child comes to dinner. On being introduced, the child hides behind her mother's legs and buries her face in the fabric that presents itself. It would be possible at this point to write down how the story will proceed to a happy ending and set aside the prediction in a sealed envelope for the child to marvel at in about an hour (if she could read). For a while, she'll listen to the grown-ups' conversation in woolly darkness. Then she'll peek out and study the visitor's face for another while. Presently she'll be standing in front of her mother, her body now relaxed though she keeps close. She'll allow herself to be implicitly included in the conversation, the grown-ups being wise enough to leave it implicit. By the time her mother must withdraw behind the kitchen counter, she'll be ready to show her toys and books. Then it won't be long till she's taken the visitor in hand, explained how one plays with the toys, and proposed a collaborative effort. When at last the dinner bell rings or the cook hollers, the new friends will troop to the table having pledged to play again. All in the space of an hour at most.
There's a lot about a child's early progress in life that you could chronicle beforehand with a fair degree of accuracy: the rite of bubble-chasing; the rite of deliberately stepping in puddles; the rite of shunning broad walkways for narrow edges to be negotiated like high wires; the rite of asking for the same story, read in precisely the same manner, again and again; and so on.
Such things are written in the stars beneath which each individual child gets to know the world. Our love for the particular child is undoubtedly infinite in itself, and yet it burgeons with adoration of the universal child. While actively studying a single child's uniqueness we passively witness the freemasonry of children and other primal elements, only slipping into the plural to note ad hoc what "they" do at this or that age; not quite accepting that they belong to an unseen society from which we have been cast out.
Before rational insight and religious belief comes pagan affirmation. In childhood we're mirthful little sylvan deities, each of us a whole string of them performing the rites of one brief existence after another. The end of an existence always grieves the surrounding grown-ups but not the child (save for one ripple of longing to be a baby again just for a little while). The child is unconscious of loss because, at least in this, nature is gentle.
Saturday, March 15, 2025
Wednesday, March 5, 2025
Fight Fire with Water
"They've got to fight fire with fire!" "It's time to DO SOMETHING!" Such are the reader comments that have lit up the website of The New York Times since Donald Trump and his enablers started off on their current rampage.
Being told to fight fire with fire is a bit hard on Democrats in Washington when the Republicans have won control of everything. About the only "fire" that comes to mind is obstructionism of one kind or another. That's not fighting with fire, but playing with it. Some people have suggested that congressional Democrats should force a partial government shutdown next week — thereby becoming the ones directly responsible for the consequent suffering and inconvenience. Yesterday, the irrepressible Representative Al Green (Democrat of Texas) disrupted Trump's address to Congress until he was ejected, despite the party leadership's prior plea for members to maintain decorum. Other Democrats booed and shouted catcalls. They may have garnered credit with the "do something" faction of copartisans (not that they could restrain themselves anyway), but it was no way to get the country behind them. Most people just don't like heckling.
Most people just don't like street protests, either. Even demonstrators for a patently good cause risk rubbing the general public the wrong way unless they stay on their best behavior and, for good measure, look like the general public's most flattering image of itself. The famous student demonstrations against the Vietnam War, which did dissuade Lyndon Johnson from seeking re-election, did not end the war and were never viewed favorably by a majority of the American people. The world over, "most massive rallies fail to create significant changes in politics or public policies."
More recent research confirms that observation and finds demonstrations becoming less productive as convening them becomes easier. Last May, Jerusalem Demsas of The Atlantic reported on a working paper at the National Bureau of Economic Research showing that efforts to organize mass demonstrations do succeed at consciousness-raising.
The something that needs doing by Democrats is not anything noisy. It's not a response that adds to the din surrounding Donald Trump or that seeks to evoke a sense of crisis before Trump has done so himself. It's a long game of noting the pits Trump digs for himself, the liabilities his minions bring on him, and the workings of his patrimonial administration. Note well, in detail, how it serves the rich and the well-connected at the expense of ordinary Americans, and store up the most damning examples. When a tale of betrayal has begun to coalesce in people's own minds, then give it voice for them. No argument is so forceful as one that's already incipient in the hearer's mind. All along, hold councils and evolve novel plans for a truly national response to Trump's malfeasance. Begin at once to instill discipline in the Democratic Party so that it can credibly recommit itself to the service of shared interests above all; above any assortment of special interests.
Don't pull Trump's chestnuts out of the fire by answering tantrum with tantrum. Let him scorch his chestnuts. Then douse the fire with the water of sane leadership.
Being told to fight fire with fire is a bit hard on Democrats in Washington when the Republicans have won control of everything. About the only "fire" that comes to mind is obstructionism of one kind or another. That's not fighting with fire, but playing with it. Some people have suggested that congressional Democrats should force a partial government shutdown next week — thereby becoming the ones directly responsible for the consequent suffering and inconvenience. Yesterday, the irrepressible Representative Al Green (Democrat of Texas) disrupted Trump's address to Congress until he was ejected, despite the party leadership's prior plea for members to maintain decorum. Other Democrats booed and shouted catcalls. They may have garnered credit with the "do something" faction of copartisans (not that they could restrain themselves anyway), but it was no way to get the country behind them. Most people just don't like heckling.
Most people just don't like street protests, either. Even demonstrators for a patently good cause risk rubbing the general public the wrong way unless they stay on their best behavior and, for good measure, look like the general public's most flattering image of itself. The famous student demonstrations against the Vietnam War, which did dissuade Lyndon Johnson from seeking re-election, did not end the war and were never viewed favorably by a majority of the American people. The world over, "most massive rallies fail to create significant changes in politics or public policies."
Behind massive street demonstrations there is rarely a well-oiled and more-permanent organization capable of following up on protesters' demands and undertaking the complex, face-to-face, and dull political work that produces real change in government.
— Moisés Naím, "Why Street Protests Don't Work" (The Atlantic, April 7, 2014)
More recent research confirms that observation and finds demonstrations becoming less productive as convening them becomes easier. Last May, Jerusalem Demsas of The Atlantic reported on a working paper at the National Bureau of Economic Research showing that efforts to organize mass demonstrations do succeed at consciousness-raising.
Yet in nearly every case that the researchers examined in detail — including the Women's March and the pro-gun control March for Our Lives, which brought out more than 3 million demonstrators — they could find no evidence that protesters changed minds or affected electoral behavior.
...
Protests are crowding out the array of other organizing tools that social movements need in order to be successful — and that has consequences for our entire political system.
The something that needs doing by Democrats is not anything noisy. It's not a response that adds to the din surrounding Donald Trump or that seeks to evoke a sense of crisis before Trump has done so himself. It's a long game of noting the pits Trump digs for himself, the liabilities his minions bring on him, and the workings of his patrimonial administration. Note well, in detail, how it serves the rich and the well-connected at the expense of ordinary Americans, and store up the most damning examples. When a tale of betrayal has begun to coalesce in people's own minds, then give it voice for them. No argument is so forceful as one that's already incipient in the hearer's mind. All along, hold councils and evolve novel plans for a truly national response to Trump's malfeasance. Begin at once to instill discipline in the Democratic Party so that it can credibly recommit itself to the service of shared interests above all; above any assortment of special interests.
Don't pull Trump's chestnuts out of the fire by answering tantrum with tantrum. Let him scorch his chestnuts. Then douse the fire with the water of sane leadership.
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