My last post finished with a description of the many dimensions of a good life. Somehow, I forgot what I take to be the most central element: meaning. A life with meaning serves a good greater than oneself. For many, religion provides that dimension. It did for me during the early decades of my life, and I remain an appreciative observer. Today I’m going to work out what I, as both an insider and an outsider, observe.

A View from Within

I grew up Catholic. I went to Catholic school from grade school through college. A lot from those formative years remains with me: a comfort with philosophical reasoning, a repertoire of religious language, which for me now has metaphorical rather than literal meaning. Parables like that of the Good Samaritan, which honors generosity beyond the family, help me communicate with those who remain believers. Another legacy has been my understanding of conscience, not as a gut feeling, but as a carefully considered and informed conviction. Finally, my social conscience began with the encyclicals of the 19th century pontiff Pope Leo the 13th, who turned the Church’s attention to moral issues in a newly industrialized world.

Eventually, though, as I considered the theology I had learned, I realized that some of it would never make sense to me. The doubts that had nagged me for years finally prevailed. Most fundamentally, I could not make sense of the idea that an all loving, all-powerful God could have created this world so filled with suffering. I understand the importance of free will. But character could be built and good will tested without giving us the ability to hurt, torture, and kill one another.

I remain open to the possibility of other sorts of ultimate power. These, I am convinced, are beyond our ability to know.

My conscience, as well-formed as I could make it, led me out of the Catholic church

A View from Without

I reached the point of clear and declared unbelief only gradually. My quest led me to pursue graduate studies in philosophy. The secular environment there startled me with the condescension many expressed toward religion in general, and hostility and contempt toward Catholicism in particular. I heard the religious described as childlike, wanting the comfort of caring parents and the security of rules. All of that is sometimes true, but it’s far from the whole story. Most unbelievers lack much sense of how much more religion offers.

Part of the problem is that religion is often defined essentially as a set of beliefs. This is understandable given that bloody wars have been fought ostensibly about details of belief, but most religions are in part or even primarily a matter of practice rather than of belief. To consider oneself Jewish, for instance, is a matter of the community one identifies with, rather than about any particular beliefs. Being Buddhist requires following the eightfold path, rather than metaphysical commitments. Catholicism, for its part, is a sacramental religion, involving practice as much as belief.

Some scholars hold that the very word ‘religion’ was coined with Protestant Christianity, and its emphasis on faith, as its defining instance. And yet, for Protestants ‘faith’ means much more than simply a set of beliefs about facts. It means a trusting and life-altering relationship with Christ. I use ‘faith’ in a similar sense, but not, of course, focused on Christ, rather as a life-altering relationship to a set of values.

The boundaries between what counts as ‘religion’ and what does not are unclear, as is true of most words. I have come to see religion as a human response to intense suffering and to the ultimate mystery of the world. As a commitment to deep values shared by a community and expressed through stories, rituals, and symbols. Often it includes metaphysical commitments, but not always.

It’s clear to anyone that religion serves both good and evil. I think of it as an intensifier and I need not list here all the sorts of evil which have been done in its name. The more one believes that one has unique access to the will of God, the stronger the intensification becomes. I might say, the more dangerous it can be.

I write, not to excuse or “balance” the harm religion can do, but to fill out the picture, to show its contribution to a fuller life. It provides more than the comforts of childhood or the security of rules. To begin with, it provides community, whose rituals publicly mark the solemnity of life’s turning points. Baptism, for example, welcomes a child into the community; matrimony publicly commits two people or two families to one another; Yom Kippur requires acknowledging one’s wrongdoing. Sabbath days provide time for reflection. In these ways and more, religion often leads to a life better lived. Many studies have shown its benefits for both mental and physical health. (For more on this, see the book and the resulting podcast “How God Works.” )

Religion contributes not only to the lives of the faithful but also to the world around them. For example, Mennonites quietly stand ready to help during disasters like that of the Johnstown flood; Christians in West Michigan cared for children separated from their parents by Customs and Border Protection. And so on.

For Me, Now

If I were ever to rejoin a community of faith, given all that I’ve seen and all that I appreciate, I would want one with rich symbols expressing life’s unanswerable questions. I value the lack of dogma in Unitarianism but find little sense of mystery in it. I appreciate he long history of debate within the Judiasm. (As the saying goes: two rabbis, three opinions). Perhaps most attractive to me is Anglicanism, with its Book of Common Prayer that unites people whose beliefs vary widely.

However--and I suppose this is my personal mystery—I don’t find my community in any of these. I have been on, and off, a Buddhist path for decades. It is not a religion for me, but rather a wise way to live. Of religion, then, I remain simply an appreciative observer.

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Why I Write

Writing these posts is central to what gives my life meaning. Stiffened fingers and damaged eyes have made typing and reading essentially impossible for me, and so I am deeply grateful to the quiet generosity of friends whose listening and editing skills make it possible for me to continue.

Why are these posts so important to me? Sometimes because I want to convince the world, or at least several people in it, that they are wrong. I have wanted to convince skeptics that political activity is still useful, even required. I wrote to convince voters that the legal question about whether to criminalize abortion is different from the moral question of whether abortion is right or wrong. And I have argued that the word neoliberal has lost so much of its meaning that it is almost useless.

Other times, though, I write to sort out my own thoughts. I once believed that the pursuit of happiness is always self-defeating. Writing about happiness convinced me that we can at least clear space for it. And that in fact we should.

Sometimes, too, there is an unexpected but welcome “splashback”: writing “just stand there” made me recognize how closely scheduled I keep my life. Deep into retirement, the habits of decades of duties and deadlines still shaped my days. Now though, I sometimes spend time simply appreciating the dew on the grass or even the shadows on the walls.

Ironies

• When worrying keeps me awake, it can help to remember that I’m probably worrying about the wrong thing. Sorting through all that could go wrong is impossible and so I let it all go and fall asleep.

• I was sad to be glad when the U.S. lost to Belgium in the World Cup. A victory would have been tainted by Trump’s interference.

• Trump’s use of his power has weakened it. In the primaries, he engineered the defeat of candidates he considered disloyal . Most of those defeated were prominent members of Congress. Now, with nothing to lose, these lame ducks are free to oppose him.

• Protecting the frail can often endanger them. Those too weak to walk safely are kept in wheelchairs and in beds. Enforced inactivity causes muscles to atrophy and increases the risk of falling.

• Europeans will deal with this summer’s killing heat wave by installing air conditioning across the continent. The increased use of AC will increase carbon emissions which will intensify future heat waves.

Asking a Better Question

I’ve written occasionally about happiness, especially the advisability of pursuing it. I’ve said very little about defining it. Social scientists define happiness as a subjective sense of overall well-being. In contrast, when Aristotle spoke of eudaimonia, which is usually translated as “happiness,” he meant something quite different. The Greek word means fullness of life or the exercise of one’s capacities in a life that affords them scope. The Buddhist path offers yet another perspective, distinguishing happiness from joy. Happiness depends on circumstances, like marriage, one’s job, or good health. Joy, in contrast, is independent of circumstances. It is internal. It is the ability to be here now, attained by stripping away desire, aversion, and confusion.

For me, defining happiness is not the important question. The Important question is what makes a life good. One way to think about this is to ask what parents want for their children: a sense of well-being; the deeper joy to which Buddhists point; and the exercise of their capacities in a life that affords them scope--a life with enough money, with good health, and free from violence. Some of these things can be chosen, some can be sought, and some are outside anyone’s control.

Podcasts Worth Listening To

Ezra Klein’s interview with Pema Chodron. She’s a prominent teacher in contemporary American Buddhism. She amplifies the short description of the Buddhist path that I offered in an earlier post.

The How Wild podcast. As I’ve written before, almost the entire planet and certainly most of American soil has been shaped by human activity over the millennia. Given these facts,what does “wilderness” mean? This podcast asks whether and why we should protect the “natural world.” Rangers, scientists, hikers, and Tribal leaders share their views.

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In my last post I asked whether happiness is, as so many claim, simply a choice. Resoundingly, no. That was my answer. But I conceded the seductive half-truth in that common assertion: we can in fact help make happiness possible.

A reader I’ll call Joyce responded with passion. “I was fascinated by your recent post. The question of whether happiness can be chosen is, for me, utterly beside the point. I’m working instead on being OK with what is.” For her, “what is” means life as a partial amputee with Parkinson’s and increasing vision loss. Plus the almost universal aches, pains and fatigue of old age.

Joyce continues, “I’m old and someday, old age will kill me if a car crash or something else doesn’t do it first. I want very, very much to approach the end time peacefully. That’s why I spend time each and every day on the okay-ness bit, which seems to be related intimately to clearing the mind of useless, negative thinking and staying in the moment. The rare glimpses that I have had of this state of presence bespeak a joyfulness that’s way beyond anything I ever recall as ‘happiness’. We are so wedded to wanting things to be different from how they are. I spent a whole lifetime that way.”

I interpret Joyce as saying that the deepest form of happiness, which she calls joy, is attained by learning to see things as they are, rather than by trying to change them. It is important to note from the beginning, though, that she is not advocating passivity. Seeing things clearly enables wiser decisions about when to take action.

The time Joyce spends “on the okay-ness bit” is time spent meditating within the Buddhist tradition in its current American form. At its core, Buddhist meditation focusses on one’s present experience, without resisting the painful or clinging to the pleasurable; without storylines about how long the experience will last, or who is to blame. That ability to focus without resisting or clinging helps Joyce be in the present moment peacefully. Resisting pain makes it worse. Constructing stories about how it came to be is a distraction.

I have come to believe that Americans currently have difficulty seeing not only death but the realities of old age. We see it, so to speak, in our peripheral vision. We consider it a civic duty to care for the aged. For instance, as a nation we now provide pretty well for the medical needs of the elderly, thanks to Medicare. On a personal level, however, we tend to see aging as something that happens to other people.

It is rare for most of us to look at someone living in frail old age and recognize that “this will probably be me”. We look away, or we look on with sympathy or, worse, with pity, and wish to the marrow of our bones that it will never be us. But it very possibly will be. We are given advice about maintaining our physical and mental health—but those are measures to lessen the debilities of old age, not to prepare for living with them. We also need advice on how to become comfortable with the truth that decline sometimes can be slowed but cannot be stopped.

Notice, also, the admiration often expressed for those who have found peace with their new limitations. As appropriate as admiration may be, it can include a kind of distancing. “I could never do what you have done” can imply the hope or possibly the assumption that one will never have to deal with such handicaps. Again, it is a kind of looking away. “I am not like you. I am both luckier and less capable.” In truth, however, most people deal with life’s challenges, sometimes with surprising strength. Rather than distancing ourselves from those who are struggling it would be more useful to ask them for advice: “How have you managed this so well? What has been the hardest part?”

What else might help us recognize that we might be the elderly man in the wheelchair or the woman with dementia? And in fact, we probably will be. Meditation often helps. Spending time with those dealing with handicaps, whether due to age or other causes, is also useful if one can learn to relax with it, and yet at the same time avoid discounting it. It is there, it is real, and it is part of the human experience.

At the cultural level, it would help to have even more TV shows, movies, and the like include people who are disabled or very frail, whose disability does not define them but is simply part of the context.

Let me close with another story, overheard in an assisted living facility. One person was discussing a new physical problem. The listener responded, with a wicked grin, “It’s not going to get better.” And the speaker nodded wisely and agreed. In the short term, of course, that’s not always true. Wounds heal; some pain can be managed. But in the long run, we die. And that’s okay.

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In The Beauty of Dusk, Frank Bruni describes coping with vision loss. What happened to him was a far more severe version of what happened to me, and so I was particularly interested in the book. For him, the loss was not only severe, but happened in midlife, and coincided with the end of a long-term relationship. One thing that seemed to give him strength and hope was the stories of those who had, in some cases heroically, overcome blindness and other handicaps. One blind man climbed Mount Everest. Another man, the victim of “locked-in syndrome,” could control only his left eyelid. And yet he wrote a book. Stories like that meant nothing to me. They were as relevant to my life as life on Mars would be. Yet another -- and the story that threads throughout the book -- is that of a younger friend stricken by MS at an unusually young age. She maintained her energy and her cheer and lived a meaningful life even as the disease took its toll.

At times, Bruni seems to imply that happiness is a choice. That immediately caught my attention, not only because I’ve written on this subject before, but also because it’s an enduring philosophical question. My immediate reaction to the question is that to answer it with a simple yes is hurtful and false.

Hurtful, because so much in life is not chosen at all. That’s an almost unamerican thing to say. We are insistently optimistic, a can-do people. Yet it remains true that some of the most significant things in our lives are not at all chosen. Disease and accidents are the most obvious, but so are natural disasters, so are economic downturns, so are changes in the job market, and conflict whether violent or not. To blame someone in a war zone for not being happy is obscene.

Nor do we choose the temperament we’re born with nor -- at least directly -- what might be called our “happiness setpoint.” Researchers find that each of us has a sort of basic happiness level to which we return, even after dramatically good or bad fortune: after winning the lottery, for instance, or after going to prison. The immediate reaction to those events was of course euphoria or despair respectively. But after the initial reaction, most people returned to the level of happiness they had before the event. That resonates with my own experience after retirement. At first I felt a wonderful sense of spaciousness. Within a few years, though, I no longer marveled at my freedom. In fact, I wondered how I had ever had the time to do the job I did. I had returned to my setpoint.

For many reasons, therefore, I question the idea that happiness is a choice. I do recognize that there are powerful and important truths in this claim, that have to be unearthed from the simplicity of its framing. There are many things we can do to help ourselves cope with the harder parts of life. I have read that ability increases with age; that fits with my own experience as well.

One of the coping strategies now being touted is keeping a gratitude journal. My own version of that is at the end of the day to look back over the day, to notice the almost forgotten moments of pleasure and satisfaction. But I try at the same time to notice the harder parts of the day. I try to do so with some distance, not sinking into anger or fear. There are also the common recommendations of physical exercise, of socializing, of opening one’s perspective on the world at large, beyond oneself and, good Lord, beyond United States politics.

So yes, I believe that one can shape one’s reaction to hardship. The crucial word is shape, not decide or determine. And I believe that part of the process has to include being honest about how hard something is. The effort is to notice and bear witness to it, and then let it be. Not suppress it, not deny it, but just to let it be.

In one episode of the TV series “Call the Midwife” a young nurse grieves over the death of her fiancé. An older midwife, a nun, counsels her: “God is not in the event, but in the response to the event”. I don’t agree, God is in both or in neither. But I appreciate the appeal, and sometimes the wisdom, of emphasizing what we can control. Happiness cannot be chosen but it can be cultivated.

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Writing helps me sort out my own thoughts. Usually the sorting --and expanding or pruning-- continues after I publish. Last month I argued for the importance of treating nature as having value in itself. I now wish I had finished that post by remarking that we are not an invasive species, to the contrary we are the fruit of the earth. It’s been said that we are the eyes with which the universe regards its own glory.

But now some might say we are destroying its glory, or at least making it less glorious for us. Poisoned rivers, killing heat waves, and vanishing honeybees, are the result of seeing too many things simply as useful. It’s not that making use of the world is somehow wrong. Over millennia we have shaped the planet to our own needs and pleasures, creating places where we can flourish. But now we are shaping it in ways quite contrary to our own real needs and deeper pleasures. For that reason I want to expand some thoughts from my last post.

We are a tool-making species and it’s natural for us to see usefulness in any and everything around us. But it’s a tendency that needs to be curbed. In addition, we are in a hyper-capitalist country -or should I say world- which urges us to see things not just as useful for what they are, but for what they can be sold for. We need to slow down, limit commercialism, and appreciate things for what they are in themselves.

Does something similar hold for time? I remember one day when, after an intense week of appointments, visits, and events, I suddenly faced six hours of unscheduled time. I was alone, and unable to leave the house without help. For that matter, unable to do much inside the house without help. So here was a period of time that was truly open and empty. As I sat realizing the situation, I suddenly understood what a gift it was. Like most Americans, I think, even now in retirement and some degree of disability, things are scheduled. Little room for spontaneity, little room for simply staring into space.

As I sat there and began to relax, I understood why so many religions prescribe a weekly day of rest. I think we--perhaps Americans in particular--- treat time as something that must be used. We must keep busy, ideally in a productive way. So any minute is especially valuable if it is used for the sake of some future minutes. The Buddhist exhortation of be here now, is deceptively simple, but attainable only through practice. Learning to be still in this way leads to a richer and fuller life.

So just stand there. Let’s reject the idea that doing something is always better than just standing there. It’s not.

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Rachel Carson’s Silent Spring, published some 60 years ago, taught us that DDT not only killed weeds but also devastated bird populations. A silent spring would be one without bird song. Pesticides often did widespread damage, thinning eggshells, killing wildlife, and poisoning soil and water.

The book catalyzed the modern environmentalist movement, a movement that implicitly framed “nature” and human activity as opposites, and in conflict.

In the decades since, however, that framework looks more and more inadequate.

For me, it began to weaken when I read William Cronon’s Changes in the Land. This pathbreaking book describes how Native Americans had shaped Eastern North America long before Europeans arrived. English settlers marveled that there was enough space between trees in the forests that their horse-drawn carriages could travel easily. No cumbersome underbrush or grasses impeded them. The settlers did not recognize that native peoples had created that spaciousness. Europeans had not arrived, as they thought, on a vast uncultivated wilderness, fortunately, or even divinely, suited for their own use.

The documentary “Earth: A New Wild,” completed my conversion. I learned that what was true of Eastern North America was true almost everywhere on the planet: Wherever human beings live we change what’s around us, if only by eating and excreting -- just as hummingbirds sip nectar, pick up pollen on their wings and spread it elsewhere. And robins, having eaten berries, cast their seed laden droppings all around.

Much more often, though, the changes caused by humans are deliberate. The Anishinaabe, for instance, used controlled fires:

“to improve habitat, increase blueberry production, and clear the understory of vegetation. These frequent, low-intensity fires promoted fire-adapted . . . ecosystems”. National Park Service

The earth has been inhabited by, and therefore shaped by, humans for millennia. The simple opposition of “nature” and human activity does not stand.

Restoration ecology, one facet of modern environmentalism, takes as its goal restoring the “health, integrity, and sustainability of ecosystems that have been degraded by human activity.” Degraded. Not ‘changed,’ but ‘degraded.’ What’s the difference?

It’s not the difference between helping “nature” and helping ourselves; rather, it’s the difference between one way of helping ourselves and another.

That’s a radical statement. Let me explain.

Wheat, for instance, is for many the staff of life. For them, a wheat field is a great boon. But the same patch of land, used differently, filled not with wheat but with trees and animals and insects, provides us very different kinds of benefit.

Time spent there refreshes us. Those hours lower our blood pressure and our stress hormones; they increase endorphins. Benefits of that kind can be measured.

Others are less tangible and more important. To begin with, the sky is higher than our ceilings and the horizon further than our walls. Then, there’s an huge variety of life and community in land relatively unshaped by human beings. Elk and worms and trillium all find ways to thrive and reproduce. Trees in a forest communicate with one another. Butterflies die quickly, tortoises don’t.

Appreciating that vastness anchors us, and frees us from the small defended selves of ordinary life. Or, it can. And in a way little else can.

And there’s the rub. Those less concrete benefits happen only if we treat nature as intrinsically good, as good in itself, rather than as instrumental to our own good.

My take on this is paradoxical. Experiences in nature replenish our lives. But only if we treat nature as if it were good in itself, and not just for us. There’s a similar paradox with friendship link. Having friends is good for us in many different ways and social science has documented these. But being a friend because it is good for oneself is not actually being a friend. Being a friend requires valuing someone for their own sake.

In both cases, though, pursuing something out of self-interest can gradually lead us to value it for itself. I can set out to make friends because I know that will enrich my life. That will lead me to the first steps, the reaching out. But if I connect, I very soon care about the friend for her own sake. I wish her well, not just for her role in my life. Similarly, I might undertake what’s trendily called “forest bathing” because I’ve heard that it’s good for me emotionally and physically. But soon my tensions ease and I become engaged in the vastness around me; a diminished self-importance but an enlarged understanding of the whole of which we are a part. An intrinsic part, not an invader.

This is a different construal of why some of us value “nature” so much. To return to that wheat field. It might be growing wheat for the sake of feeding people. Or it might be grown ultimately for the purpose of making money. Feeding people is just a means to that end. So, the possibility of appreciating what the land is in itself, is doubly removed. Once for the sake of what it can provide us directly - food - and again for the purpose of making money for us, which we will use for other ends. If I’m right, the habit, the ability, to see things for what they are in themselves is crucial to a full human life. And so some uses of that patch of land contribute to that ability, others don’t.

So yes, let’s protect “nature” for its own sake. Learning to see it that way will deepen and enrich our own lives.

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It’s the season for hope. The old year is gone, the new one full of possibility. Predictions are made, resolutions formed. Both are likely to fail within weeks – and we know they will – but making them remains seductive, and the energy they bring is welcome.

Hope has many faces. Recently I learned the adage “Hope is a verb,” and welcomed it. In the face of bad news, it advises, do something. Write a letter, donate to a cause, help someone.

Taking action can keep hope alive, especially specific, goal-oriented, hopes. Immigrants are being treated badly? Help out at a refugee center. Sometimes a specific goal is, or seems, out of reach, but a wider one is probably in sight. I got through the Trump years not only by writing postcards but also by helping register voters, whatever their party. The point was to strengthen democracy.

I want to widen the lens in a different way, and talk about a kind of hope, not goal-oriented, which underlies almost everything we do. It’s a virtue, in fact an ur-virtue, making most of the other virtues possible. I call it open hope. It involves doing something, as specific hopes do, but in a quite different way.

Open hope is a stance toward the world: the constant awareness that always, somewhere, something welcome is about to happen. In one sense, that point is trivial. In the vast complexity of a constantly changing world, of course something good will emerge somewhere. What makes open hope desirable, in fact a virtue, is the habitual awareness of that simple truth, and a resulting emotional balance.

Open hope is the negation of despair and cynicism. But it is not self-deception. It does not claim, for instance, that good always outweighs evil. That’s not true. Nor is open hope the belief that in the end, good will triumph. Sometimes it does, sometimes it doesn’t.

Open hope does not involve yearning for a particular result. This is its deepest difference from ordinary hope.

Open hope is the complement of realism. Realism guards against overestimating the probability of good; open hope guards against minimizing it.

Open hope is a virtue. That word’s meaning has weakened over time, but philosophers remember that its root, vir, refers to character and strength. We define virtue as a disposition, a habit, acquired over time. Some people are born with a sunny disposition — they’re lucky. But a virtue is never just a gift of nature. Virtues are deliberately cultivated habits of mind and action, fostered because they enrich life -- one’s own, and the  community’s.

Open hope, as a virtue, is the habitual awareness that good things (pleasing, or admirable, or beautiful) lurk everywhere; that what lies ahead is uncertain; and therefore, that there’s always a possibility of something both new and good.

This awareness enriches life by keeping us calmer, by guarding against hysteria and despair. Those emotions are contagious, and so open hope protects those around us as well. The virtue makes it easier to see the world clearly. Only against a background of hope can I bear to know about the violence in Gaza, about addiction and homelessness here, about my good friend’s terminal cancer.

Religion, in many of its forms, offers that kind of hope: Someone is in charge, it will all be made right in the end. But that assurance depends on belief, which can’t simply be chosen. For me and many others, it’s not available. How do the rest of us nurture open hope? 

Here’s what I do.

To begin with, I curate my news. Not in the obvious sense, by avoiding bad news; nor by focusing on good news. Instead, I avoid “breaking news” and headlines. I skim the incessant coverage of Trump’s legal battles, noting the headlines but moving on. I’ll read Poland’s shift away from authoritarianism, and why body cams haven’t lessened police violence, and so on. It’s easy to be selective with print media, harder with streaming media; but even there one can choose. Both NPR and PBS, for instance, offer ways to make playlists.

Ending the day with a grateful review of what went well, the small, reliable pleasures we take for granted, also helps. Nicholas Kristoff ended 2023 with just such a list, for the world.

I avoid predictions, since they’re so often so wrong. A year ago most experts predicted a recession; instead, the economy is vigorous. And did anyone predict the present savagery in the Middle East? But it’s not just that predictions fail. I avoid them because they’re usually about headline events, not about the steadier, undramatic, parts of life. Open hope requires that we keep paying attention to it all. 

Finally, the sorts of actions that preserve specific, goal-oriented, hopes also protect open hope. Action reminds us of possibility.

Open Hope does not sustain illusions. It promotes an inner balance, allowing one to survive while still seeing the world as it is. It does not pretend that good always outweighs evil. Instead, the virtue keeps us aware that the balance of each constantly changes.  That, in fact, the balance is not just between good and evil but between joy and sadness, success and failure, love and hate. Open hope is the bone-deep knowledge that in most situations something good is possible; and that whatever happens tomorrow, it will not endure forever.

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Medical catastrophe stalked me last summer. It left me handicapped: I cannot write, I cannot walk unassisted, and texting is difficult. It’s been a hard year.

As the weeks and months passed, I remembered hearing that such experiences deepen one’s compassion for others. I kept waiting for that to happen; I imagined an upwelling of emotion at others’ suffering. That hasn’t happened. Something else, though, has changed: The Pollyanna filter through which I see the world has weakened.

Watching it loosen brought back an old philosophical question: What exactly is compassion? How does it differ from, say, pity, sympathy, and empathy?

I’m not going to sort through all the answers that have been given. What compassion meant to Aristotle is irrelevant, as are disputes about what the word “really” means. Instead I’m going to use its roots to describe my experience. Etymologically, ‘compassion’ means ‘suffering with.’ The word holds a sense of community, of commonality. Pity, in contrast, suggests condescension, from someone more privileged to someone less. No one wants to be pitied. We do want to be seen, to be recognized.

That’s more likely to happen when the other is suffering in a way we ourselves have done. When I lost a brother decades ago, friends who had lost a sibling themselves understood my loss best. Soldiers, widows, the destitute, must appreciate the same special resonance in others.

Those are specific forms of compassion. What I’m talking about, though, is universal. Suffering is universal. Savagely unequally distributed; nevertheless, significant in everyone’s life.

“Suffering with“ is not exactly what I’m describing. For one thing, “suffering with” can easily become “suffering because of.” We look away from the suffering of others when looking at it feels unbearable. We try to ease our own pain by easing theirs.

Some common responses aim at easing ourselves more than helping the other. Wishful thinking, exaggerated hope -- “You can beat this.” “You’re better every day”— can be hurtful, if the sufferer disagrees. A friend with Parkinson’s bites her tongue at those rallying calls. What she tells herself is quite different: “Enjoy what you have; harder days are ahead.” So, feeling trapped, she just smiles and murmurs “thank you.”

Pointing to a specific improvement — you’re walking further today – is better. Be careful, though; hope cannot be injected.

Bearing witness

I now see compassion more as “being with” than “suffering with.” I’ve gained a more honest recognition of the pain inextricably woven into life. I see more clearly what the world is about, understand more fully what I’ve always known but turned away from. To be more comfortable with the truth. An essential ingredient in helping someone else through their pain is bearing witness to it.

Sit quietly. Listen. Make space for them to speak, or not, about what they’re going through.

In the early days of last summer, as I first realized what was happening, a friend did that for me. She asked, “Depressing?” and then listened. Similarly, when I first entered a rehab facility, its doctor patiently reviewed my medical history. We sat, not in an office, but in a corner of an empty reception area. He finished by asking “Are you depressed?” To that standard question I always say no, afraid that ‘yes’ would trigger a psych consult or a push for more pills. That day, though, in the quiet, I answered honestly.

Practical help with specific needs is another form of being with, of bearing witness. It acknowledges the specific truth of their situation.

This ideal of openness, of being with, finds expression in many ways.

For Simone Weil, attention is a profound, active form of “negative effort.” Not concentration, but a radical suspension of self, making room to see the other.

In another realm, one of the corporal works of mercy is visiting the sick. Not healing them, as wonderful as that would be, but being with them. (The works of mercy are a Catholic formulation of ideals found throughout Christianity and, in fact, all major world religions.)

Finally, in the play “Death of a Salesman,” Willie Loman’s wife calls out, “He’s a human being, and a terrible thing is happening to him. Attention must be paid.” Those words have lived with me since I first heard them, long ago.

I try to provide that attention not only to others, but also to myself. It complements the habits of gratitude so often encouraged today. I practice them myself, and they have helped me. I’m offering a different, complementary practice: paying attention to one’s experience, without judgment, without seeking to change anything.

Some of what we see will be pleasing, some distressing. Rather than grasping the pleasure or suppressing the pain, acknowledge them and move on. Be here now -- emphasis on now. Not yesterday, not tomorrow. Of course we must make sense out of the past and plan for the future. We must often try to help, and to change things. But the default stance should be witnessing one’s full immediate experience.

Am I right in believing that dogs, in their own way, bear witness to their owners’ distress? Whatever. Let us all find our own ways of doing so.

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Reader Response: The Crumbling Years

• I have come to realize that doing something for a long (or a medium or a short) time does not mean I have to keep doing it. Somehow --- I don’t know why --- it was hard for me to figure that out. (Maryellen Symons)

• Slowing down is a gift. (Margo Smith)

• Each act of acceptance gives another [person] permission to also accept. Our culture wants us to ‘have a good day’ or to ‘rage against the dying of the light.’ I like the alternative: wasting no time or energy on unrealistic goals and, instead patiently and kindly offering acceptance. (Jacqueline Stewart)

• Some days the quiet might genuinely feel like freedom; other days the losses simply hurt. Both are true. Perhaps accepting this unresolved tension is itself one of the virtues of finitude. (Alice Goldbloom)

• Finitude provides focus: If our days are not exactly numbered, they are clearly limited. We have to choose what to do with them. (Tess Tavormina)

From sister philosophers, over the years.

• From Kate Lindeman, I learned years ago that googling “aging” will yield almost entirely sites on anti-aging.

• From Marilyn Frye I am now learning to honor the word “old .’ Not “senior citizen,” or any of the other euphemisms that are current. It’s hard to say the word old; it’s hard to say “I am old.” Because most connotations of the word are negative.

Finally, Margret Buchmann’s response to the post: She remembers the old ladies of her youth in Germany, glad to be done with so much. “The pursuit and presumption of extended youthfulness [in the US] is to me quite depressing.” Borrowing language from an Anglican hymn, she describes our lives: “Frail children of dust,” feeble, glorious, infinite and finite.

Reader Response: To The Beauty and Utility of the Imperfect

Early this year I wrote about the beauty and utility of the imperfect. Old age can provide both. Mary Ann Dimand responded.

• She referred to Hans Christian Anderson’s The Snow Queen. “Little Kay’s eye was morally infected. Due to the infection, he destroyed roses and his relationship with his family neighbor Gerda, because he found flaws in them.” We decry good alternatives because they aren’t perfect, even when we have no idea of what a perfect solution would be.

Reader Response: On labels and listening

I often write about the inadequacy of our political language.

• So interesting to read your post [on the various meanings of ‘conservative’ ] in the context of what’s going on with Marjorie Taylor Greene. Kind of where the fissures show at what being “conservative” means for the GOP. Linguistic flexibility in action. Like watching a glacier calving. (Pandora Andre Beatty)

• Labels can be useful, but I think it wiser to look at or use them with a leery eye. They too readily fossilize into teams, which framing propels all action, including thought, into triumphalist contest.” (Mary Ann Dimand)

Reflections

That term, ‘triumphalist contest’, reminded me of Republicans learning that the Olympic Committee chose Rio for the 2016 Games, that it had rejected Obama’s plea to choose Chicago. Jon Stewart remarked, “They hate Obama more than they love their country.” From the other side of the aisle, I remember some one saying, after Trump’s first election, that “I have to hope that he’ll be successful.” Those around her recoiled. She meant, I think, that we must hope that what he accomplishes turns out to be good. Very unlikely, but commitment to our country outweighs partisan assumptions.

Reader Responses: to Voiceless in Yellowstone

• Listening was probably a great contribution. If you would have been able to provide any contrary thoughts, would it have softened any hearts? Would it have caused any changed opinion? (Michael MAuliffe)

• The value of just listening. Being voiceless, voluntarily or involuntarily, is not always a bad thing. (Mary Ellen Symons)

My Reflections: On complications

Philosophers of my stripe -- analytic philosophers -- sometimes describe our work as complicating what seems simple, and simplifying what seems complicated. Most of what I do in this blog belongs in the first category, because I’m frustrated by oversimplification, especially in our political language. So I’m looking forward to watching Ken Burns’ new documentary series on the American Revolution.

I first broadened my understanding of that war when visiting Canada. I saw the possibility of a more peaceful course, a different way of moving beyond British tyranny. It took many years, but Canada’s civil liberties today are about the same as ours. At the moment, they may be more solid than ours.

Reading Margaret Lawrence’s murder mysteries also complicated my view of that war. (She is not to be confused with novelist Margaret Laurence.) The mysteries are set in revolutionary times in Maine; among other things they reminded me of the physical hardships of life centuries before electricity, of how dark the winters were. More startling, though, were mentions of POW abuse, even of torture. By the revolutionaries. Presumably by the Brits as well.

And so, as I’ve said before, time has inscribed three words on my soul: “You never know.” With a six word subtitle: “it’s always more complicated than we think.”

To be continued.

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As I was writing about JD Vance, a leading voice of today’s Christian conservatism, I began to wonder, as I have many times before, about what it means to be conservative. I came to understand that the word has different meanings in different contexts. Not a surprise, of course; that’s true of all words. But this one’s ambiguity is important today.

The root of ‘conservatism’ is ‘conserve.’ As the word is used outside of politics, it means, roughly, resistance to change, and skepticism about absolute claims. In that sense, I’m conservative. But I’m not a conservative. Being a conservative today means holding a set of political positions.

Thinking about the word’s broader meaning, I found it interesting to remember the Reformation. ‘Conservative’ was not used during those conflicts. But which group would deserve the label? The Reformers (Protestants), believed that they were conserving the genuine heart of Christianity. Roman Catholics believed that they were conserving the Church that had grown from the teachings of Jesus.

American politics today has a similar structure, and now the word has great power. Some who call themselves conservative are tearing down much of the government. (In the case of the White House East Wing, literally demolishing it.) This destruction -- slashing workforces, programs, buildings -- can be seen as conservative, in much the same way as the Reformers would count as conservative: destroying what is seen as wrongheaded, for the sake of something closer to the original, in this case the intentions of the Founders.

This program is abetted by a Supreme Court whose members were carefully chosen, over years, for their belief in a unitary executive – i.e. a powerful president. That belief, as a principle for interpreting the constitution, is radical. But many would call it conservative.

(I understand the intellectual appeal of such an approach. But the law has to do with reality, and the constitution was written 250 years ago in a world utterly unlike our own, by white men who didn’t believe it would or should survive more than 20 years. Adherence to what they meant, except in the most abstract terms, makes little sense today.)

Opponents of what’s happening in DC contrast it with earlier Republican (and therefore “conservative”) administrations. Most 20^th century Republicans, for instance, believed in free trade and fiscal responsibility. Donald Trump does not.

Commonalities and differences, though, are not the point. There is no essence, no common core, running through every position that has been called conservative. Instead there’s what Wittgenstein called “family resemblance.” Members of any biological family share some, but not all, characteristics of their ancestors. She has her father’s complexion, her mother’s nose, her grandmother’s musical ability, and so on. Most of her siblings, but not all, share that complexion; many have their uncle’s energy, some have their grandfather’s quiet. They’re all visibly related, but there’s no one feature shared by all.

To put it another way, ‘conservative,’ like its corollary “liberal,” is a shape shifter. Those who call themselves conservatives today are roughly aligned with the Republican Party as it has become under Trump’s leadership. That’s different from what mid-century Republicans endorsed. That in turn is different from what the party under Abraham Lincoln sought. For that matter, there are vast differences among those who call themselves conservatives today. Some are, for example, “never Trumpers.” Everywhere within Republican, or conservative, ranks there’s disagreement about support for Israel. And, as I write, about ending the government shut down.

It’s pointless to ask whether any of today’s Republicans are “really conservative.” The real question is the rightness, the righteousness, of their position. It’s also crucial to separate various “conservative” positions from others. Someone could, for instance, oppose the death penalty, but support ICE. Or vice versa.

Our politics do not lie on a single line from left to right. Nor is there some essence of liberalism and another essence of conservatism. That assumption reinforces our silos. I’ve heard a speaker, an academic, begin his talk -- critical of school vouchers -- with pictures of himself as a choirboy. He felt a need to assure his audience that he was not anti-religion.

Similarly, an epidemiologist, in his book critical of the CDC’s actions during COVID, began with a list of his liberal credentials. Because many on the right demonize the Center, he wanted to reach others with a more complex critique. But first he had to convince his audience that he was not a “conservative,” who liberals believe are wrong about everything.

There are remedies for these blinding silos. Ann Mongoven, a gifted teacher and colleague, requires students who use terms like liberal, conservative, fascist, socialist, and so on, to specify what they mean by the term. We could try to do the same in ordinary conversation, even with people we generally agree with. Asking that, even of ourselves, should make conversation more productive. As it did for me a few years ago, when a friend used ‘neoliberal’ in a way that confounded me. I learned a lot from that trek into language.

Let’s all keep wondering. Let’s all keep learning.

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Golden Girls, the 1980s sitcom classic, was part of an important cultural change. It challenged, and then upended, the assumption that people over 60 lead unimportant, diminished lives. As James Chappell points out, though, Golden Girls not only valorized old age, it distorted it. The last decades of life are not just a time of dancing, dating, and travel. By the time we reach 80 -- often much sooner -- it’s clear that our bodies have irrevocably changed. Even if we are personally lucky, many of those we love are not.

Life ends. For many people it ends slowly and painfully. Like old cars, no matter how classic, no matter how well maintained, we eventually crumble. Claims that “age is just a number” are double edged -- they focus on the ways in which old age is like middle age, and ignore the essential differences, the diminishments. Ignoring them makes it harder to see and then cope with them.

Like most people, I wanted to remain able bodied until just before death. Death could come via lightning strike, a two ton truck, or a heart attack—whatever. But again, like most people, I did not get what I wanted. Instead, I am now fully in the crumbling years, a stage of life I’ve avoided thinking about. So does the culture at large. We talk about, obsess about, how to avoid crumbling; rarely about how to live fully while crumbling. As Chappel points out, keeping those years in shadow keeps us from recognizing what they teach us, and what they give us. About what he calls the virtues of finitude.

The phrase caught my attention. During my academic life, I often wrote about virtues: ways of living well that enrich one’s own life and that of others. Virtues raise interesting questions. What makes honesty valuable, for instance? When does it cease being a virtue, and become truth dumping? What is humility? And so on.

VIRTUES AND FINITUDE

I wanted to ask similar questions about the virtues required in old age. But first I had to identify them.

The first, surely, is realism. Few of us can live as we did in midlife. The claim that age is just a number deludes us about that.

Almost as basic is the attitude one takes toward the losses. Anger is natural. Eventually though, it’s important to move on. Call this virtue acceptance. Not passivity, but finding peace with what is inevitable. No longer wasting energy hating what has happened. There are various ways of calming oneself after the storm of denial and rejection; meditation among them. At any age we admire those who achieve equanimity in the face of hardship and loss. The old should be particular exemplars of this.

Practical steps toward facing the present, and putting the past behind us, would be welcome.

Learning to see honestly, and to let go of the past, will always take time. And so the virtue of patience, with oneself and with the world, is also crucial.

THE GIFTS OF FINITUDE.

The phrase, ‘the virtues of finitude,’ led me along professionally familiar lines. Slowly, though, I realized that it could be interpreted differently. Finitude, a feature of everything in life, has its gifts. Pushing against our limits can be heroic; it can also be a waste of time. Limitations provide structure and challenges of their own. Sonatas, sonnets, and other forms of art, gain beauty from fitting within a form. More commonly, setting aside what we can no longer do provides space. I’ve written about that earlier.

When David Hilfiker, a noted bioethicist, was diagnosed with Alzheimer’s, he said his first reaction was relief: Now he could set responsibilities aside. Similarly, a friend’s father, in his 90s, lived with her family for some years. She remarked that he provided a quiet space within their busy household. When the old begin to downsize, leaving their home for a smaller space, they miss what they have given up. But they also appreciate, finally, time to breathe. As my own life changed, I noticed a lifetime habit filling every minute with something “useful.” I’m learning instead to stop and just look around for a while. I like the sense that I can calm down, notice my anxieties, and pay attention to the world beyond me.

There are many gifts of finitude. If life’s last, frailer, years were more commonly talked about, we could more easily appreciate the space it creates. The gifts and the losses sometimes balance one another, sometimes they don’t. But both are real.

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Last spring, as the Vatican prepared to choose the next pope, I watched the movie “Conclave.” I enjoyed it immensely. Granted, it was Hollywood at its finest, but I enjoy a sugar high as much as anyone. The setting perhaps moved me most, reminded me of what I cherished about my Catholic background: the beauty of the art, the architecture, the music, and the language, all for me pointing to profound values and mysteries. And all of which I now interpret metaphorically.

The conclave itself ended quickly and surprisingly. Along with many Americans I’ve enjoyed the sense that Leo XIV is “one of us.” He went to high school in Michigan!

I’m less pleased with his being called “the American pope.” He was a citizen of Peru, lived there for 18 years, and I believe was chosen because he represents not the United States but the Americas.

His choice of names spoke powerfully to me. The last Pope to have that name, Leo XIII (1878-1903) wrote an encyclical that formed my social conscience. I remember particularly its assertion that employers owed their employees a living wage, and its support of unions. Leo XIII essentially began the social justice teachings of the Church. Leo XIV’s choice of name was clearly deliberate. He will follow in the somewhat progressive footsteps of his immediate predecessor, Pope Francis.

J.D. Vance

In one of those progressive moments, Francis confronted JD Vance. A rising political conservative, Vance had become Vice President of the United States. A convert to Catholicism, he searched his new faith for ideals aligned with his political principles; in particular indifference and even hostility to immigrants. He thought he found such support in a phrase used by both Augustíne and Aquinas, odor amores (the order of love). For them, the phrase meant that the proper primary object of love is God. Everything else comes second. Vance took it to mean that the first object of one’s responsibility is their family; the further removed anyone is, the weaker their claim on us.

Francis responded with a letter to the bishops --not naming Vance, but refuting what Vance was saying.

Christian love is not a concentric expansion of interests that little by little extends to other persons and groups. The true ordo amoris is that which we discover by meditating constantly on the parable of the ‘Good Samaritan,’ that is, by meditating on the love that builds a fraternity open to all, without exception.

Others pointed out that the church honors priests and nuns, who have left their families and created none. And that Jesus asked his disciples to leave their fathers and mothers and come follow him.

JD Vance did not do his due diligence. When the story began to hit the news, I chuckled. I saw in him the zeal of the new convert, often exaggerated and inappropriate. The whole story just seemed ludicrous.

Briefly, however, I wondered if I should see him as a reformer, calling the church to his vision of its original message.

Still Wondering

I wondered because I particularly appreciate those believers who are willing to scrutinize their faith, to question what their co-religionists believe. Some faith traditions deliberately makes space for differences of conscience; the Anglican community, for instance, uses the Book of Common Prayer. Although everyone speaks the same words, each person may have a personal interpretation of what the words mean.

Recently I’ve read about a fundamentalist pastor, shocked to his core when his son came out to him as gay. Instead of instantly rejecting him, the pastor began to think more deeply about the faith at the center of his life. After some months he concluded that at its core it was not hostile to homosexuality. He welcomed his son, and remained a pastor trying to open the hearts of his congregation.

I am also fond of a fictional character, Sally Ransom in Amor Towles’ The Lincoln Highway. Her cooking and cleaning were the bedrock of her family. In one passage, she challenged the biblical account of Jesus praising the contemplative Mary over the hard working Martha. Sally did not blame Jesus. Instead she blamed Matthew, Mark, and Luke for getting the story wrong.

Sometimes dissent grows larger and becomes a call for reform, possibly even secession.

I welcome dissent and understand reform can be necessary and good. Vance is a figure of neither. He didn’t know the history of the church, and its millennia of reflective writing and teaching. Nor did he bother to find out. He had a political point to make, and grabbed without thought a phrase he thought would serve that point.

I no longer find Vance amusing. He’s too influential, and his message, too destructive. Instead, I have hope. First for modest progress in the Church under Leo XIV. He has already joined Francis in reinforcing the Catholic, the Christian, ideal of universal love.

I have an equally strong hope that J.D. Vance will stay in his lane.

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I was hospitalized last summer. I remember suddenly entering a bright, colorful, supermarket-like space, noisy and overwhelming. Almost everything single-use, almost everything made with or covered with plastic.

My home, the world I came from, was different. I had as little plastic as possible. My gospel was reduce, reuse, recycle. I had few highly processed foods.

So no wonder my sense of shock. But at the same time, I was grateful to have my life saved.

The hospital world

I had not been hospitalized in decades. Everything had changed. In the 20^th century, I woke every morning to my primary care doctor making his rounds. Today, other doctors—hospitalists— are in charge. They work in the hospital, and often do not have private practices. This is an excellent change. Hospitalists are immediately available, and trained in treating ongoing disease. At first I was disconcerted; “my doctor” was whoever the computer designated for that time and room. But in fact , I met with the same doctors daily.

Since I’d worked in bioethics, I noted that I was asked about pain at every turn, and offered a fair amount of autonomy –- frequently someone reminded me that I could refuse a procedure. Confidentiality was absolute – I was referred to as “441,”my room number.

In rehab both were reversed: pain was never inquired about, my name was known to everyone.

In both settings I learned more about the roles of aides and nurses. I had an impression of nursing as giving injections and fluffing pillows. The job today is far more technical, involving machines and various other devices. Perhaps that’s the reason men are now attracted to the fields—not just the relatively short training, and good pay.

Charting should be easier, since clicking on the code on my wrist band automatically recorded everything done. But when I asked a nurse, she answered that more things now must be recorded, so it feels about the same.

Which brings me to my most basic question: What is this institution’s bottom line? In theory it’s good patient care, but if that were the real issue, they would hire more aides. Always these most poorly paid workers are overworked. On the night shift a single aide might be responsible for 25 patients. And there’s a lot to do: helping each patient toilet, getting them ready for bed, passing medications at prescribed times, hanging IVs, connecting oxygen, and more.

There are two major health care systems in town. They’re clearly competing, but for what, and why? A simple profit/nonprofit distinction is not instructive.

The World of Illness

Before I was well enough to observe all this, I noticed my own feelings. My cover memory of those earliest days, when I was struggling to understand how sick I was and how to get help, is of fighting through a jungle, which of course I never did. And of throwing myself on a hotel bed, thinking that at last the day was over (I was with a tour group, and in denial.)

More deeply, what I felt for a long time was not denial but rejection. I felt as if a black cable connected me to the center of the earth: “Stop! I hate going through this. I reject it.”

A little later I realized that everyone in a bad place, perhaps especially suffering a sudden blow, probably felt the same. That may be the most important thing I learned.

“Look on the bright side” and “It could have been worse” were useless. I looked at pictures of people dancing, swimming, whatever – I felt nothing. I had only the knowledge that my species enjoyed these things, as I once did. I tried the Buddhist method: simply be here now. Hope increases the chance of disappointment. Be HERE, NOW.

I have to say, though, that only signs that I was improving lightened my mood, let me recognize and remember pleasure.

The world to come

As I recuperate, I sometimes speculate about the world to come. We are at the end of the American century, when we were the essential nation. The things that made us so strong are being gutted. But after the needless deaths, betrayals, and disruptions, we will emerge, I think and hope, as one of three great powers: China, Europe, and the US. Economically that’s about where we are already. The one point of Trump’s with which I agree is that Europe has not done enough to protect itself, and not just militarily. As I watch our own country destroy itself, I hope Europe will find its own power. America’s role hasn’t been good for the world or for us.

For one thing, we deceive ourselves. Current talk of “soft power” sometime makes me wince. Much of our apparent generosity has been transactional. The Marshall Plan, for instance, which most of us think of as our finest hour, was meant to keep newly recovering countries from aligning with the Soviet Union. In other cases shipments of grain were approved only if the grain and the ships were American. We betrayed our collaborators in Vietnam, just as we are doing now with Afghan supporters.

Other motives were arrogant: if you, poor deserving countries, could only be more like us, you’d be better off. Not all our programs were like that, of course. But we should be careful about patting ourselves on the back.

Here’s to a better future, when America no longer rules alone.

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A few days later I was hospitalized with Covid, bi-lateral pneumonia, and sepsis.

Medically complicated, personally hard. I’m home now and gradually recovering, with the help of a solid network of friends. I have more to wonder about than ever. Possibly I will find something witty or wise to say. There are lots of thoughts swirling in my head; along the way, I made notes.

But for now, I just want you to know that I’m still here, and eager to write again. It, and you, have been an engine of my life for three years, and I want that to resume.

Just give me a while!

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Yellowstone National Park is magnificent, majestic, gorgeous. My week there was miserable.

The trouble was not with the Park, nor with my tour group. The trouble was with the three-alarm response my immune system sends out. A grain of pollen might as well be an invasion from Mars. I’m thrown into laryngeal spasms: convulsive coughing and an inability to start or finish words. Silenced.

Yellowstone is not unusually filled with allergens. I’ve been through these flareups other times, other places. Last week, besides the laryngeal spasms, I was sleep deprived and dealing with a virus. Add to that the elevation. I was far too tired to keep up with the group.

And so I found myself voiceless and exhausted, sitting within the massive log walls of the Old Faithful Lodge. Gradually a group of overweight middle-aged men filled in the chairs near me. When all the chairs were filled, a newcomer sat on a radiator rather than ask me to move. Old friends, the guys began shooting the breeze: sports, travel, TV, politics. A swipe at Biden; another at DEI. I listened idly, since I couldn’t have spoken in any case.

Suddenly a sentence leaped out at me. The most outspoken among them argued that one particular group of the undocumented should not be deported, at least not in the way it’s being done. In his words, they had crossed the border, said “Hi, I’m here,” then got jobs and built lives. He understood that the rule of law – I doubt he’d use that exact phrase -- might require that some be eventually deported. “But not like this. They don’t deserve this.”

I remembered my last post, about personal conversations across our political lines. At that level, it’s more important to connect than to convince. We need to weaken the assumption that only on our side of the line is there any truth.

If I had had a voice, I would have said “I agree.” And that would have been enough. One more chink out of the walls that separate us.

As hard as the week was, it left me not only with that one special memory but with many things to think more about. In particular, the concept of wilderness. What is it, exactly? Does it still exist? Is it worth preserving? Why? And how?

A couple of lighter observations. Kudos for a Park that forbids plastic water bottles. Hotels give away metal ones. Thumbs down to a state that does not require grab bars in hotel showers. Unsafe!

Finally: What gives us such pleasure in seeing wild animals in the wild?

More soon.

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I’m weighed down by the relentless destruction being waged, its cruelty and waste. The shadow is familiar. It’s what I felt during the years a friend drank himself to death.

The situations are different, of course. For one thing, his descent was slow and gradual; it didn’t directly affect me. My worry was constant but distant. Trump’s carnage, in contrast, makes the headlines daily, and is hurting people I know.

Nevertheless, my feelings now are painfully similar to what I felt then: grief, helplessness, and inexorability. Most of all the aching knowledge that things didn’t have to be this way. In my friend’s case, I don’t know what went wrong; I do know that addicts sometimes recover, but he didn’t. In Trump’s case, we all know some of what created the perfect storm. Analysts will continue to find more.

For this blog, what interests me are the factors I can address; that, in a sense, I can do something about. I can make some points for some readers, who may talk to others, who next time – some other election, years away – will vote differently. This is a teacher’s hope, I suppose. I’ve always been a teacher.

What led to Trump’s election?

Democrats’ missteps. The party’s mistakes are being dissected, and I’m glad. Public health failures during Covid, though, need still more attention, and I hope in time to address them. For now, let me recommend Within Reason, a professional’s searching criticism of his own field.

Mistaken conventional wisdom. In recent posts I debunked some common assumptions. “Shock therapy,” for instance, is rarely therapeutic. Nor is success in business relevant to success in governance. The corollary, that business does everything better than government, is also false. I hope to write about that, too.

News: Fake, misleading, and siloed. Walter Cronkite is long gone. We now read and listen to wildly divergent voices. That could be good – a variety of perspectives can be enlightening. In fact, however, fractured news sources alienate us from one another. I will suggest some remedies.

Polarization News stories are not the only reason for our silos. Most of us shrink from anything even slightly tainted by “the other side.” I want to lessen that.

Shared fallibility

I wish no one had voted for Trump. But many did, and so I’m glad I know a few. Knowing them keeps me from the oversimplification, even demonizing, that is so tempting.

First, a reminder about how human minds work. They are not computers. The frames through which we see the world shape how we understand it: We ignore some information, and what we take in, we try to fit into the beliefs we already have. We’re hard-wired to make various cognitive errors: to be attracted to black-and-white stories, to weight the immediate over the distant. Beyond that, emotions grey out some information.Further, there’s group think. The people we live with inevitably shape our beliefs.

All of these natural errors probably have survival value. They’re imperfections, but useful ones.

Recognizing their existence matters. It can keep us more patient with one another, and more critical of ourselves. It can help us maintain respectf across differences, and more open to new perspectives. These are moral exhortations, I know, but I make them on practical grounds. Polarization is part of what gave us Donald Trump. Not all his voters liked him: Some were instead viscerally repelled by us.

Respecting Trump voters

The Trumpsters I know – friends, neighbors, family -- are decent, often much more than decent, people. Their reasons for choosing him fall into three roughen and overlapping groups. For some Trump voters, it was a deep antipathy to “liberalism.” For others, it was an almost utopian commitment to a radically different government, either a “unitary executive”president or Christian nationalism or both. Some in each of these camps disliked, even despised, Donald Trump the man, but saw him as necessary. For a third group, Trump was something like a savior, bringing truth and righteousness to the country.

Those commitments, like our own commitments, are matters of faith — sometimes in a religious sense, but mostly in a broader sense. Faith is a commitment that shapes one’s actions, beliefs, and emotions; a commitment held despite unconvinced others, and often understanding that evidence is not objectively conclusive. Think, for instance, of parents’ faith in their children, or scientists’ in their research.

And think of revolutionaries’ trust in their leaders and their ideals. Many Trump supporters have begun suffering from his policies. Nevertheless they accept the hardships, for the sake of a greater good, as revolutionaries have always done.

Faith changes slowly. Decisions to end a marriage, to abandon a career, to discard a creed, happen slowly. For that reason, there’s rarely much point in throwing facts at the people we disagree with. Instead we need to erode the walls that separate us. Here’s the lecture I give myself: When painful topics come up, listen. Instead of arguing, find out what you can learn – at least, how the world looks to them, but possibly more. Listen for something you can agree with. The point of the conversation should be not to change their minds, but to connect with them as citizens.

Political rhetoric often does the opposite. It encourages mutual contempt. The stronger that contempt, the stronger the walls that separate us. And the thicker those walls, the more trouble the country is in. Let’s be patient with one another.

Caveats: First, these suggestions are about ordinary personal interactions. Efforts to persuade lawmakers can be, often must be, confrontational. Secondly, whenever I point out that faults occur in both or all sides — and I do that all the time — I am never implying that the faults are equal. Nor that either justifies the other. Those are different questions.

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With my next post Still Wondering will finish its third year. Writing it is the most gratifying thing I do; I’m grateful to every reader.

It’s still true that each post has a life of its own. I usually start with what I think is a single clear point. Fairly soon, the writing morphs, into something larger or just different. As a result it often takes me three weeks to write a substantive column. Another reason for that is my desire to keep each post relatively short. (There’s an old saying: “I would have made it shorter, but didn’t have the time.”)

I want to keep in touch more regularly. So again — I tried this about two years ago — I’m going to write occasional informal posts, between the longer more serious ones.

Today, thoughts about something that gives me hope: disagreements among Republicans in Congress. Until January 2027, they’re the only ones who can rein in this president. These members of Congress are close enough to the action to know that Trump needs to be constrained, for his own sake, let alone that of the country and the world; in fact, for the party itself. Conservatism comes in many forms. His is not one to be proud of.

So I share with you this clip, describing a few senators who are speaking up. They want more pressure on Russia to lessen its strikes on Ukraine. I’m not sure what I think about the war in Ukraine; what I do know is that I appreciate dissent within GOP ranks. They’ve been supine.

Similarly welcome is Josh Hawley’s resistance. I have despised this man, who raised his fist in support of the January 6 insurrectionists. There’s blood on his hands. Now, though, he has voted to protect consumers from bank overdraft fees, worked to cap out-of-pocket insulin costs, walked union picket lines, and publicly opposed cuts to Medicaid.

Finally let me recommend the Substack blog which reported on Hawley’s recent positions. The blog — DemocracySOS — focuses on structural changes in politics, changes we badly need.

Have a good week.

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As I watch the country being dismantled, I am not much interested in Donald Trump himself; he is what he is. Rather, I’m interested in beliefs that brought him to the presidency; mistaken beliefs, about the way the world works. I’d like to debunk them, hoping that they play no further role in elections.

As I wrote earlier, one factor was faith in “shock therapy,” which Trump promised (and has delivered). Occasionally quick brutal change is useful, more often it’s simply destructive.

My target this time is another appealing belief: that success in business is good preparation for success in governing. As plausible as that seems, the assumption is false. Success in the corner office is irrelevant to success in the oval office.

Countries are not businesses

Running a business well is a major accomplishment. Governing well is, too. But the two kinds of success are quite different, each requiring specific skills and mindsets.

On the surface, the two jobs look similar. Both involve making complex organizations work well. To begin with, though, the degree of complexity is vastly different. Mathematicians tell us that the nation’s economy is “not hundreds, but tens of thousands of times more complex than the biggest corporation.”

Which is to say, the United States economy cannot be “managed” in the way that a corporation can be.

Still, although corporations are managed by their CEOs, they are governed by boards of directors. The role of the board is a closer analogue to that of elected officials. Governance means setting goals and policies, establishing limits, providing oversight. The board provides an outline, and the CEO fills it in, makes specific things happen.

Can a country be governed in the way that corporate boards govern? No. The two forms of governance are different in every way. Let’s start with the bottom line.

Bottom Lines

Companies have bottom lines. States and nations do not. Better put, they have many, for many domains, but none work the way numbers do in business.

A company’s bottom line is its net income, its revenue minus the costs of doing business. Investors look at the company’s current net income and speculate about future earnings. Investors look for profit and the promise of more profit.

There’s no such bottom line for a political administration. Many numbers are relevant: inflation, unemployment, crime rate, population growth. Health statistics matter, too: maternal and child mortality rates, preventable deaths, and so on.

None of these, though, is the bottom line. Governors and presidents are held responsible for the overall well-being of their constituents. Well-being cannot be captured in a single metric, and even defining it is open to disagreement.

Scope of knowledge

Successful CEOs know particular sectors deeply. Presidents’ responsibilities are far wider. CEOs understand what tariffs mean for their own businesses. But understanding the effects of tariff regimes effects on the economy as a whole is an entirely different matter. What helps CEOs run a business won’t help them formulate national economic policy.

Scope of responsibility

The scope of responsibility in political office is vastly larger than that of CEOs.

In the United States, most corporate officers believe they have only one responsibility, legally and morally: to maximize profits for stockholders. The premise is that they operate with other people’s money, people who have invested solely for the sake of returns.

The argument is relevant only to publicly held, for-profit businesses. Whether or not it’s persuasive, the argument is plausible, and in this country it’s rarely questioned. And its logic requires making everything else secondary to profit.

For example, protecting the environment matters only if it helps the bottom line. Hence ‘greenwashing,’ done only to boost sales. Similarly, employee welfare matters only if it’s necessary to attract workers, or is good PR, or increases efficiency, or in some other way increases profit. Cities rise and fall by the businesses within them, but those businesses are – must be, the logic says -- indifferent to the fate of the cities. GM left Flint, for the sake of GM. Flint died. GM, many believe, is not allowed to care.

In contrast, a governor or president has responsibilities for everyone. Often that means protecting common goods: benefits that by their very nature can’t be individually owned, like clean air and safe streets, and therefore can’t be monetized. Other times governments protect groups of individuals who are relatively powerless. Labor and occupational safety laws protect workers; Social Security protects the elderly, the disabled, and families without a breadwinner.

The achievements that make us revere our greatest presidents protect us in ways that private enterprise cannot. Much of them, in fact, make business as we know it possible. These presidents broke trusts, created systems to keep food and drugs safe, maintained a stable currency and made banking safe. They protected judicial independence. They created interstate highways. Such accomplishments undergird private, civil, and commercial life. They benefit everyone.

Scope of Power

And finally, the factor that defeats so many CEOs who venture into public service: The power of any public office is limited, far more so than that of a CEO. Our constitution establishes three co-equal branches of government. Two of the three branches are elected bodies. These constitutional facts translate into politics, into bargaining, listening, revising. Many different constituencies must be pleased; compromise is always necessary.

Herbert Hoover made a fortune in mining, but failed in the presidency. Rick Snyder was a successful investor, but failed as governor of Michigan. Other successful CEOs have done well in public service: Michael Bloomberg as mayor of New York City, Mitt Romney as governor of Massachusetts. Success in either sector, however, is independent of success in the other.

It would be interesting to know if failure in business predicts failure in office. Not a question, however, that I’ll take up.

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This post is only incidentally about Trump. In Notes we might discuss the way his business background is shaping his presidency.

It’s been a month since I posted. So much has been happening that I felt as if my radar was jammed; nothing was coming through clearly. I wrote and wrote, revised and deleted. I was overwhelmed by the constant change around me.

Typically I try to shed light on issues from overlooked angles. The subjects I was addressing during April changed constantly as I wrote.

The horrors of Hamas

I had planned to remind readers of the horrors of Hamas: They attacked a peaceful kibbutz savagely, then retreated and embedded themselves among their own people, guaranteeing that Palestinian civilians would die in great numbers. My intention was not to balance or justify what Israel does; only to keep the full picture remembered.

When I talked about this with friends, they told me that Israeli soldiers have now used Palestinians as human shields. The “full picture” I had in mind was changing as I wrote.

The excesses of DEI

In March, I wrote that universities have developed ways to deal with offensive material in the classroom — like the use of the N word, or pictures of the Prophet, or descriptions of rape. Even as I wrote, I knew my claim was only partially true. There are examples of professors following the rules and yet being pilloried or even forced out. The same is true of many other facets of DEI. This set of wonderful ideals has at time been taken to extremes. One high profile \ example was the ousting of Al Franken from the Senate. (He’s now playing the role of senator on the TV show “The Residence.” It hurts me to watch him.)

Again, as I began to write, the news made me stop. The campaign against DEI is essentially a witch hunt. Massive cuts to medical research are threatened in its name; petty punishments dealt to a teacher because her classroom posters said “Everyone is welcome here” – who could disagree? — with surrounding handprints in multiple skin tones.

Dodgy DOGE

Last month I wrote that DOGE, obviously, is not about government efficiency. Instead, it’s about eliminating government. The next question is equally obvious: Who wants that, and why?

In many cases corporations want it, for the sake of their bottom line. Starving government agencies makes them unable to do their jobs. As their failures mount, it’s easy to claim that the government agency is failing, and then call for privatizing it. The National Park Service is a perfect example. First, deplete its resources. Then watch the restrooms get dingy, the crowds unmanageable, the trails dangerous. Next, fan the flames of outrage. “The government is failing!” Finally, turn the Parks over to business.

In practical terms it’s often corporations who most want to slash government. Philosophically, the desire is based on an assumption: that business always does everything better.

Trump’s rhetoric

In March I wrote that the president’s crackdown on campuses, justified as fighting antisemitism, actually made it worse. Ironic, I said. Many other writers, mostly Jewish, have made a similar point. To paraphrase, “Defunding diabetes research ‘to protect Jews’ does us no favors.”

These writers did not call the situation ironic. I had been naïve to do so. The trouble is not that Trump’s efforts will undermine his stated goal. The trouble is that we cannot know what his goals really are. His campaign strategies suggest that he cares nothing about Jews; in fact, they use antisemitic tropes.

The evidence suggests that what the president wants, in almost everything he does, is power. (Tariffs may be an exception; he seems to genuinely believe they’re a good thing.) He spent his first 100 days amassing power: over universities, the press, law firms, libraries, museums, and schools; over the Kennedy Center and the Smithsonian. He is trying to control the Fed and the courts. Until the pushback that began in late April, he was succeeding.

Writing in March, I had forgotten what I once knew: that Trump’s words have no particular relation to truth. Sometimes he does what he says he will; sometimes he doesn’t. Sometimes the reasons he gives seem to be his real reasons; sometimes not. His supporters call his language rhetoric. His opponents call it dishonest. Whatever we call it, the habit is useful. It distracts and confuses those who must deal with him – which in turn increases his power.

This led me to think more about Trump as a businessman. He made some of his money in real estate: hence, his desire to acquire Greenland, the Panama Canal, even Canada.

In the end, though, Trump made his fortune through show business. In “The Apprentice” he created a brand, which he monetized in support of his real estate ventures. Trump is a gifted performer. That often serves him well.

Governing a country is very different from running a corporation. That idea is foreign to most Americans. I’ll make the case for it next time. Assuming, of course, that the ground under me stops moving, at least a little.

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Mahmoud Khalil has been detained by ICE. A green card holder, he is threatened with deportation. His offense was demonstrating against Israel’s devastation of Gaza, a devastation funded and armed by the United States.

His detention appalls me on many different counts. Some are familiar; some have gone unnoticed.

Public space: The First Amendment

Democracy depends on open debate. Because the government rarely welcomes criticism of what it does, the First Amendment bars the government from suppressing speech. This protection is so fundamental that the courts have interpreted it to protect even the most heinous speech, unless it becomes a threat or an incitement to violence.

Mahmoud Khalil’s support of Palestinians was at odds with government policy. He’s not a citizen. But the Constitution applies the Bill of Rights to all “persons,” specifying “citizens” only for the rights to vote and to run for office. The courts have therefore generally held that other constitutional rights belong to everyone on American soil. That’s why the CIA’s secret “rendition” [torture] sites were created overseas. And why the Bush administration built the prison at Guantanamo. Eventually, however, the Supreme Court decided American law applied there, too.

The Supreme Court, however, has occasionally denied constitutional rights to non-citizens. Today’s Court frequently breaks precedent and in addition is committed to a strong presidency; no one can predict its decision if Khalil’s case comes before it.

The issue, though, is more than legal. It’s about the American commitment to free speech: Because the ability to say unpopular things is basic to democracy, the government should rarely have the power to limit speech.

The expansion of presidential powers also worries me. The present administration is pushing to enlarge those powers. Its original attack on Khalil deployed a McCarthy-era law that allows the deportation of non-citizens if their “presence or activities” endanger US foreign policy. Khalil was accused of having “led activities aligned to Hamas,” a terrorist group. The danger in that reasoning is obvious. It would justify deporting any non-citizen whose ultimate goals – not methods -- align with any terrorist group. Although the administration has chosen a new legal framework, its goal is unchanged: to suppress pro-Palestinian speech.

Finally, the bloodshed at the center of the controversy concerns me. Whenever our country is taking lives, directly or indirectly, space for dissent is essential.

In Private Space

Mahmoud Khalil led demonstrations on the campus of a private university. Speech there raises more complicated issues.

On campuses free speech matters not only for the sake of democracy, but also for the sake of academic freedom. Scientists and scholars need to be free to explore unorthodox ideas. So do students. In addition, however, they need to feel personally safe, safe from attack simply for being who they are. Over the years students of color, women, gays, and others have felt uncomfortable, even endangered, simply because of their identity. Right now Jews and Muslims sometimes feel the same way.

In public spaces language that is simply opinion, not incitement, is strongly protected. In private spaces opinions can feel like attacks. It can even be intended to feel that way. Clearly it can make learning harder.

Making a campus safe in both these senses -- to speak one’s mind, and to live without feeling threatened -- is challenging.

Schools have drawn up standards for handling sensitive material, ways to prepare students for the use of the N word, or portrayal of the Prophet, or descriptions of rape. But words and images are one thing, and ideas another. In a public space, even approval of genocide is protected. But on campus? Approving it would make almost anyone deeply uncomfortable, and Muslims and Jews even more so. The same holds for approval of terrorist groups. Hamas is a terrorist group. Yet one professor, a Jew and a Zionist, argues that support for it should be answered rather than suppressed.

[What’s needed] to combat antisemitism and other forms of hate is having strong democratic institutions. . . . [When I teach] about antisemitism and Israel and Palestine, I want students to be able to say what they think. I want to create a space where they feel comfortable to be wrong and experiment with ideas. Kenneth Stern

A skilled teacher can manage that in the classroom. Outside, on the sidewalks and lawns, demonstrations pose harder questions. Campuses are struggling to find answers, in sometimes clumsy and convoluted ways. I have no solution. My point is simply that students need two kinds of safety, and protecting either endangers the other. I believe the burden of proof lies with those who would limit free speech.

Whatever the legal pretext In Khalil’s case, the motive was to make a campus a safer place for Jewish students (and faculty). Deportation is not the way to do that. In fact, the bitter irony is that the administration’s action will deepen anti-semitism.

First, its actions equate being Jewish with supporting Israel’s current, and highly controversial, actions. Most American Jews do support them, but many do not, even in Israel. Haaretz, a newspaper critical of the Netanyahu government, is protected by Israeli law. Dissent, in fact, is central to the Jewish tradition. That fact should be foregrounded rather than effaced.

More deeply, Washington’s attack on Khalil reinforces an ugly conspiracy theory: that Jews control the country. That they’re the secret power behind — fill in the blank —banking; the media; the US; the world. Using presidential power to silence criticism of Israel will strengthen that fantasy.

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