What's a Stoic to do?

An aspiring Stoic is bound to ask himself/herself:  What is the appropriate, which is to say Stoic, response to our recent presidential election, its unusual result and its likely effects on our nation and the world?  What's a Stoic to do?

I don't know of any tenet of Stoicism which requires that we ignore what took place or the poor qualities of the candidates and the electoral process generally.  Nor do I think a Stoic is in any way bound to consider the circumstances to be anything but what they are, i.e. that we've elected as our president an inexperienced, arrogant, ignorant, vulgar, obnoxious and seemingly scatterbrained person.  That person will soon fill the executive branch of our government with his yes men (maybe even a woman or two, if they're physically attractive) and like-thinking lackeys.  A Stoic values reason, and that's what reason indicates.

Stoicism doesn't demand that we ignore reality.  Instead, it teaches that we should not be unduly disturbed by things outside our control.  A great deal of what's now taking place is quite beyond my control, and is disturbing.  However, as a Stoic, I'm enjoined to remain tranquil and, essentially, unaffected.  As Epictetus said, I should do the best I can with what I have, and take the rest as it comes.

Very well, then.  I shouldn't allow the capering of those we've foolishly entrusted with the future of our nation and the world to render me miserable.  So much for taking the rest as it happens.  What is the best I can do with what I have, though, in the here and now?

What I have is what is in my power.  So, I have myself; what I think, feel and do.  There's nothing that hinders me from doing what I do well, or doing good, or being just, fair, kind, using my reason, etc.; in short, there's nothing which prevents me from doing what a person should do in order to live a life in accordance with nature, secundum naturam.

There may be some who claim, however, that more than this is required.  It's been maintained that Stoicism accepts the status quo, that it's a form of quietism, and that in its emphasis on indifference to what's beyond our control it ignores the need to take action required to change the world for the better.

But what's in our power may well enable us to do such things, and such things may be the best we can do with what we have.  So there's no conflict between changing the world for the good and Stoicism.  It's reasonable, though, to determine first what we can do for that purpose that would be effective.  In other words, we shouldn't feel obligated to engage in action of any kind provided it expresses the fact that we're displeased with the status quo.  Some of that action could be foolish or harmful.  Whether or not we engage in violence is something within our power, for example, and violence isn't something which is consistent with Stoicism in most cases.

Marcus Aurelius wrote:  "Never let the future disturb you. You will meet it, if you have to, with the same weapons of reason which today arm you against the present."  The Stoic will let the future come, then, and in response to it do that which reason indicates is appropriate, and condemn that which reason indicates is not.

America Does the Limbo: How Low Can We Go?

My father, an intuitively perceptive man now dead over four years, would remark now and then upon the adage that in mass marketing of all kinds success was achieved by appealing to the "lowest common denominator."  In other words, success was obtained by appealing to the least discriminating audience or target group.  Especially now but it would seem throughout the history of popular and semi-popular government, politics has been little more than marketing.

H.L. Mencken, the great Sage of Baltimore, wrote that:

"When a candidate for public office faces the voters he does not face men of sense; he faces a mob of men whose chief distinguishing mark is the fact that they are quite incapable of weighing ideas, or even of comprehending any save the most elemental — men whose whole thinking is done in terms of emotion, and whose dominant emotion is dread of what they cannot understand. So confronted, the candidate must either bark with the pack or be lost... All the odds are on the man who is, intrinsically, the most devious and mediocre — the man who can most adeptly disperse the notion that his mind is a virtual vacuum. The Presidency tends, year by year, to go to such men. As democracy is perfected, the office represents, more and more closely, the inner soul of the people. We move toward a lofty ideal. On some great and glorious day the plain folks of the land will reach their heart's desire at last, and the White House will be adorned by a downright moron. "

Mencken had his faults; he was an unabashed elitist.  But it would seem to me that this is prescience.  Prescience, that is, regarding what has become the tendency of voters in our democracy, such as it is.

I don't think, though, that democracy is itself inherently defective or that Mencken even thought it to be such.  What Mencken objected to about democracy, or more properly democratic forms of government (our nation isn't a democracy, strictly speaking) was the place of people in it.  He loathed most people, and was contemptuous of the intelligence of the mass of people.  Consequently, he loathed government by the people or any government which is dependent in any significant sense on the whims of the people.
 

The problem with people he refers to specifically in what's quoted above is that their thinking "is done in terms of emotion" and their "dominant emotion is dread of what they cannot understand."  This seems to be true, and seems to become increasingly true here in our Glorious Republic.

 We "dread" when we greatly fear something we anticipate will happen.  The relationship between fear and hate is well known; we hate what we fear.  And fear, as Ambrose Bierce noted, is an idiot.  In this recent, seemingly endless, presidential campaign and election, fear, hate and idiocy have been much on display, and have been exploited.  As Mencken noted, it's probable that the successful candidate will be the one that is most devious and mediocre.  That would seem to be the case in this case.

I can't find it in me to mourn the fact the losing candidate lost; I simply wish she had lost to someone else.  She has never struck me as an admirable person, and was, to put it mildly, uninspiring, just as she has always been.  The editorial cartoonist Pat Oliphant, whose work I greatly miss, used to draw her as a cat sitting on pillow or with a princess crown on her head, the image of entitlement and smugness.  I think that portraying her as a cat was unjust--to cats.  However, I've never hated her with the fanaticism some have and still do.

Her secretive and suspicious nature and self-righteousness made her so unappealing that I doubt she would be successful in most circumstances; she was overwhelmed in the last election, and was nearly pushed aside within her party in this one.  But I didn't think that even she could lose to this particular opponent.

I venture to say that no reasonable person can maintain her successful opponent is qualified for the presidency, having never served in public office of any kind, elected or appointed, or the military.  Nor do I think it can be said it's been established he has any unusual ability in business.  He pretends to expertise in a variety of areas, but it seems his claims must be taken on faith, as they have been unsupported.

More disturbing than his lack of qualifications, his ignorance, his boorishness, however, is his courting of support through exciting and exploiting the "worse angels of our nature" so to speak.  Parallels have been drawn with both Hitler and Mussolini, and those comparisons aren't altogether absurd.

More disturbing than that, though, is the fact that so many were sold on his message.  One can understand frustration with the system, the establishment and the feeling that it must change (though how it could be changed wasn't addressed).  The specter of a global society, government, economy, is I think not one to be frightened of much.  The desire to retain sovereignty is understandable, but as far as I'm aware that isn't in any serious danger, except perhaps in the minds of those who live in fear of the Illuminati, or the Council on Foreign Relations, or some other focus of our many conspiracy theorists.

The message was more (and less) than this, unfortunately.  It included contentions that America is imperiled by those who are believed to not be Americans or to be un-American, and they include Jews, Muslims, Hispanics (mostly Mexicans), immigrants, Gays, and virtually anyone who is not white and Christian and straight and was born either in the United States or Europe.  The message also was that something must be done to protect America from those folk, and this would make America great again.

What many of us succumbed to, therefore, was an appeal to emotions of the worse kind, primarily hatred and fear.  So we were exactly what Mencken said we would be, which I think isn't what we could and should be, if only we would think.  But thought wasn't sought and so wasn't given, either.  We bought the claims made, pure and simple.  We wanted to believe that our problems were caused not by ourselves, but by others.
 

We sink low and it's reasonable under the circumstances to ask how low we can go.

Fear and Loathing in the United States

Well, I couldn't use "Fear and Loathing in America" as a title for this post without entirely dishonoring the memory of Hunter S. Thompson who did a book bearing that title, so I will merely dishonor him somewhat by borrowing most of that title from him.  Or perhaps it can be said I do him honor by borrowing from him and noting that I do so.

Our Glorious Republic, still inexplicably considered by some to (really) be God's favorite country will tomorrow, November 8, 2016...a day which may live in infamy...vote and thereby usher in to the White House one of two of the most unliked candidates ever to seek the presidency.  It's an event to fear, and will doubtless inspire loathing, regardless of who attains that lofty and increasingly undesirable position. 

I say "undesirable" because it's clear that anyone who has the misfortune of becoming president will likely be hated by many, and likely will achieve little, in our divisive if not divided nation.  As I think I've written before, it's arguable that anyone who seeks the presidency is a least a little bit mentally or emotionally disturbed given these circumstances.

Assuming the election has a clear result (and it's dubious whether it will be acknowledged to be clear even then), the President of the United States will shortly be either a preternaturally ambitious, mendacious, venal, secretive woman or a scatter-brained, ignorant, verbose, uncouth, mean, sexually-immature and boorish man.  The nation's global reputation will suffer if either is elected, as the latter will be as welcome among the world's leaders as a fart in a conference room, while the former will probably be thought of as someone who must be tolerated for no more than four years.  Domestically, the former will achieve nothing of significance if the Congress is held by Republicans, while the latter will achieve nothing if he tries (he may be content merely to be wheeled out to pontificate now and then) because he's something of a dolt.

The Republic has fallen low indeed, and in a relatively short period of time.  Try to remember the last time a president was someone of intelligence, someone to be respected if not admired.  One must reach farther and farther into the past to accomplish this feat of memory.  But perhaps we deserve to be governed by fools or crooks.  The pickings are slim if the candidates issuing from the two major parties are any indication, but this is ultimately the fault of the electorate, one would think.  Democracy has been described as a system of government which will engender leaders peculiarly unconcerned with governing well and subject to the whim of the ignorant and short-sighted majority since the word "democracy" first was used.  This election has been a kind of invitation to a benevolent oligarchy or government by an educated elite if not an enlightened despotism.

For perhaps the first time, we begin to see here the kind of tribalism and chaos in government seen, for example, in the French Republic for some time.  In part, I think we're experiencing the results of the decline of the long dominance of reactionary white men of European descent in our nation, expressed in their anger at what they see to be their dispossession by others.  It may be this will pass as they become fewer, by death or otherwise. 

As the two major parties have become more and more moribund when it comes to their ability to inspire or evoke, we may perhaps see an increase in viable "third parties."  For me, this would be a desirable result.  There will be greater representation of views, and less chance of dominance by one party to the exclusion of others.

But why try to envision the future when tomorrow's results will inevitably impact any reasonable prediction of the nature of our fate?  Some of us will continue to fear and loathe, though, whatever they may be.

Zugzwang in the Voting Booth

As I may have mentioned before in some post or other, "zugzwang" in chess (and perhaps in other games as well) takes place in the case where the pieces are in such a position that any move which can be made results in a disadvantage and therefore is a "bad" move.  Here is an unlikely, but easily understood, example:

 

 

Neither White nor Black can make a move without facing disaster.  The pawns of course can't move at all; only the kings can.  If either king is moved, the opposing king can take the now undefended pawn of the opponent, and that's the end of that.

It occurs to me that "zugzwang" is a word which describes, most appropriately, the position each of us will be in when voting in the upcoming presidential election.

I've been dissatisfied with the nominees of both of the two major parties in the past, and so have on more than one occasion voted for a third party candidate or indulged in a useless "write in" vote.  I suppose I could do the same in this case.  But this election is remarkable in that the nominees of both major parties are so peculiarly unlikeable; even contemptible.  It seems I'm not alone in this opinion.  If polls are accurate, there have never been candidates for the presidency who were so unliked.  As one of those nominees will necessarily be elected, the result of the election won't merely be unsatisfactory, it will be revolting.

So, there's an understandable inclination to abstain from voting or, if one feels voting is a privilege which should be exercised in all cases regardless of circumstances, to vote for anyone who isn't a member of the dreadful duo.  But is this appropriate when there's so much at stake in this election?

That there's a great deal at stake in any case seems to be the prevailing view.  There's a sense of crisis, and we seem to become more and more angry, emotional, irrational.  We're polarized (that word seems to be used more and more these days).  The world is more dangerous than it has been; America isn't what it once was.

This is what many people say.  More significantly, this is what we are told that they say, and we're told this over and over.  Our ability to communicate, even when that communication is unwanted and unsolicited, is virtually unlimited.  The news media is ubiquitous; it can't be escaped.  It's always available and is always there, not merely on TV and radio but on the Internet, our PCs, laptops, tablets, smart phones.  Every dispute, every opinion, all conduct is noted and on display.

Those like me, who are cynical about human nature, may hold the opinion (also like me) that in actuality our circumstances are no different than they have been in the past.  They merely appear to be different because it simply wasn't possible, even in the not so distant past, to know or at least be told about ourselves and others and our multitude of disputes, opinions, problems, mistakes, crimes, immorality to the extent we can now.  There's a limit to what we can read in a newspaper, what we can hear on AM radio, what we can see and hear on TVs with 13 channels.  We were every bit as chaotic and misguided in the past as we are now, we're just better informed (or misinformed) than we ever were; and of course there are more of us.

Even so, though, we're more capable of causing damage and doing harm now than we ever have been, and that's particularly the case for those in power.  And we're more easily subject to manipulation.  George Orwell was keenly aware of the power of political manipulation and the tendency of government to manipulate us.  He was aware of the uses to which the media of his time could be put to foster manipulation as well.  But he couldn't fully anticipate the tools we have available to us now or how much they facilitate manipulation.

Due to an evil fate or our own foolishness, we're in a position where our next president will be one of two people, neither of whom should be president.  It's not in our power to prevent that from taking place.  It's prudent to consider which of them is less likely to cause harm, to us and the rest of the world.  One appears to be someone with no principles, someone profoundly ignorant, who is likely to make decisions based on whatever the last person he spoke to told him if experience is any guide, is erratic, with no experience in government and a tendency to act thoughtlessly and emotionally.  The other is venal, corrupt, secretive, stupid it seems in some things, a purely political creature, with considerable experience in government, who seems intent on benefiting herself and her friends, cronies and allies more than anything else. 

I think the latter is less likely to do damage than the former.  In these disturbing times, that may be the only reasonable basis on which to decide how to vote.  We're in zugzwang, yes.  But there are two moves available, and one move is less likely to cause disaster or at least will likely result in less of a disaster than the other.  Happy days.