There's Something About 1619

The thought of agreeing with Newt Gingrich about anything is one I find disagreeable.  For that matter, the sorry state of conservatism in these dark days is such that I'm disturbed whenever any of its current, usually self-appointed, spokesmen or women begin to hector us.

But being an honest and honorable sort, generally speaking, I find there is something wrong with what is being described as "The 1619 Project" delivered unto us by the New York Times and others.

What I find wrong with it isn't necessarily what the appropriately named Newt and other such pundits of the right find wrong with it, however.

One thing I find wrong with it is the language which appears, like all else on the Internet, unbidden in response to our clicks.  The Project, we're told, "aims to reframe the country's history, understanding 1619 as our true founding, and placing the consequences of slavery and the contributions of black Americans at the very center of the story we tell ourselves about who we are."

The wording strikes me as curious.  First, there is the juxtaposition of the words "our true founding" and "the story we tell ourselves about who we are."  The first phrase purports to refer to something that is true.  The second phrase refers to something which would generally be perceived as something which isn't true or at least not wholly true--a story which we, for reasons undescribed, tell ourselves.

The second phrase is more attuned to what I've encountered when reading more modern works of history.  They have an apologetic tone to them.  The authors seem to feel hesitant and even somewhat ashamed when they come to conclusions, and take pains to let the reader know that they're very aware of the fact that nothing, really, can be known or concluded about the past or indeed about anything, because we and our sources are all culturally, socially, and in any case universally so bent and twisted and turned that we are incapable of knowing what is true, there being no way to judge our truth as being superior to anyone else's.  I suspect you know the drill.

The first phrase, though, actually says that, in fact, our true founding was in 1619, and not at any other time.  It's a very bold, clear, absolute statement.  It is so absolute that it invites a challenge.

Putting any particular challenge aside for the moment, I can't help but wonder if the author or authors of this blurb wish to pay homage to the culture of uncertainty which infuses so much of our intellectual musings these day, but also want to make a point which might be thought far too certain, but for surpassingly good reason; i.e., to open our eyes to what the United States really is, and so change the story we tell ourselves presumably for the better.

Since so many of us have lately taken to making other broad, absolute statements regarding our nation--that it is Christian, that it is not one that should welcome people of a particular kind but instead should keep them out, that at least according to one local politician has in it cities which should remain as "white" as possible--one can sympathize with efforts to show otherwise.  But absolute statements of any kind are dangerous and making them does a disservice to us all when those statements are made in a public forum and have political purposes.

Is it even possible to establish that a nation was founded at a particular time?  Well, one can probably establish, to a reasonable degree of certainty (how I love this legal phrase) that the nation known as the United States exists or existed at time X and didn't exist at time Y.  One can also say with the same degree of certainty that it didn't exist in 1619, and didn't exist 100 years later.

So, clearly whatever the authors are saying, or at least wish to say, is that "our true founding" is something different from the establishment of the existence of the nation called the United States.   But what, then, is it?  How were "we" founded in 1619?

"We" apparently were founded when 20 or so enslaved Africans arrived in what is now Virginia in 1619.  This seems to be perceived by the Projectors (as it were) as the beginnings of slavery--where?  Well, it would have to be somewhere where slavery had not already begun and been in existence, presumably.  But slavery of Africans and of indigenous peoples had been in effect in the Americas for quite some time.  The Africans brought to Virginia in 1619 were removed from a Portuguese slave ship.  The Portuguese and the Spanish had been enslaving Africans and bringing them to their colonies in South America, the Caribbean, and Mexico and Central America for a great many years.  Since the Spanish held sway over parts of what is now the United States for years before 1619, it is very likely that slaves had been in use in parts of what is now Florida and Louisiana before "our true founding."

If this is true (there's that word again), though, and slavery had in fact existed in what is now the United States before 1619, does the slavery that was in existence before 1619 somehow mean less, in terms of "our founding" than the slavery which came into existence in Virginia in 1619, albeit only 20 or so slaves were purchased at that time?  Why?

I'm inclined to speculate that the slavery which existed before the arrival of those taken from the Portuguese by an English privateer (pirate, I would say) is not important to the Projectors because, well, that was Portuguese and Spanish slavery.  What's really important, so important as to be the basis of "our true founding" is the slavery that was fostered by specifically the English and, later, English colonists and citizens of the United States who were of English or British descent.  Anglos, I suppose they may be called.  For the purposes of the Projectors, they were the real slaveholders as far as "our true founding" is concerned.  They are, in other words, responsible for "our" slavery, our slave nation.

That would seem to be the point, and I think it a political one.  Who would care about Spanish and Portuguese slavery at this Project, or its legacy and influence?  The point does not seem to be that slavery is awful, and slaveholders contemptible, in any circumstances.  "Our" slavery is what's important.  "Our" tainted legacy is to be emphasized.  Not that of others.

The influence of slavery on the United States is unquestionably profound.  It would be foolish to think otherwise, perhaps even delusional.  It's a horrible legacy. To define that legacy, to describe that influence on the United States now, is perfectly legitimate, and even necessary and essential to an understanding of our nation.

But I think it foolish to claim that "our true founding" took place at a particular time when a particular event took place.  We should know better by now to attribute great and complicated nations, cultures and societies, and even more simple things, to a single cause.  The 1619 Project undermines itself by making such a claim.

Justice and the Law

I'm an admirer of Patrick O'Brian's great series of historical novels set during the time of the Napoleonic wars, featuring as their heroes Captain Jack Aubrey and Dr. Stephen Maturin, members of the Royal Navy.  One of the novels caused me some pain when I read it, due to its depiction of lawyers, judges and the law.  Fans will know I refer to The Reverse of the Medal, in which Aubrey is treated very poorly by the legal system of the time due to the machinations of his various enemies.  I refer specifically to that portion of the novel in which the sophisticated Maturin tries to convince his not very sophisticated friend that he should not expect a just outcome, given the nature of the system and those who are a part of it.

Readers, if not fans, of this blog know that I'm a lawyer and have been one for a long time.  It's not easy for even a jaded practitioner like me to watch, as it were, as the beloved characters in a beloved series of novels by a beloved author excoriate the profession in which I've labored for most of my life.  I don't think an author necessarily believes what his/her characters seem to believe or say they believe, even when those beliefs are stated so definitively, but can't help but feel a bit downcast when I read, and sadly re-read, that passage of the book.

Lawyers and judges are condemned by Maturin for being devoted to the law uber alles, so to speak.  Edward Gibbon is cited as someone who shares this view, and a anecdote involving the great historian is also cited.  Gibbon supposedly challenged a lawyer to acknowledge his client was guilty, only to be told by the lawyer that he could not know whether that was the case until the judge determined his client's guilt.  Gibbon thought this to be a "miserable" example of sophistry, or used words to that effect.  As I interpret the passage, it criticizes lawyers as disregarding justice and morality, and substituting the law in their place.  Thus lawyers do not care about what is right or what is wrong, and do not strive to achieve what is right instead of what is wrong.

It strikes me, however, that it is Gibbon and others who think like him who make a fundamental error in judgment, not lawyers.  Lawyers understand that the law is not what is just, or right, or moral.  Those who criticize the law for being unjust don't understand what the law is, and foolishly--naively--believe that it is what it is not.  But, nonetheless, the law is the law.

To address Gibbon's example:  "Guilt" in the law is not necessarily "guilt" as commonly understood.  In the American system, someone is guilty of a crime if that guilt is established beyond a reasonable doubt.  It happens that those who commit a crime sometimes can't or aren't shown to be guilty of that crime because, for various reasons, proof beyond a reasonable doubt isn't shown, or the jury believes it hasn't been established.  So it's quite correct to say that one doesn't know whether a defendant is guilty in the law until found to be guilty, even if it's true that they did something wrong and committed a crime.

Happily, I don't practice criminal law.  I don't doubt, though, that defense attorneys sometimes know that their clients committed a crime.  Because a lawyer would know that it's quite possible that someone who commits a crime may be acquitted (even if the glove does fit) a lawyer may decline to represent a defendant because he/she feels it would be wrong to do so.  Or they may choose to do so regardless because in our system all are entitled to a defense, and to be treated as innocent until proven guilty.

That, good or bad, is the law.  One might say that the law is what it is for good, sound policy reasons; that it is preferable that such a strong burden of proof is imposed on the state so that it is difficult to prove someone committed a crime even when they did, as the innocent are thereby protected.  One might say otherwise.  Then one is making a judgment about the law, whether it is good or bad.  But one isn't saying that the law defines what is good or bad, or should do so.  That's a critical error.

I think one of the first duties of a lawyer who litigates, who represents a client in the court system, is to explain to a client that what is just, what is right, may result but need not result in a courtroom.   O. W. Holmes is said to have spoken these words to a young lawyer who appeared before him in court:  "This is a court of law, young man, not a court of justice."  The judge could not have given sounder advise to a novice lawyer.

The law is a vast system developed over time to regulate our affairs.  It may sometimes be consistent with morality, it may sometimes be perverted by it or by a particular view of it, as in the case of Prohibition.  But it's not intended to be a system of morality, and we don't respect it for being such a system.  We respect it because it's the law, and it would be foolish to ignore it.

Lawyers and judges are a part of the system.  They know how it works.  They fulfill a particular purpose, and have a particular function.  They may perform that function well or poorly, they may practice morally or may not.  They may be condemned for being immoral, certainly, but only those who confuse morality and the law will maintain that they act immorally by practicing law, and should not do so unless they wish to claim that the entire system of law is immoral, and are prepared to defend that claim.  

I suspect that most won't make that claim, or if they make it won't be able to defend it.  

Acropolis Now

Above is a picture I took of Athens, on a full moon night last month.  You can see the Acropolis in the distance.  You can see moonlight on the sea.  I'm rather fond of the picture, taken with a cell phone in the early morning.

I've been away from the blog for some time.  I've lacked the energy, perhaps, but also the interest.  It's difficult to be interested in these times, though they're no doubt interesting to some, and will be interesting to historians of the future.  I nearly wrote "if there is a future."

I'm being over dramatic, of course.  There will be a future.  We go on and on, and are none the better for it if I am any judge. There is something remarkable about us.  We don't change but we survive.  We don't adapt, we don't learn, we simply still are here, and will be here until our unchanging nature exhausts the world.

I've now been to many places.  I've walked where Cicero, Cato, Augustus and Caesar walked when I visited the Roman Forum.  More recently, I walked where Socrates, Plato, Aristotle, Diogenes and Zeno walked when I visited the Agora of Athens. It's unfortunate to live in this time, when there are no people comparable to those who went before.  Is anyone now living who can be described as great, or noble, or heroic?  Is there anyone who will be worth remembering or studying when this time is past?

If the Pythia was still sitting on her tripod at Delphi, which I was also fortunate enough to visit, perhaps she could answer such questions.  I suspect she could and even would, but in no clear manner, as it seems was her practice in ancient times.  She could also be quiet droll, as Croesus learned.  Any answer would do, comforting or not.  Delphi's magic is long gone but we still strive to learn the future in ways not all that different from consulting oracles.

In this disturbing, dull and shabby age, it's particularly pleasurable, to me at least, to see the ruins of the ancient world.  As unremarkable as we are, the achievements of the ancients were remarkable.  I cannot imagine how the Parthenon and the other structures were built on the Rock, as it was called by one of our guides.  Nor can I imagine how the great temples were built in the mountains at Delphi, or how it was that so many traveled so far and so slowly to reach the oracle.  Were they actually better than we are now, in many ways?  Perhaps we do change then....for the worst.

Moralists and the religious enjoy declaring that we become decadent over time.  I don't think we're more decadent than those who lived in the past, though.  I think that we're merely more stupid than they were.  How else explain how a prosperous people and nation have come to be ignorant, bigoted,  petty and cruel?  A certain degree of dullness is required.  The bovine are self-satisfied, fearful of change, content with what is, resentful of what is not, is different.

Well, let's carry on.  Stoicism is not a philosophy of the status quo, as some have said.  It is a philosophy, instead, which grants us a measure of peace and serenity when the status quo is deplorable.

The Pathos of the Apologist

I read yesterday a book, apparently a classic of Christian Apologetics, entitled Your God is too Small:  A Guide for Believers and Skeptics, by J.B. Phillips.  It is an easy read.  It leads me to ponder the pathos of the apologist.  It seems to me that apologists, especially those who defend religion or, more generally, the belief in God, always disappoint when sincere.

It's better to disappoint than induce contempt or, at best, amusement.  Dr. Strangelove was delightfully amusing in his defense of his plan to use mines to protect the rich and powerful from the Doomsday Machine and repopulate the world, or at least the American part of it.  The religious apologist in defense of religion is never, never amusing.  In my experience, though, the religious apologist is sad.

A lawyer is familiar enough with special pleading.  In a sense, it is what lawyers do.  So, I think I know it when I see it.  I see it in Phillips' book, alas, and have seen it in the books of others like C.S. Lewis and Chesterton.  I moves me to wonder why such books are written.

Phillips, in what I think is a fairly perfunctory fashion, first describes and criticizes views of God which he feels are "too small" and therefore out of place in the modern world (the book was written in 1952).  He does so by the way of acknowledging, also I think in a perfunctory fashion, the problems with views held by certain, and it seems too many, Christians.   God viewed as "resident policeman" for example.  God as a revered, but very old and therefore old fashioned, gentleman.  These and other views he claims very naturally lead modern men and women to think Christianity to be out of touch with modern reality, and especially the discoveries of modern science.

He also maintains, however, that those who think of the God of the immense universe as necessarily detached from we humans and our concerns also view God as "too small."   According to Phillips, that's because we think God incapable of having a personal interest in us, something we shouldn't do of the Supreme Being.  He claims those who think God impersonal think of God merely as a great and powerful human, a kind of "managing director" too busy with other matters to pay attention to us as he naturally does by virtue of what he really is, a Father.

Well, I don't think that works.  I think it fairly evident that those who think God impersonal, at least in comparison with the exceedingly personal God of Christianity don't feel God is incapable of loving us in the manner we humans understand love because God is too busy.  Instead, I think that they do so because such a God isn't human.
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Be that as it may, having decried various views of God, even some Christian views, as "too small" Phillips then proceeds to tell us why only Christianity provides the means by which we escape the view of God as "too small."

He does so in a way I find interesting.  To a certain extent, he uses C.S. Lewis' idea that Jesus must have been God because he said he was God.  The argument is something like this:  Jesus was not a lunatic; only a lunatic would say he was God if he wasn't God; Jesus said he was God; therefore, Jesus was God.

The logic of it aside, a problem with this view is that the only evidence Jesus said he was God appears in a Gospel written decades after his death, while the other Gospel's do not claim he said he was God.  It's extremely likely that if he said he was God, this would be mentioned in the other Gospels.  The fact it isn't makes one wonder if he ever said what the Gospel of John claims.  In any case, one can't simply assume he ever said such a thing.  It's not a very solid foundation for an argument.

In writing this Phillips is merely repeating the argument of Lewis, though.  Most striking is his argument that (and now I paraphrase) if you really believe Jesus is God, you'll accept that he is God; you'll even know he's God in the sense that it will make perfect sense to you that he's God, and, well, that's as good as it gets when it comes to showing God exists.

There's other stuff in the book as well.  That the God of the universe had to become human in order to show us the way, etc., and this reconciles the impersonal God with the personal God.  Where do we get our conceptions of Beauty, Truth, Goodness than from God (well, I would say more than likely from interacting with the rest of the world and others than from somewhere or some being existing outside of time and space--whatever than means).  I confess I grew impatient.

Again, why bother?  I can understand that a believer would grow frustrated and angry at the assaults of the angry non-believers.  I suppose it's natural to defend what you believe in.  But I very much doubt that apologists convince anyone, and think that apologetics is simply "preaching to the choir."  If the arguments I've seen are representative, they aren't persuasive.  So, to believers and non-believers I say--believe, or don't believe, and be content, but most of all be silent.  That's my guide to believers and skeptics.

The Good, the Bad and the Grubby

It's Spring at last here in the northern portions of God's favorite country, and in this time of rebirth what is called the Mueller Report has been born and must be borne, if only in its redacted form.

I have not read it.  I read legal opinions, pleadings, reports even, being a lawyer, almost every day, and to read all of this particular report would be far too much like work.  Some day I might, but I make no promises.  I've read a bit of it, though, and of course have read and heard about it persistently since it was thrust upon us.   We cannot escape the pontificating of the politicians and pundits, nor can we avoid the bleating of their enthralled and increasingly misinformed audiences.

The reaction of the tiresome inhabitant of the White House, his cronies and followers is unsurprising.  What else would it be?  Coarse jubilation, misstatement, misunderstanding and misrepresentation.  It's likely that none of them understand just what collusion is or that collusion is not a legal term or act.  It's likely also that collusion, the intentional, combined effort and intent to deceive for an illicit (not necessarily illegal) purpose took place and takes place daily in politics.  That does not mean the law has been broken, though.  It merely means that corruption exists and even thrives.

As for obstruction, judging from the language of the federal statutory law (I haven't read the case law), it would seem to me clear that attempted obstruction is against the law as much as actual obstruction, so I'm inclined to say the law was broken.  I'm not all that surprised, though, that an indictment of a sitting president wasn't sought by the Special Counsel.  Someone in his place might well avoid that decision and leave it to the DOJ or the Congress.  The Attorney General has proved to be something of a toady.  God only knows what the Congress will do.

What can be called "good" or "bad" in such a situation?  The result of the report is not "good" I think, but it was never intended to be "good" or "bad."  It's a report of the results of an investigation into the conduct of certain people.  The investigation was to determine the extent to which Russia sought to influence the last presidential election and whether any U.S. citizens participated in that effort.  That Russia did seek to influence it is clear, as is the fact that its efforts in this regard were extensive.  Just how much it influenced the election isn't clear, but it's likely it had some impact.  It was concluded there was not enough evidence to establish the existence of a criminal conspiracy, although it was concluded that the president's campaign was happy to use whatever those efforts were to its advantage.

The president's fragile ego is such that he cannot accept that the efforts of the Russians took place, let alone that it worked in favor of his election.  But as far as we know his election is the first to follow a serious, well-planned effort by a foreign power--traditionally an enemy--to assure the election of a particular candidate, in this case himself.  It's quite a distinction.

Legal considerations aside, no person that was the subject of the investigation comes out looking good, and to me at least many of them come out looking bad.  Most of all, though, they come out looking grubby.  A dictionary will tell us that "grubby" is defined as "dirty, grimy; worthy of contempt; base."

None of this seems to matter, though, to some of us; maybe most of us.  Perhaps we have come to expect our leaders to be grubby, and tolerate their grubbiness provided they say what we want them to say, do what we want them to do.  Perhaps we've grown so tired of the hypocrisy that characterizes politics that we find the openly grubby refreshing.  Perhaps we've become grubby ourselves, or have accepted grubby ideals, grubby dreams.

April is the cruelest month, according to T.S. Eliot.  There are grubs aplenty.  Grubs of one kind in low places, grubs of another kind in high places.