The Blasey Ford book review was more philosophically and morally significant than I expected. It’s taken me all this time to put together the thoughts about it that JVL asked for. I suspect those thoughts are heavily influenced by re-reading, earlier that morning, “Who Goes Nazi?” by Dorothy Thompson in a 1941 issue of Harper’s Bazaar. Serendipitous 😊
I don’t want to quote the passages that affected me the most in the essay on Blasey Ford’s book since JVL wants readers to comment after reading it themselves, but I will say it sums up the disillusionment that happens all too often in this country when everything we’ve been taught to believe about character, justice, virtue, the nobility of public service, the rule of law, the seriousness of the principles and ideals of the Declaration on which our Constitution is founded, the gravity and necessity of service to those principles and ideals encompassed in the oath of office, and taking responsibility for our individual actions is dismissed as naivety and malice when trying to hold people to account, especially the powerful, rich and well-connected. This is not a benign outcome.
Why teach principles and virtues to anyone at all if our response is to call those that took them to heart naive in our calls to have them join us in our cynicism, acquiescence and surrender to humanity’s worst behaviors and instincts. Maybe that is why it arouses such passions - we know it is us and not they who have failed.
That Blasey Ford’s actions and motives were based on what she was taught reflected what we say we want, and her experience and the aftermath reflected what we actually do when given the test. How sad is it that the lessons she learned were to keep your mouth shut and tell others to do the same, juxtaposed with the lessons learned by those accused and their supporters, which appear to be none other than the same ego-driven focus on outward appearances. We collectively bear responsibility for both.
I ended up seeing it as a cautionary tale of assuming that your motives and the motives of your defenders or attackers align - the necessity for radical self protection and self reflection on the fact that larger forces than yourself may sometimes be at work and that people will use you for their own ends. Being true to yourself may require a rejection of efforts by those who claim to speak on your behalf and independent self reflection and actions on how you respond to them. That goes for not just Blasey Ford but Kavanaugh, too. Alas, as with most things, the televised political stage at the moment is not one of sobered inquiry and a search for truth or justice. Perhaps it was always so but that’s not a cause for resignation and acceptance, much less celebration.
The whys of how we decide who is and is not worthy of mercy and redemption or the withholding of it is also interesting and one we must answer for ourselves. We, each of us, are ultimately to blame because we don’t demand better and we refuse to plumb the depths of our own character and motives in our desire to “win” - simply reduce people to tools to be used for our own ends and discarded when their use to us is through. We shunt that responsibility onto those individuals with throw away statements like “what else did they expect?”
The biggest reflection? Whether it’s #MeToo Jan 6, white collar crime, Whistleblowers, Ethics Committees and more. When politics and business are the subject and accountability is the topic, all of a sudden morals and virtues are given a get out of jail free card. Culture may bubble up from the bottom but it is modeled on behavior from the top.
The Blasey Ford book review was more philosophically and morally significant than I expected. It’s taken me all this time to put together the thoughts about it that JVL asked for. I suspect those thoughts are heavily influenced by re-reading, earlier that morning, “Who Goes Nazi?” by Dorothy Thompson in a 1941 issue of Harper’s Bazaar. Serendipitous 😊
I don’t want to quote the passages that affected me the most in the essay on Blasey Ford’s book since JVL wants readers to comment after reading it themselves, but I will say it sums up the disillusionment that happens all too often in this country when everything we’ve been taught to believe about character, justice, virtue, the nobility of public service, the rule of law, the seriousness of the principles and ideals of the Declaration on which our Constitution is founded, the gravity and necessity of service to those principles and ideals encompassed in the oath of office, and taking responsibility for our individual actions is dismissed as naivety and malice when trying to hold people to account, especially the powerful, rich and well-connected. This is not a benign outcome.
Why teach principles and virtues to anyone at all if our response is to call those that took them to heart naive in our calls to have them join us in our cynicism, acquiescence and surrender to humanity’s worst behaviors and instincts. Maybe that is why it arouses such passions - we know it is us and not they who have failed.
That Blasey Ford’s actions and motives were based on what she was taught reflected what we say we want, and her experience and the aftermath reflected what we actually do when given the test. How sad is it that the lessons she learned were to keep your mouth shut and tell others to do the same, juxtaposed with the lessons learned by those accused and their supporters, which appear to be none other than the same ego-driven focus on outward appearances. We collectively bear responsibility for both.
I ended up seeing it as a cautionary tale of assuming that your motives and the motives of your defenders or attackers align - the necessity for radical self protection and self reflection on the fact that larger forces than yourself may sometimes be at work and that people will use you for their own ends. Being true to yourself may require a rejection of efforts by those who claim to speak on your behalf and independent self reflection and actions on how you respond to them. That goes for not just Blasey Ford but Kavanaugh, too. Alas, as with most things, the televised political stage at the moment is not one of sobered inquiry and a search for truth or justice. Perhaps it was always so but that’s not a cause for resignation and acceptance, much less celebration.
The whys of how we decide who is and is not worthy of mercy and redemption or the withholding of it is also interesting and one we must answer for ourselves. We, each of us, are ultimately to blame because we don’t demand better and we refuse to plumb the depths of our own character and motives in our desire to “win” - simply reduce people to tools to be used for our own ends and discarded when their use to us is through. We shunt that responsibility onto those individuals with throw away statements like “what else did they expect?”
The biggest reflection? Whether it’s #MeToo Jan 6, white collar crime, Whistleblowers, Ethics Committees and more. When politics and business are the subject and accountability is the topic, all of a sudden morals and virtues are given a get out of jail free card. Culture may bubble up from the bottom but it is modeled on behavior from the top.