Why Trump Won

All of us bear some responsibility for the results of this election.

Beginning with the faults of my side, one can point to two main ones: a lack of empathy for those distant from ourselves culturally and geographically, and allowing identity politics to turn toxically divisive.

It has always amazed me that we allowed manufacturing to shrink as much as we have. All the arguments about globalization and automation making the decline of manufacturing inevitable are seductive, and may have evidence to support them, yet have never rung completely true for me.  We let those jobs disappear in large part because keeping them was not a priority, and as the putative defenders of working people, Democrats should have shown the most outrage at the hollowing out of American manufacturing.  But we were indifferent because we coastal liberals have been able to adapt to globalization.  Professorships of Media Studies are not, for the time being, going to be outsourced to Mexico (though who would mind?).  Foreign competition has put downward pressure on wages, when it hasn't wiped out entire industries.  Whether Trump is able to deliver on his promise to renegotiate NAFTA or not, at least he directly addressed the issue, which Hillary Clinton did not do in convincing fashion.  That cost her the election as much as anything.

Let us be honest with ourselves.  Liberals can be intolerant towards those not like themselves.  Ask a liberal Democrat or Green Party supporter to name one good thing about Southern Baptists, for example.  To be sure, I believe intolerance tends to be more intense on the Republican side, but those who see hypocrisy and inflexibility in liberal rhetoric on law enforcement and religion are not entirely off the mark.

I don't identify as a half Scots-Irish, half-Jewish American, but only as American.  Personally, I respect your right to 'identify' (note how this has become an intransitive verb in recent times) as anything you want.  I also recognize that it is not so easy for some people just to call themselves 'American.'  This said, identities have unfortunately become fiefdoms in recent years, to be defended with verbal and various other forms of non-physical violence.  This goes against one of the fundamental American notions, namely that our identity as Americans is our primary one.  Though I have found identity politics frequently obnoxious, and at times quite deleterious to our nationhood, I thought Hillary Clinton had the best chance to unify us.  Yet I can't dismiss out of hand the cultural alienation that led my fellow citizens vote for her opponent.

There is a third thing for which we all must take some blame: the coarsening not only of our public discourse, but of life in general.  Baby Boomers, many of whom are now registered Democrats, thought that by obliterating bourgeois culture they would usher in a kind of paradise of personal liberation.  Some people would have us believe that prejudice goes hand in hand with strict personal standards and veneration for institutions.  This is the worst kind of intellectual laziness.  I believe that drug use should not be legal, but should only involve the criminal justice system when it is a matter of large-scale narcotics distribution.  This said, the entry of drugs into mainstream culture has been calamitous for the social fabric.  The same goes for our decades-long undermining of institutions like school and marriage.

Trump got away with the outright indecency of much of his campaign because as a culture, we long ago decided that 'decency' was an arbitrary notion and therefore had no validity.  Acceptable language and behavior would be whatever we thought they should be.  That idea must have seemed well intentioned at one time, but has in fact proven immensely damaging.  We have jettisoned any kind of universal standard for what is shocking, so as dreadful as Trump's behavior was during the campaign, it is not a convincing argument to say that he should have adhered to common notions of propriety when no such notions exist any longer.

The internet was a kind of cultural weapon invented by those who thought that upending all the hierarchies of knowledge distribution would give humanity unfettered access to the ways of enlightenment.  Instead, you can make a convincing case that people know far less since the advent of the internet than before, and are much less inclined to seek out new ideas.  The internet and its multifarious offspring manipulated voters; it did not inform them, all told.  As much as NAFTA was vilified this election, did anyone take the opportunity to learn more about its actual provisions, as it is surely possible to do nowadays?  As others have already commented, people chose instead to use the means provided by the internet to wall themselves off from uncomfortable facts, and frequently from truth altogether.

This is what my part of the political and social spectrum has to answer for.  However, Trump supporters will be judged very unkindly by history.  They voted for a sexual predator who made overt appeals to racial division and whose core supporters frequently behaved disgracefully, that is when they were not utterly horrifying.  They should have been able to see that although their concerns may not have been addressed in a satisfactory way by Hillary Clinton, Donald Trump is a dangerously flawed figure who could, in a thousand different ways, harm their interests, as well as cause irreparable damage to our political traditions.  Liberals are right to say that racism and sexism are resurgent in America.  We should be ashamed, but instead many of us are defiant.  I have every sympathy in the world for the predicament of Trump voters, but none for the choice they made on election day.

Remembering the American Upper Class

We may never have had an aristocracy, but we did at one time have a distinct upper class.  Only tiny remnants of it still exist, miraculously, though its extinction is a foregone conclusion.  It has been replaced by a vaguely demarcated stratum characterized not by taste, tradition, and values but by wealth.  Anyone who is financially successful enough automatically enters this upper stratum and can freely enjoy its gains without fear of censure or exclusion in nearly all cases.

The American upper class quickly suffered a decline in its reputation, and was never able to recover. Its judgement had been thought of as unerring in the areas of business and, overall, politics (though it had little to do with the arts and with science), dating from before the founding of the Republic. However, beginning in about 1960, the complexity of world affairs developed beyond the capacity of the ruling class ('ruling' and 'upper' class being interchangeable) to respond adequately, and its errors of judgement and obtuseness were simply too damaging (when they weren't insufferable) for society to forgive.  At any rate, prosperity, the democratization of taste, and the path to greater equality brought the very idea of special class prerogatives into disrepute.

We no longer have the imagination or generosity to believe that a class 'system' is capable of anything other than meting out injustice and aiding the undeserving in clinging to ill-gotten privileges. However, if we could for a moment stop conceiving social class only as a thing that separates and limits us, we might be able to reimagine society in some surprisingly beneficial ways.

We forget, or choose not to remember, that whether it came close to living by its ideals or not, the old American upper class believed in virtue as an abstract notion; this idea barely exists nowadays, if it still does at all. The heritage of ethical and personal standards will inevitably be tainted by prejudice, vice and other human imperfections. Yet while the hypocrisy and prejudice of the upper class were harmful in a multitude of individual cases, its ideals set an example for everyone. The middle class was not in a position to hold the same exalted view of itself; its moral system was grounded in the here and now, and the consequences of deviating from it were greater.  But 'middle-class American morality' (which is also well on the road to extinction) drew its strength indirectly from the proffered example of the upper class.

We once believed that fortune favored the virtuous, but now we think it only favors the most clever.
While this must seem like a small distinction, it is impossible to exaggerate how far-reaching and, ultimately, damaging this subtle shift in thinking has been.  It is anything but an accident that with no distinct class of citizens espousing a certain level in taste in morals and aesthetics, behavior in both the private and the public sphere has deteriorated so markedly.  Very clever people are under no obligation to anything except the imperative of their talent; they can be only as public-spirited as they wish to be, and if they are, one notices it is strictly on their own terms.

While the old upper-class was insular, with acquisition of upper-class status not even possible even through merit, its engagement with society was much more robust than is the case with the so-called 'super rich' of today.  The preliminary evidence also suggests that the legacy of today's billionaires will not be nearly as lasting.  This is not entirely their fault by any means.  The degradation of the public sphere predates the arbitrary philanthropy of Zuckerberg, Gates, and so forth; there is no living tradition for them to adhere to (that is, even if they felt obligated to adhere to one, which is obviously not the case).

Today we simply can not accept the paradox of a class (the very notion of social class is itself unacceptable to most Americans) that, at the same time as it excluded even meritorious outsiders, was deeply invested in the welfare and progress of the nation it led. This speaks to the poverty of our imaginations. It is not consciously possible to return to the former state of affairs, even if we wanted to.  However, it could be beneficial to remember that culture, ideals, and manners are essential to those who would claim to lead society.

There Will Never Be Anyone Like Me Again

One thing I cherished about my childhood was its frequent sense of delicious boredom.

I was a failure at most of the activities that middle-class children today are practically required to take part in: organized sports, summer camp, and so forth.  I was good at music, and greatly enjoyed music lessons, but otherwise I was allowed a great deal of time to entertain myself as best I could.

At that time, television and its limited number of channels was the only electronic entertainment.  My parents tried to limit television watching, and though I often succeeded in surpassing the limit, I got tired of it past a certain point.

So off I went with my neighborhood friends (with whom, it must be said, I am no longer in touch. It was somewhat evident to me then, and it is completely clear to me now that what we had most in common was age and proximity; by my teen years we had drifted far apart).  We rode bicycles in between neighbors' houses; more than once did I smash my orthodonture on a tree branch - that is what I most remember.  We played a variation of tag called 'chase' that involved hiding places and a much larger play area, which included neighbors' garages and all sorts of other places where the neighborhood children of today would never be allowed to roam; this was my favorite game.  We played board games, inevitably disrupted by arguments.

None of our activities were very edifying or offered lasting pleasure, as they were usually marred by senseless arguments (these were not limited to our sedentary games) which, when I did not provoke them outright, I took perverse pleasure in prolonging.  I wish I could say I benefited from the 'socialization' that group play is touted as offering; instead I increasingly got the sense that group activities were intrinsically unrewarding - for better or for worse, this feeling has remained with me to this day, though at least it has somewhat diminished, fortunately.

In the summers I would spend three weeks with my mother and sister on my grandparents' farm in Mississippi.  I had no playmates apart from my sister and a relative who was a year older.  As my perverse delight in sabotaging interactions with other children had by then already become habitual, I was left to my own devices a great deal.  The television set could pick up precisely one station. So I devised my own entertainments, which included using solar power to incinerate fire ants and making crude toy artillery pieces from firecrackers, small sections of metal pipe, and marbles; it must mean something that I have chosen to mention those two pursuits first, though I can certainly recall other ones.

I had no lasting retreat from the external world.  Like it or not, I had no barrier between it and whatever sense of self I then possessed. I could leave the world whenever I wished, but I always had to return.  Since then, I have become reconciled, however imperfectly, to the notion that the world outside myself is my reference point.

It is no exaggeration to say that children of today are for the most part spared the vexing problem of boredom, as they are offered so many easy ways to escape it that were unavailable to my generation.  Considering all the trouble I went through to grapple with my own boredom and sense of disconnection with others, I could be envious, or just as easily, contemptuous.  If I am actually contemptuous, it is not of the children who are endlessly sedated by automobile DVD players and hand-held electronic devices. I do feel badly for children, in that most of them will never be allowed truly to be alone. In the emptiness and seeming futility of boredom there is sublimity, which could lead to wisdom, though certainly not as a matter of course. I hope it is not as terrible as I believe it is that we are denying children the chance to discover this.

Fear For The Future

Our faith in technology is close to absolute.  Almost without exception, we embrace almost every technological innovation without reflection.  To the extent we are aware of the consequences of technology, we accept them as necessary ones.  Whoever raises questions about the impact of technology on society and culture will not command a significant audience.

Our latest embrace of technology - going back about thirty-five years, one could say - has to do with the benefits and convenience of personal computing and communications, but even from the very beginnings of industry, the benefits of industrial technology and capacity have always outweighed considerations of the costs.  Even today, the voices of concern about economies based on production and consumption are scattered.

We may be proceeding headlong towards - or have even passed - an environmental and technological point of no return, yet our day-to-day concern is not yet visceral, far from it.  This lack of urgency is in contrast to the fantastic predictions of doom that preoccupy popular culture and stem from a seeming fear of the eventual impact of environmental degradation and the ever-expanding reach of technology (forces that can barely induce a shrug in present-day real life).  The permanent degradation of the human condition, brought on by the very same technology and consumerism which have become the principal elements of today's secular religion, has become one of Hollywood's favorite themes.  This may just be a way of projecting onto the future our concern for the present. By foretelling disaster in our popular literature, films and many video games, we obliquely assuage our guilt over our present lack of resolve in the face of trends that, in obviously a very real way, really do threaten the life most of us take for granted.

When I was young there were also disaster films.  But they were generally not about environmental cataclysms and technology run amok. In most cases they were about one-time events beyond human control: earthquakes, air and sea disasters, fires.  They also dealt with the aftermath of nuclear war - again, a one-time event, though obviously of human origin. The "dystopian" scenarios envisioned in many of today's films, on the other hand, have to do with the demise of civilization over a long period of environmental or social decline.  Technology, while not as often the main subject of dystopian cinema, is often portrayed as a malevolent force employed to keep humans under strict surveillance and control.

Complacency would seem to explain our unwillingness to contemplate the consequences of our unceasing development, except in fiction.  But it might be more precise to describe it as displaced fear.  As it is too awful to look seriously at the real signs pointing to what our eventual fate might be, it is much easier to imagine the future implications of our present inaction and leave things at that.

Where Are All The Pseudointellectuals?

I have imagined a scene of which I am perhaps inordinately fond.  The year is 1960 or thereabouts and the setting is the Hungarian Pastry Shop on West 111th Street in New York.  A group of six to ten Columbia students are seated around a table.  Some of them are wearing oversize sweaters and scarves, as it is the dead of winter.  The windows are foggy.  While the students are talking animatedly, the proprietor - the original one - is working behind the counter, studiously indifferent to the youths' loud declarations and accompanying gestures.

The students are debating some issue of the day, such as civil rights or the future of the newly independent nations.  Or they are discussing what existentialism is or the merits of a title published by The Grove Press.

For argument's sake, let us suppose that with our hindsight we know that most of what these students are saying is jejune nonsense, because the point here is not that whether these undergraduates possess or lack perspicacity.  What is noteworthy is that they are so engaged by ideas.

Today I'm not sure whether you could recreate this gathering and its intellectual ferment.  I know you might say, first of all, that they might be too distracted by some sort of mobile device to maintain their engagement in a lengthy public discussion.  That is as may be.  What I wonder about far more is whether large ideas would hold anything like the same appeal to today's undergraduate patrons of the Hungarian Pastry Shop.

Of course, the Columbia student of today is most likely a somewhat higher "achiever" than his counterpart of fifty years ago.  His degree of engagement with learning is equal, or at worst, only slightly less.  Specific things - as it happens, very important ones - might inspire him: locally-grown food, alternative energy, penal reform, and so on. 

But does the student of today embody the same amalgam of innocence, reckless intellectual enthusiasm, and lack of self-consciousness?  More tellingly, does the broader culture, even at an elite university, foster far-ranging intellectual inquiry any longer in quite the same way as it might have 50 years ago? You might object and say it does, but I am afraid it does not.

The Spoken American Language

Almost no native of the United States seems to be able to speak more than a few sentences consecutively without committing a glaring error of vocabulary or grammar.  This is without respect to education level.

Some foreigners, and even some Americans, would gleefully attribute this to our "vulgarity", "stupidity" and so forth.

Here one should point out that a high proportion of the cleverest and most accomplished people in the world are actually American.  Our profound sense of practicality which, blended with a prodigious confidence and yes, intelligence, has resulted in many successful Americans becoming noteworthy well beyond our borders.  Other countries are lucky to have a bare handful of celebrities with international recognition.  We have hundreds, if not more, and their fame is wholly justified.

Whatever else we may be, we are not dull-witted. Yet when our countrymen are called upon to speak, whatever the occasion, the result is sometimes an appalling disaster. Americans seem consciously to avoid any vocabulary choice which might aid them in lending added force to their argument.  They are unable to conjugate verbs that are separated from their subjects by more than a few words.  They are drawn to wrong words or even malapropisms like a moth to candle flame.  Quite often they begin a sentence seemingly having no more idea about how it should end than you or I would.

I have been puzzled by this.  However, I now realize that it is owing to a peculiarity of our culture, and not to a fault in our national character.  Yes, public speaking is no longer taught in school.  But at bottom, I think we are afraid that if we were to speak with greater care, we would seem too arch.  An American can only be so dry before his thirst overwhelms him.  An American has a horror of appearing to be "inaccessible".  By rounding the angles of his speech until his meaning must be guessed; by insisting on being colloquial, however unsuitable the circumstances; by unconsciously insisting that his interlocutor is always his equal by choosing simple words that only approximate his intended meaning -- these are the almost intentional errors Americans feel compelled to use in their speech to mollify their listeners.

What an American almost never seems to want to do, however, is bend his audience with the power of rhetoric, supported by conviction.  We are uncomfortable with the arresting phrase, with the poetic juxtaposition of words.  We do not wish to stir, to artfully provoke, to paint a word-picture of demanding originality.

So while on the one hand it is considerate of us, I suppose, never to challenge one another with speech possessing unanswerable logic and poetic forcefulness, we are also being cowardly for avoiding the slight mental discipline it would take to speak, at the least, correctly.  Once we regained some comfort with the correct spoken language (we would have to lose the fear of seeming snobbish), we could move to improve our public discourse. Our politicians could give speeches that, on occasion, ennoble (we currently lack so much as one first-rate speaker in our political class, including our president*).  We could inject much-needed refinement into our private discourse.  In developing the art of conversation we could actually exalt ourselves.

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We are inundated with language.  But it is of mediocre quality.  Just as perniciously, we are no longer encouraged to treat certain texts with reverence.  For example, the King James Bible is a very important artifact, but it is no longer sacred both as a literary text and as a religious authority. The authority of language, as language, has all but disappeared.

In school, this abdication of authority regarding language takes different forms: grammar has ceased to be taught as a discrete subject; in written exercises, expression and form are accorded equal weight; reading assignments must, seemingly, never be in a language that might be unfamiliar to students.

One can decry this as one wishes.  But the insidious effects of no longer having any supreme guides for how we speak and write are much more widespread than just our school curricula.  Our culture practically forces us to speak to one another in a language but also in a tone that is familiar. While this may be relaxing to some, it is impoverishing and in the end, exhausting and dispiriting if one happens to pay any attention to how words are used.  There could be no harm in once again recognizing that we all occupy a discrete personal sphere which, if properly respected (as circumstances will permit), could result in our daily interactions being a great deal more fruitful, to say nothing of more enjoyable.  Moreover, if we were only slightly more correct in our bearing and speech, we would actually raise ourselves in the estimation of others- that is, if being raised in another's estimation is seen as an important value.  The pitfall to avoid, of course, is appearing stiff, which will never happen if one just uses some common sense.

I would never advise anyone to be more conscious of his speech if I hadn't seen countless encounters needlessly spoiled by a lack of regard on the part of the person initiating the conversation for the condition of the person being addressed.  This is the American vice.  I am convinced that it is our poverty in oral language, every bit as much as it is our famous "rudeness", that makes conversational exchanges frequently so excruciating in this country.

*The famous phrases of our president, at least some of which seem to have been concocted by speech writers, seem to me to be on the level of greeting-card mottoes.

A Loss

The pluperfect subjunctive has effectively disappeared from spoken English, and is all but gone from the written language as well.  I have taken on the task of convincing you that this is a loss worth noting.

"If I had known, I would never have come" has steadily been replaced by "If I would have known, I wouldn't have come," even among the well educated.

I will not decry this from the point of view of a grammarian, however much one might be tempted.  Instead, mourn with me a loss to the English-speaking mind and spirit.

Though the subjunctive is often not noticeable as a distinct verb tense, as it is in many other languages, it has always been very much present in the spirit of English - until relatively recently. 

The past subjunctive, if you don't know, often expresses a non-existent condition in the dependent clause ("If I had...), followed by the impact of this condition on the speaker's action, were it to come to pass, in the independent clause ("...then I would...").  In my opinion, it is one of the most elegant constructions in any of the many languages in which it is used, for it shows the speaker's possession of absolute clear-sightedness in the moment of speaking, contrasting poetically with his or her lack of it at some point in the all-too-recent past.

The contemporary bowdlerization of the pluperfect subjunctive removes the speaker from the exposed midpoint of the action; indeed, the declaration is no longer even the subjunctive.  His chronological placement in the events referred to, both theoretical and real, has been hopelessly muddled; his degree of responsibility is no longer clear.  The power of speech is now the lesser for it.