In Love With Our Own Ignorance

Mark Slouka, writing in the “Notebook” column in the February, 2009 issue of Harper’s Magazine, believes Americans are rapidly losing themselves in their own ignorance.

“What we need to talk about...” Slouka writes in his thesis, “is our ever-deepening ignorance (of politics, of foreign languages, of history, of science, of current affairs, of pretty much everything) and not just our ignorance but our complacency in the face of it, our growing fondness for it.” He believes we are no longer ashamed of what we do not know, and we no longer strive to understand ourselves or our place in the world. Sadly, this attitude is evident in Washington, in our churches, our universities, in our daily lives. “We don’t know…” Slouka insists. “Or care to know.”

Instead of intelligence and knowing, we have become obsessed with empty pursuits such as reality TV, celebrity gossip and behavior, and food. For example, Slouka argues that we care little about lies our government told us after 9-11. He cites a wealth of statistics to support his assertion of American stupidity. One in four of us believe in reincarnation; forty-four percent believe in ghosts; seventy-one percent think angels exist; forty percent hold to the idea that God created us in our present form within the last 10,000 years, even in the face of scientific evidence.

I can validate his position by what I see in the classroom. I have been asked repeatedly by students and their parents why someone would take a job like teaching with guaranteed lack of respect, low pay, and constant conflict? No one seems to understand a commitment to intellectual values, or the cultural imperative behind it. I have worked for principals whose decisions defy logic and violate the rules of sound pedagogy. I see people who have no interest in reading or the acquisition of knowledge. Among students, and even my fellow teachers, there is a healthy disrespect for, and lack of understanding of, reason and argument. Every week, I get questions from students like “How do you know this?” Or, “What if I interpret the poem another way?” Often their ideas lack evidence from the work of literature, or even from real life experiences. They do not know why they believe something. They just do.

On the other side, I take meetings with parents who are angry that their children were told they were wrong. I am supposed to say “good try,” or “that’s good thinking, Dylan.” God forbid I should tell the truth: “Dylan, you are not only wrong, your answer lacks all logic and coherence.”

“I was raised to be ashamed of my ignorance,” Slouka writes. He goes on to say that he finds that there is a fundamental misunderstanding of logic and belief. “Belief is higher, nobler; it comes from the heart; it feels like truth. There’s a kind of Biblical grandeur to it, and as God’s chosen, we have an inherent right to it. Knowledge, on the other hand, is impersonal, easily manipulated, inherently suspect. Like the facts it’s based on, it’s slippery, insubstantial—not solid like the things you believe.” The situation is a subversion of the proper order.

I see this in the classroom quite frequently. My students are often upset when we argue and debate. They tell me that argument serves no purpose. We are never going to agree on an issue. All we do is allow people to trumpet their opinions. But what is so wrong with putting out our ideas and examining the validity of them. The point of debate is not to come to agreement; it is to discuss and validate what we believe based on knowledge and evidence. Slouka recognizes this as “our inherent discomfort with argument.”

So who is to blame for Americans’ love affair with their own ignorance? “We could blame the American education system,” Slouka says, “which has been retooled over the past two generations to churn out workers… not skeptical, informed citizens.” Or, we can blame the usual suspects: television, the computer, video games, a lack of role models.

Maybe our national crisis is not economic. Quite possibly it is the idea that we do not want to think anymore. We want what is left of real journalism to tell us safe bedtime stories about Brad and Angelina, what Mrs. Obama is wearing, and what clubs Paris Hilton frequents.

We do not want to think, discuss, argue. We do not want to know upsetting things about the collapse of American life and culture, gun violence on our streets, mothers and fathers who murder their children or vice versa, the failure of our education system, the appalling inhumanity we demonstrate every day. We do not want to validate our belief system by subjecting our ideas to standards of logic and reason.

In the end, we want to sit in the cozy darkness of our heavily mortgaged homes, watch our giant flat screen TVs, and sleep the pleasant slumber of infants.

God help us.

The Winter of Our Discontent

We have heard from so many of our leaders and politicians that we live in the greatest country on earth. Before we accept such nonsense at face value, and before we proclaim all our problems solved because Barack Obama is now president, let us examine a few news stories from the last two weeks.

A 93 year-old man living in Bay City, Michigan, froze to death in his home of fifty years.

“When neighbors went inside Marvin Schur’s house, the windows were frosted over,” Associated Press reporter David Eggert wrote, “icicles hung from a faucet, and the 93-year-old World War II veteran lay dead on the bedroom floor in a winter jacket over four layers of clothing.”

Mr. Schur had money and means, but probably not his full faculties. His nephew, himself 67 years of age and living in Florida, said his uncle had $600,000. Neighbors who entered the house to check on the man said bills were stacked on the kitchen table, each with cash clipped to it. He simply forgot to send his payment, something he had never done before, and this should have flagged the attention of the power company. Instead, a workman came out and placed a limiter on Schur’s meter. When the old man tried to use his electricity, the device shut him down. His furnace would not click on; his stove would not light. He was never contacted by the electric company directly, so he had no idea he had to go outside to the meter box and reset the limiter switch.

On the day he died, January 15, the temperature in that area of Michigan was between 12 degrees and minus 9.

The coroner claims that Schur suffered a “slow, painful death.” He found frostbite on the man’s foot during the autopsy.

Schur’s wife died a few years ago and the couple had no children. This man was a Purple Heart recipient in World War II, surviving a deadly war as a medic in the South Pacific. But he did not survive back home in 21st century America in winter.

Arguably, we have the means in this country to prevent an elderly war veteran from freezing to death in his home. Even if this is another Great Depression, we have the means, and someone should be held responsible for Mr. Schur’s death. I would start with Bay City Electric Light & Power.

Then there is the story of Aquan Lewis. This ten-year-old fifth grader was found hanging in his school bathroom by a janitor. Despite efforts to revive him, he died the next day. Coroners ruled the death a suicide, although his mother and family dispute this.

If this boy committed suicide, what could have transpired in his young life to deprive him of hope? If classmates killed him, what kind of country do we live in where children hang other children in the school bathroom? Or, as some of my students informed me, maybe Lewis was playing a game. Evidently, students choking themselves to the point of unconsciousness, produce a “high” like they get from taking certain drugs. So, if Lewis was choking himself and simply lost control, what does that say about our schools if a child is able to do this, indeed, wants to do this in order to catch a buzz? No matter the explanation, this story is a tragic commentary on our society.

These stories speak volumes about the state of our nation. Yes, we are a first world country. Yes, we are a rich country. Yes, we have a good standard of living.

But not for everyone. Not universally for every citizen.

And what about our attitudes toward such stories? I had my students do some journal writing about these cases. They were outraged and disturbed by both Aquan Lewis’ death and Marvin Schur’s. But when I threw in a case that happened this week, a woman named Roberta Abdue Dos Santos Busby, age 27, who dances at a bar called “Babes and Beer” that I pass every day on my way to and from work, I got a different reaction. Ms. Busby, mother of two small children, was doused with a flammable liquid and set on fire by two patrons of the club. She suffered severe burns over forty percent of her body.

When I told my students about Ms. Busby and what she did for a living, a few male students laughed. “What do you expect? She works in a bar dancing naked!”

Several other students registered their disgust with the comments as did I. It does not matter what a person’s job entails. No one deserves to be burned to death.

We have an uphill climb in this nation to restore our sense of respect—for other countries, for people, for our planet and resources, for ourselves. The world watched us fail with Hurricane Katrina. They know our history of slavery, of injustice. They have watched our public debate over Guantanamo Bay, renditions, water boarding, out and out torture. The world knows what America has become. We need to restore our respect for others, and regain the world’s respect.

The greatest nation on earth?

To Mr. Schur, freezing to death on his bedroom floor alone, I don’t think so.

Tell Me Where All Past Years Are

"Our two souls therefore, which are one,

Though I must go, endure not yet

A breach, but an expansion,

Like gold to airy thinness beat.

If they be two, they are two so

As stiff twin compasses are two;

Thy soul, the fix'd foot, makes no show

To move, but doth, if th' other do.

And through it in the centre sit,

Yet, when the other far doth roam,

It leans, and hearkens after it,

And grows erect, as that comes home.

Such wilt thou be to me, who must,

Like th' other foot, obliquely run;

Thy firmness makes my circle just,

And makes me end where I begun."

-John Donne from "A Valediction Forbidding Mourning"

My Dreams Die and Drift Away

Lancaster, California

Selling Huck and Jim Down The River

According to an article in today’s Los Angeles Times, John Foley, a 48 year old teacher from Ridgefield, Washington, wants to remove Mark Twain’s Huckleberry Finn from the high school curriculum because of the word nigger. He would also like to drop To Kill A Mockingbird and Of Mice and Men for the same reason.

“…[W]ith an African-American about to be inaugurated as president,” reporter Kim Murphy writes, “Foley wonders whether ‘Huck Finn’ ought to be sent back down the river. Why not replace it with a more modern, less discomfiting novel documenting the epic journey of discovery?” Maybe because the “epic journey of discovery” that Huck and Jim undertake includes the realization that people can be incredibly evil to each other, as best personified when someone hurls the word nigger at a black person.

Literature and art are not supposed to make us feel comfortable. In fact, books can and should disturb us, inspire us to change, make us rethink our lives.

Jim is the most moral, caring, loving, conscientious character in the novel. The scene where he finds Huck after thinking him lost overboard is one of the most moving in the book. Huck feels so guilty because Jim cares about him, and he was trying to trick him.

Tom Robinson is an innocent victim of racism. Atticus Finch proves he did not commit the rape of Mayella Ewell, yet the all-white jury still finds him guilty. Bob Ewell, as well as several members of the community, call Atticus a “nigger-lover” for doing his job—defending a man accused of a crime. Worse, they call him this epithet not just to his face, but also to his children, Scout and Jem.

What do my students get from these novels? They see the injustice. They feel what Tom Robinson feels, what Jim experiences, maybe not in totality, for how can a non-black person understand fully the fires of racism without being black? But the books give us another view and that is what good literature should do: expand one’s understanding of the world and its people. Students are outraged at the end of To Kill A Mockingbird. The conclusion makes them angry; it disturbs them, and that is how it should be.

“Foley said he doesn’t want to ban the books,” Murphy writes. “He just thinks they shouldn’t be the backbone of the American literature curriculum in 2009…” Just because we have elected an African-American to the office of president does not mean we are done with racism in this country. And is injustice and discrimination only about race? My state will not allow two people of the same sex to make a commitment to one another. Sexism, racism, and discrimination are all still an unhealthy part of American culture.

In addition, to remove these books from the high school curriculum because the black male characters are “ignorant, inarticulate and uneducated,” is incredibly stupid in its own right.

Barack Obama is part of a generation that broke through the barriers of race in the university and in public life. He is articulate and highly intelligent because of the struggles of Martin Luther King Jr., Rosa Parks, and many others, both black and white, to eradicate racism and segregation from society, and give people of color equal opportunities. Jim and Tom Robinson are not so fortunate to live in this time.

And are these two characters truly ignorant?

Jim demonstrates his thoughtful logic and intelligence when he analyzes the wisdom of King Solomon and the dispute between the two women over the infant. Tom Robinson displays an acute understanding of the plight of others. It is what gets him in trouble in the courtroom when he says he feels sorry for Mayella Ewell. Let’s not confuse undereducated with uneducated. These two characters have much to teach us and future generations, and although their stories are not the only ones to teach values, they should always be included on the reading options for literature courses in high school.

As for Mr. Foley, he displays his own brand of ignorance. “You have to remember, it’s a hard to sell kids these days on books,” he says in the article. “I write young adult novels, and sometimes I wonder, why bother? You’re writing for three girls who like to read.”

Don’t bother, Mr. Foley. The world does not need another writer, and those three girls and a host of other kids have plenty to read without “selling” them your ideas on what constitutes good literature. As a teacher, you should have more respect for the intellect of your students.

The Loneliness of Winter

Lancaster, California

One Man, Reading*

It is time to disturb the universe. It is time to do something subversive. Yes, it is time to try to reignite the intellectual fire in this country.

I want to see people, in public, reading.

Reading scripts at the local Starbucks does not count. Here in Los Angeles, everybody reads scripts in public. It is how one telegraphs to everyone else that he or she is an actor or screenwriter. Poseurs and frauds, frauds and poseurs! One must be reading a book—serious literature only.

And preferably, cover up the front cover, because that is another trick: we read War and Peace in the doctor’s office in the hopes that someone will be impressed.

No, what we need is a real intellectual life, not to impress others, not to pick up on beautiful people, not to make others think we are intelligent—we need to read in public because it is important to us, because it is necessary to the mind life of America.

I propose that we take the year 2009 and read. Not just read, but publicly read. I want to walk around this great nation and see readers everywhere. I want to see people so engrossed in text that they miss their names when they are called, they have thick books open in their shopping carts at the local market. I want to see the break rooms filled with people reading. If one no longer has a job, this allows even more time for public reading. Off to the library with the unemployed!

I want to see people reading at church on Sunday. People in parks, people at museums, people at sporting events—everybody, take out your books and start. No one should be watching the in-flight movie. Turn the damn thing off and throw it out the window. We are reading and cannot be bothered.

Hopefully, this will start a cascade effect.

People will want to discuss what they have read. I do not mean the kind of nonsense Oprah discusses on her inane show with alleged writers. (How is it that dear Oprah keeps getting duped by liars?) People should discuss things, as the kids say, for “reals.” Is the novel still valid as an art form? What are the stories we tell ourselves in order to live? Where are the poets? Why don’t we listen to them? What does the Invisible Man mean here in 2009? Are we still living lives of quiet desperation? Is Ahab us, and if so, who or what is our white whale?

Let’s sail away with Horatio Hornblower. I can see it now: Huck, Jim, and all of us on a raft heading down the Big Muddy, looking for adventure. While all is quiet on the western front, let’s discuss the things we carry in war and in our lives. I want to sit up late with Hamlet and try to figure out why we are here. Can we fall in love again, like Romeo and Juliet?

I want to sit around the campfire with Jack London, and the drawing room with Edith Wharton. I want to ride through Wyoming with E. Annie Proulx and Gretel Ehrlich. I want to fly over the dark continent with Antoine De Saint-Exupery, discuss into the wee hours of the morning the meaning of life with Thomas Merton, Aldous Huxley, and dear Spinoza, only I would call him Barry.

Book stores will have to stay open later to accommodate the demand. There will be more than enough business for the chains to open more stores, and all the independents will come back again.

Libraries will become a federal institution and rival their university counterparts. The federal government will cut funding for war and the military, and channel the funds to our new national library system. America will become the biggest consumer of books. Newspapers will multiply, magazines will prosper, Paris Hilton will be seen at one of the new hot reading clubs in Hollywood pouring over a copy of Death Comes For The Archbishop.

Okay, I’ll stop now.

Let’s just begin with reading in public. If we can get just one man reading in public, thinking, reveling in ideas, we could start a revolution.

Get out in the town square, lounge on Main Street, take to public transportation, open the book. Let the journey to the brave, new world begin.

*Update: On the Los Angeles Times blog on books called Jacket Copy, writer Sarah Weinman discusses how she read 462 books in 2008. Yes, that is 462 books in one year! We should all be so diligent.