Safe Spaces, and the Allegory of the Cave

I am – with immense relief felt every time I say it – no longer in the journalism business. Nevertheless, things like this irk me.

You want twisted, insincere narratives? That’s typically what you get when you shut people out, whether they’re journalists or not.

I am far and physically removed from the protests in Missouri. I have no plans to invade any “safe spaces” (whatever that means). But I might, out of curiosity, out of sympathy, out of empathy, want to know what’s going on. By shutting out the news media, you sound as loony as those who fear “the medias” are a left-wing (or a right-wing) cabal of truth-forgers bent on shaping whatever it is you think you’ve got into whatever it is you think they want to tell the rest of the world. And grant you, we see that sometimes (and from both the left-wing and the right-wing of this so-called cabal).

But isn’t there room for sincerity somewhere? And isn’t there irony painting “the medias” with a broad brush when you’re on campus trying to paint race relations with finer instruments?

Whooooooah! I think there is.

Here’s a twisted narrative for you: What are y’all trying to hide there? That’s the first question that came to my mind when I heard y’all were shoving the media out and wanting to create safe spaces. Is your conversation of reconciliation and delight so dark and unproductive that you don’t dare share it with the rest of the world?

I know I’m painting an unfair picture.

But you’re helping paint it by barring outsiders who happen to come with a camera or a microphone.

You’re helping to feed the monster of fear and distrust, folks. You’re feeding the monster of “Us vs. Them” even as you think you’re starving it.

You chanted “We Shall Overcome” and you overcame. But this kind of behavior means pretty soon y’all will be the ones others are chanting “We Shall Overcome” at (h/t to Terry Pratchett for that one).

I’m reminded of the humans described in Plato’s Allegory of the Cave, chained to the floor and able only to see the shadows and hear the cries of what is going on behind them, lit as the cave is by a crackling fire. They see shadows of man and shadows of the statues of animals the men carry, and sometimes the shadows blend together so they are not quite certain of what they see. And there is an echo in the cave, so any voices or cries or singing they hear is muddled with the reverberations. They are never quite sure what they see and hear; they can only interpret. And one sitting next to the other may not agree on the interpretation.

Don’t be like these prisoners, who, once released, initially prefer to stick with their own interpretations because, upon looking at reality – that some of the animals that they saw were statues, not real; that the sunlight blinds and hurts their eyes -- they can't deal with it. They prefer to return to their prison, even unchained, and remain there for a time because they're more comfortable with seeing mere shadows and illusions than they are dealing with real life.

Real life does not offer safe spaces.

Real life requires an open mind without shutting others out of it.

The sooner you learn that, the more meaningful the rest of your education will become.

Will the Big O Be A One-Termer?

U.S. News & World Report Editor Mort Zuckerman makes a compelling argument that President Barack Obama is seen as “incompetent and amateur” on the world stage in today’s edition of the magazine.

Though you have to take what Zuckerman writes with a grain of salt (he tends to be a bit too pro-Israel, among other things) he certainly brings forth some salient points that, as a pajama-clad armchair blogger and L.H. Puttgrassesque pundit for the people, I find interesting. First:

The reviews of Obama's performance have been disappointing. He has seemed uncomfortable in the role of leading other nations, and often seems to suggest there is nothing special about America's role in the world. The global community was puzzled over the pictures of Obama bowing to some of the world's leaders and surprised by his gratuitous criticisms of and apologies for America's foreign policy under the previous administration of George W. Bush. One Middle East authority, Fouad Ajami, pointed out that Obama seems unaware that it is bad form and even a great moral lapse to speak ill of one's own tribe while in the lands of others.

If I know anything about leadership in the Arab world (and what little I know I glean from the likes of terry Pratchett and Frank Herbert, well-noted scholars of Araby) bad-mouthing one of your own simply isn’t done. (Yes, it's done in the West in spades; that just shows some of the cultural differences one has to deal with when going West to Middle East, and vice versa) What the west sees as apology and attempt at humility, others clearly see as weakness – and if we’re hoping to make inroads with Muslim countries, showing weakness isn’t the way to go about it.

Then there’s this ouchie:

French President Nicolas Sarkozy openly criticized Obama for months, including a direct attack on his policies at the United Nations. Sarkozy cited the need to recognize the real world, not the virtual world, a clear reference to Obama's speech on nuclear weapons. When the French president is seen as tougher than the American president, you have to know that something is awry.

Nuclear disarmament – talk of it and a little action – is what earned Obama his Nobel Peace Prize. But at the time it seemed odd to me, and it appears I’m not the only one. Nuclear deterrence is a noble goal, but a state-sponsored nuclear attack certainly seems a lot less likely than continued terrorist attacks, even a terrorist attack with a nuclear weapon.

What’s most interesting about this entire situation is how blind the national media and Obama’s core supporters are to the man’s shortcomings. I voted for the guy, believing that, well, maybe if he’ll follow through with some of the stuff he’s talked about and works to improve our image abroad, he’ll be a good president. Given that we’re still operating that prison in Guantanamo, we’re still wiretapping citizens and going by guess and by God when it comes to national security.

The man does give a good speech, I admit that. Or as Zuckerman says:

Obama clearly wishes to do good and means well. But he is one of those people who believe that the world was born with the word and exists by means of persuasion, such that there is no person or country that you cannot, by means of logical and moral argument, bring around to your side. He speaks as a teacher, as someone imparting values and generalities appropriate for a Sunday morning sermon, not as a tough-minded leader. He urges that things "must be done" and "should be done" and that "it is time" to do them. As the former president of the Council on Foreign Relations, Les Gelb, put it, there is "the impression that Obama might confuse speeches with policy." Another journalist put it differently when he described Obama as an "NPR [National Public Radio] president who gives wonderful speeches." In other words, he talks the talk but doesn't know how to walk the walk. The Obama presidency has so far been characterized by a well-intentioned but excessive belief in the power of rhetoric with too little appreciation of reality and loyalty.

I know enough from raising my kids that if I don’t follow up my rhetoric with action, any amount of rhetoric won’t work. At all. It’s only after the action comes that the kids understand that the rhetoric is serious. I can’t parent by words alone, and running a country that way doesn’t work either.

So I believe in 2012 that the presidential election is for the Republicans to lose. Nominate the right person and they’ll win the White House. I also expect to see a rather raucous nomination fight on the Democratic side to the caliber of the Hubert Humphrey/Ed Muskie battle in 1968.

Attention World: FIX THIS STUFF NOW!

In honor of Alice "Blammy K. Blammo" Otterloop and her endearing self-centeredness, I, too will declare what in this world annoys me, the center of it all:

1. Vampires, both sexpotty and weepingly abstinent.
2. Zombies, fast or slow.
3. Warts.
4. This ginormous pile of "to be read" books on my desk.
5. Crowds.
6. Big crowds.
7. Carpet stains.
8. Pop music, because not even that can save us now from the vampires that arrive in a parcel, in the kitchen, via hate mail.
9. KLCE.
10. All those damn laaa dee daaah I'm a free spirit songs they play on KLCE.
11. Did I mention pop music?
12. Sci-fi movies with happy endings. I want more 70s sci-fi, where men fought their own inner demons with cigars and cynicism; or fought apes, and always lost.
13. Sentences that make me go back and have to punctuate and augment with verbs in order for them to make sense. Because I almost had men fighting their own inner demons with cigars, cynicism, AND apes.
14. My shed. It's time to clean it out again. Anyone have some dynamite?
15. The number fifteen. It's so namby-pamby. There is NO ROOM for middle ground between ten and twenty. Choose or perish.
16. And number sixteen isn't much better.
17. That overwhelming desire to head to Deseret Industries to buy more books even though we have so many books at home already it's likely to explode at any minute.
18. Unclear antecedents.
19. The short phone cord at work that almost always makes the phone fall off the desk when I'm sitting back in my chair talking on the phone and twirling around so as to increase my concentration.
20. Lists that go past twenty items without any logical reason.
21. The disparity between how good I sound singing along to the songs on my iPod and how bad I sound singing songs without iPoddy assistance.
22. That someone has engaged in symmetrical CD stacking on my desk. No human being stacks CDs like this.
23. Interviews the movie stars or singers in which they stray from movie stardom or singing and offer me their "philosophy of life." If I thought what your philosophy of life were interesting, I'd be stalking you.
24. Children who have to be dragged out of bed with grappling hooks attached to a squadron of Pulling Hippos to get out of bed for school, but who awake their parents with demands for breakfast or fights over toys starting at 7 am on Saturday.
25. My compulsion to cling to paper. I still have copies of phone bills we paid in 1996.
26. Lists that end on a milestone number, like 25.

To offer evidence that I'm not just a selfish bastard, I should point this out: I spent a few hours yesterday building a dog house, complete with waterproof roof, for a stray dog living in our alley. He slept in it last night.