The Upton Sinclair Statement

Upton Sinclair

“It is difficult to get a man to understand something, when his salary depends on his not understanding it.”

That statement is used a lot these days, particularly in the context of people of privilege not being decent with people who have nothing.

The statement is often quoted as if it were an indubitable truth and yet it is always unsatisfying to me when I hear it. Various people whom I respect highly use it as if it were self-evident, but I don't believe it for a second.

What I see wrong with it is that assumes that the privileged man does not understand something. Perhaps that false assumption is easily accepted because it is flattering to the self to feel smarter than someone else. It allows a feeling of ascendancy or superiority above others, something like that.

I know I've have written and said this many times, but people are far sharper than that, they pick up things far better than even the animals.

They pick up the ascendency-superiority thing immediately, of course, even from a flick of the eyebrow or the incline of the nose or the tone of voice or the corners of the mouth.

But not understand that one is standing on someone else's neck? Not pick up that one is exploiting another person? Not know? Privileged people not understand the realities?

The problem is not knowledge. The problem is kindness.

We Must Revoke the Ninth Symphony

I have just finished reading a few new things on Germany's catastrophe in the twentieth century, especially “The Eichmann Trial,” by Deborah Lipstadt, and “The Language of Silence: West German Literature and the Holocaust,” by Ernestine Schlant (Bill Bradley's ex-wife).

The subject currently gets many references by insecure rich people who are presenting themselves as unfortunate victims of poor peoples' envy of their wealth, superior diligence, discipline, intelligence, industriousness, and moral quality.

The absurdity of those references is evidence that maybe those people are right who believe that silence is the only appropriate comment on the horror itself. And yet, as Schlant says, it needs to be studied and discussed and described!

Both Lipstadt and Schlant are native German emigrants to the US. Both are academics and Lipstadt worked at the Holocaust museum in Washington D.C.

The are many thoughts in these two books that could be discussed forever, but the one that struck me most strongly was in Lipstadt's chapter on Hannah Arendt's “Eichmann in Jerusalem.” In particular, it was the idea that Eichmann was just a banal non-entity, a mindless cog in the system, as Arendt had it.

Lipstadt has this to say about the judges decision in the Eichmann case, p. 144:

“In the final paragraph of their decision, they addressed Eichmann's character rather than his deeds. He had not offered 'truthful evidence, in spite of his repeated declarations that...his only desire was to reveal the truth...his entire testimony was nothing but one consistent attempt to deny the truth and to conceal his real share of responsibility.' Even as they declared him a liar, they offered a back-handed compliment: 'His attempt was not unskillful, due to those qualities which he had shown at the time of his actions – an alert mind; the ability to adapt himself to any difficult situation, cunning and a glib tongue. But he did not have the courage to confess to the truth.'”

Clever, intelligent, alert, cunning, skillful people are a dime a dozen. In fact, I have never actually met Arendt's caricature in my seventy-three years. If you really get to know such people deeply, you find that they are very sharp indeed. Again, as I have mentioned before, I find arrogant clever, connected, learned people like Arendt to be far more harmful that the supposed stupids they think they see.

I once had the experience of attending a lecture in Los Angeles in 1965 by Herbert Marcuse entitled “We Must Revoke the Ninth Symphony.” That title comes from a line in Thomas Mann's book, “Dr. Faustus,” or “Doktor Faustus: Das Leben des deutschen Tonsetzers Adrian Leverkühn, erzählt von einem Freunde.” Mann takes the crown jewels of German culture, its classical music, and shows how such a magnificent cultural accomplishment as German classical music can become catastrophic. Mann's masterpiece makes much more sense to me than Arendt.

I remember Marcuse saying that he of all people loves music, but that he looked around him during these concerts and felt that people “just oozed something I did not like.”

Gananoque, Ontario

The falls at Gananoque, Ontario,
 just east of Kingston, often come to my mind. Lady Simcoe's painting at the right, taken from a museum website, is from the 1790's.
 

There is a passage in one of my favorite books, “Kingston! O Kingston! An Anthology Edited by Arthur Britton Smith,” 1987, pp. 272-273, that originally comes from Dr. Thomas Rolph, [1820-1883] “A Brief Account, together with Observations made, &c., in Parts of the Years 1832-3 together with a Statistical Account of Upper Canada,” Dundas, U.C., 1836. It goes as follows:

Gannanoqoue. Is a small village, on the Gannanoque River, the hydraulic power at this place is probably the best in the Province, and if ever manufactures should be carried to much extent, this village will be the nucleus for a large manufacturing town. There are already in active operation a spacious flour mill, a saw mill, a pail manufactory, a cloth manufactory, a foundary, a fulling machine, carding machine, &c. “The Gannonoque Creek, rushes headlong over the precipice, into the St. Lawrence, and has been viewed with stupid curiosity by the savages for the last thousand years. But the genius of civilization and enterprise approaches, and by the touch of her magic wand, the whole scene is inspired with a new and busier vitality: and a cluster of factories and mills give employment, sustenance and ultimate affluence to thousands. The value here is not in the waterfall, but in the genius which turned it to account: the capital and enterprise which created this scene of prosperity and industry, which now maintains it in active operation.” [My emphasis]

A lot of the water that flowed for thousands of years over the falls was diverted into the Cataraqui River to make the Rideau Canal and then a hydro-electric dam was built in 1940.

Gananoque is more inspirational to me than ever as we are overcoming the arrogance about the stupid savages and capitalism.

Bookgiving

One of the great joys of life is bookgiving: to know a book that someone else would really like, to find that book, and then to give it to him or her.

I practiced this art formally as a teacher for twelve years and as a bookseller for twelve additional years, but it has been a very great pleasure in the rest of my life.  It involves putting yourself in the other's place and seeing from that standpoint, knowing a wide range of books, and being able to pick out just the right one. That is to say, it's an act of love.

Here is an excellent children's librarian, Anne Thaxter Eaton, writing in her book, “Reading with Children,” 1940, on bringing children and books together:
 

It's not a simple task. It means knowing children and knowing books so thoroughly that we may help the dreamer see the wonder and romance of the world around him, and the matter of fact child to enter the realm of imaginative literature...we must have retained or we must recapture for ourselves something of the child's own attitude toward life and the world.

There seems to be a lot of luck involved sometimes, too, in the giving of just the right book and, dare I say it, possibly even promptings from the angels or guardian spirits or something like that. My own experience is that the recipient rarely realizes fully all that goes behind your giving of the right book.

If  good bookgiving is similar to good teaching, as I think it obviously is, this fact surely makes “standards in education,” test scores, grade-point averages – I have seen grade-point averages carried out to five decimal places – completely counterproductive. Teacher evaluations which are based on student scores on standardized tests become the demons' own handiwork, the very opposite of a good measure of true teaching. If standardized tests measure anything, they measure lack of individuation! And, of course, un-individuated recipients of books and teaching think that standardized stuff is what real education is all about, and evaluate their teachers accordingly.

It's not a simple task, as Eaton says, but it certainly is a joyful thing when you are allowed to do it and you get it right.

Being Real Smart

The most memorable social insights that I come across are usually letters to the editor or comments on a blog posting. The best bits in the London Times and the New York Times, for example, are most often in the letters to the editor.

Mike Lofgren wrote an op-ed in Truth-Out today, entitled Gates Agonistes, in which he speaks about understanding bright guy and former Secretary of Defense, Robert Gates.

Lofgren is probably correct, in my opinion, in what he says but what struck me most was in a comment on the op-ed in which the following words appear: 

Frankly, in America, today, being real smart usually makes you just that much more dangerous.

Dante was onto that in La Commedia by putting bright guys in the 9th, deepest circle of hell. Many readers of Dante have wrongly asserted that it is the neutrals, those who just stand there and lurk, those who don't participate, who are in the deepest hell.

But Dante put the “neutrals” in the very first circle, at the top. He said that our greatest strength, our greatest tool, is the mind, so it is obvious that a really bright guy is capable of doing a lot more harm  than someone who just stands on the sidelines and does nothing.

Doré: Ugolino Gnaws on the Head of Archbishop Ruggieri, 9th Circle

One of my academic colleagues accused me of “...promoting ignorance by vilifying the best and the brightest.”  But that's not it at all. I have no brief for ignorance. It's just that the brightest in a society based on selfishness do the most harm.

In Delight of the Hutterites

Hutterites by Dave White

The Amish, Hutterite, Mennonite and other radical Protestant groups who emigrated to Canada and the USA have always had a special attraction for me, particularly because of their conscientious objection to war, but also because of their resistance to fads and fashions.

I once delivered to some Hutterites at a settlement in central Alberta that was fifteen miles away from the nearest paved road. They were building a barn together and had ordered some latest technology Insulated Concrete Forms (“ICF's”), Styrofoam forms for concrete foundations and walls. It took us a couple hours to unload my truck, during which time I had the chance to talk with them about their settlement and thinking. I must say that I have never met a more congenial, decent, sensible, simpatico group of people in my life. I even inquired as to whether they ever take in strangers like myself to become members of their community. Their answer was, “It's very rare.”

My old Mack got stuck in the mud at the construction site when I tried to leave, so they came out with this very nice Pay-loader, hooked a big chain on to the Mack's bumper hooks, and pulled it out. They even offered to have women come out and wash the mud off the truck for me, but I told them it would be all dirty again by the time I got back to the paved road. My getting stuck turned out to be a great adventure with these Hutterites, but anywhere else it would have been hell, hours wasted, and calling in some rip-off artist with payments to make on a big deal wrecker billing me for hundreds of dollars. Hey, you're on your own, pal.

I have often thought I should have followed my interest in trying to join the Hutterites but I was involved with so many people and projects in the outside world that my time on earth just ran out. There was also the possibility that my being such an outsider to my own society had formed habits within me that would get me in trouble with even these people whom I admire so much. I could easily see myself getting thrown out or shunned.

My own best guess as to why war is so popular, at least at the time of declaration and during the run-up to that point, is that it has something to do with group identification. If you ask during such times whether or not going to war is wise, the very first response you get is an angry “Whose side are you on?”

Brian Lamb once interviewed the US Civil War historian and novelist, Shelby Foote. Shelby Foote was bright, educated, thoughtful and all that good stuff. But here is a short excerpt from his interview with Brian Lamb in which he says “my own group, right or wrong.” His fellow Mississippian, William Faulkner, once said the same thing.

LAMB: From what you know now and your own political philosophy, if you had a voice and you lived back there, which side would you have been on?

FOOTE: There's absolutely no doubt. I'm from Mississippi. I would have been on the Confederate side. Right or wrong, I would have fought with my people.

LAMB: Why?

FOOTE: Because they're my people. It would have meant the end of my life as I had known it if I fought on the other side. It would have been a falsification of everything I'd lived by, even if I opposed it. No matter how much I was opposed to slavery, I still would have fought for the Confederacy -- not for slavery, but for other things, such as freedom to secede from the Union.

“Right or wrong, I would have fought with my own people.”

Now, I have tried for many years to understand how so very many intelligent, informed people like Foote and Faulkner, could say such a thing. It is a very widespread attitude. You see it prominently in street gangs.

War directly involves the killing of men, women and children. To be willing to go out with your group – even when you are wrong - and to kill men, women and children just because you belong to that group – is to destroy your own soul and your own people, as well as the lives on earth of others.

If any of my readers can suggest to me why Foote and Faulkner are right, and where I am wrong, please let me know.