About that Song

A Mindful Miscellany, #23

Mindful: Attentive, Aware, Conscious, Thoughtful, Alert.
Miscellany: A collection of various items, parts, or ingredients, especially one composed of diverse literary works.

Welcome to A Mindful Miscellany, dedicated to finding Signal in the Turbulent Twenties.

If you are of a conservative persuasion, perhaps you love this song. If you are of a liberal bent, maybe you despise it, or you’re indifferent to it. I just want to pause for a second, and see if people can really listen to it.

This song, like so many other things in our age, has become a rorschach test of each of our individual biases.

My goal with this newsletter is to look for Signal. Capital S Signal. Now, I accept that this is a very subjective sort of notion. Who do I think I am, that I get to decide what Signal is? And to that I would say, “yes, you’re right.” I don’t have a good answer why my idea that something is Signal is better/different/more noteworthy than anyone else.

But when I listen to this song, I hear Signal.

When I listen to this song, I hear someone making art, transmuting a cry of frustration, sadness, and pain about where we are in time and space. What art is supposed to do— point to the stuff beyond words.

I don’t think the cause of all our ills are people on welfare. I think that is a problem among many, but I wouldn’t rate that as the source. What if those particular lyrics weren’t in the song? Would it change how you thought of it?

When Mr. Anthony says “Rich men north of Richmond,” I believe he’s talking about both the District of Columbia and New York City. Is that wrong? Am I interpreting the song incorrectly? Where is the line between artistic intent and the perception of the receiver? Is one set of rich men ok, but the other set of rich men is not? The elites that Christopher Lasch, Martin Gurri, and Peter Turchin write about about work in government and C-suite executive circles.

When he writes "Wanna know what you think, wanna know what you do / And they don't think you know, but I know that you do" I hear Tech companies, not just government officials. Trying to make everything legible so it can be counted, managed, optimized, as James Scott points out in Seeing Like a State.

I think that the Tea Party and Occupy Wall Street movements were responses to the same thing. Some thought the problem it lay with too much government. Others thought it lay with predatory finance. A political-economic system becoming unmoored from the public good. The State captured by the Market, leaving the Commons immiserated, as Turchin would put it.

What I hear in this song is the heartbreak of burned down towns all over the country, hollowed out neighborhoods in inner cities. The places that don’t work for the people that reside in them.

It’s the cry that something serious has gone wrong. It’s a Signal that we should all Attend.

What is to be done?

Image Source: The Atlantic

David Brooks has a new piece in the Atlantic here, titled “How America Got Mean.” If you don’t have an Atlantic subscription or you’ve used your free articles, I made it into a PDF here so you don’t have an excuse.¹ First quote:

“The most important story about why Americans have become sad and alienated and rude, I believe, is also the simplest: We inhabit a society in which people are no longer trained in how to treat others with kindness and consideration. Our society has become one in which people feel licensed to give their selfishness free rein. The story I’m going to tell is about morals. In a healthy society, a web of institutions—families, schools, religious groups, community organizations, and workplaces—helps form people into kind and responsible citizens, the sort of people who show up for one another. We live in a society that’s terrible at moral formation.”

I really wish I had a way to give every adult thirty minutes in a quiet, screen free room with their favored beverage. To sit with this article and mull over the implications. He’s not a perfect messenger by any means, but I think he nails it in this piece. Another quote:

“Expecting people to build a satisfying moral and spiritual life on their own by looking within themselves is asking too much. A culture that leaves people morally naked and alone leaves them without the skills to be decent to one another. Social trust falls partly because more people are untrustworthy. That creates crowds of what psychologists call “vulnerable narcissists.” We all know grandiose narcissists—people who revere themselves as the center of the universe. Vulnerable narcissists are the more common figures in our day—people who are also addicted to thinking about themselves, but who often feel anxious, insecure, avoidant. Intensely sensitive to rejection, they scan for hints of disrespect. Their self-esteem is wildly in flux. Their uncertainty about their inner worth triggers cycles of distrust, shame, and hostility.”

The crux of his argument is that we must reinvigorate, renew, and innovate new ways to instill moral formation into our society. It’s about being good humans. How do we transmit character, how do we show our kids how to live virtuous lives?

Religion used to carry a big load here. If people have a faith tradition, that’s an incredible source of moral formation. It’s not going to work for everyone, unfortunately. So we’ve got to figure something else out. Brooks recommends:

1. A modern vision of how to build character. The best modern approach to building character is described in Iris Murdoch’s book The Sovereignty of Good. Murdoch writes that “nothing in life is of any value except the attempt to be virtuous.” For her, moral life is not defined merely by great deeds of courage or sacrifice in epic moments. Instead, moral life is something that goes on continually—treating people considerately in the complex situations of daily existence. For her, the essential moral act is casting a “just and loving” attention on other people.

2. Mandatory social-skills courses. Murdoch’s character-building formula roots us in the simple act of paying attention: Do I attend to you well? It also emphasizes that character is formed and displayed as we treat others considerately. This requires not just a good heart, but good social skills: how to listen well. How to disagree with respect. How to ask for and offer forgiveness. How to patiently cultivate a friendship. How to sit with someone who is grieving or depressed. How to be a good conversationalist. (Ambassador’s note: THIS IS WHAT BRAVER ANGELS IS TRYING TO DO!!)

3. A new core curriculum. More and more colleges and universities are offering courses in what you might call “How to Live.” Yale has one called “Life Worth Living.” Notre Dame has one called “God and the Good Life.” They put the big questions of life firmly on the table: What is the ruling passion of your soul? Whom are you responsible to? What are my moral obligations? What will it take for my life to be meaningful? What does it mean to be a good human in today’s world? What are the central issues we need to engage with concerning new technology and human life?

4. Intergenerational service. We spend most of our lives living by the logic of the meritocracy: Life is an individual climb upward toward success. It’s about pursuing self-interest. There should be at least two periods of life when people have a chance to take a sabbatical from the meritocracy and live by an alternative logic—the logic of service: You have to give to receive. You have to lose yourself in a common cause to find yourself. The deepest human relationships are gift relationships, based on mutual care. (National Service, anyone?)

5. Moral organizations. Most organizations serve two sets of goals—moral goals and instrumental goals. Hospitals heal the sick and also seek to make money. Newspapers and magazines inform the public and also try to generate clicks. Law firms defend clients and also try to maximize billable hours. Nonprofits aim to serve the public good and also raise money. In our society, the commercial or utilitarian goals tend to eclipse the moral goals. Doctors are pressured by hospital administrators to rush through patients so they can charge more fees. Journalists are incentivized to write stories that confirm reader prejudices in order to climb the most-read lists. Whole companies slip into an optimization mindset, in which everything is done to increase output and efficiency.

6. Politics as a moral enterprise. An ancient brand of amoralism now haunts the world. Authoritarian-style leaders like Donald Trump, Vladimir Putin, and Xi Jinping embody a kind of amoral realism. They evince a mindset that assumes that the world is a vicious, dog-eat-dog sort of place. Life is a competition to grab what you can. Force is what matters. Morality is a luxury we cannot afford, or merely a sham that elites use to mask their own lust for power. It’s fine to elect people who lie, who are corrupt, as long as they are ruthless bastards for our side. The ends justify the means. Those of us who oppose these authoritarians stand, by contrast, for a philosophy of moral realism. Yes, of course people are selfish and life can be harsh. But over the centuries, civilizations have established rules and codes to nurture cooperation, to build trust and sweeten our condition. These include personal moral codes so we know how to treat one another well, ethical codes to help prevent corruption on the job and in public life, and the rules of the liberal world order so that nations can live in peace, secure within their borders.

Mr. Brooks’ prescription for America is not going to heal the pain and systemic conditions that Mr. Anthony sings about. But, it will to move us in the right direction. To stop digging is the first step in getting out of a hole.

1. Besides that fact that systems of technology have been successfully robbing you of your ability to pay attention to things.