SHOULD I STAY OR SHOULD I GO
Bruce Springsteen nailed the plight of the Trump voter back in 1980, when he sang, “I come from down in the valley, where mister, when you’re young, they bring you up to do, like your daddy done.”
I recently ran across a related truism. If you stay WHERE you are, you’ll stay WHO you are.
As long as there have been humans, going all the way back to the early homo sapiens who migrated out of Africa c. 100,000 years ago, there have been people who want to see what’s on the other side of the next mountain. There have also been people who think the side of the mountain they’re on right now is just fine, thank you very much. I’m not making a moral judgment about either tendency. There are some very fine people on both sides, as Donald Trump would say.
I’m Scotch-Irish on my father’s side, and German on my mother’s side. My people crossed the Atlantic a century or two after the Conquistadors and the Puritans slowly but surely overwhelmed the so-called New World, killing most of the continent’s original inhabitants, appropriating their land, and importing millions of African slaves as cheap labor. Some of them understood what they were doing and some didn’t, but they did it all the same. I’m an inheritor of that work. Some of their descendants are embarrassed by their legacy, while others celebrate it.
Personally, I’m a guy who generally likes to stay where I am. I’ve lived in the same house for over 30 years and I’ve been married to the same woman for longer than that. Before I retired, I worked at the same place for 40 years. But while I’m very much a Stay-Putter by inclination, I’ve occasionally made a decision to abandon my comfort zone and, in the words of Mark Twain, “light out for the Territory.” Sometimes that took the form of an actual physical move (Wichita to Lawrence KS in the mid-60s, Lawrence to Tucson in the early 70s). More often it has meant different sorts of changes, in a relationship, a career, or a spiritual direction.
My point, and I do have one, is that America today is largely the product of restless people who wanted more than they could get by staying where they were. They lit out for the Territory – on the Mayflower, on the Oregon Trail, on Route 66 from the Dust Bowl to California, on Highway 61 from the Delta to the industrial Midwest. They were determined to find a better life or die trying. Quite a few of them died trying. But they tried.
Circling back to Donald Trump, the thing I find fascinating is that a substantial number of his fans, who surely think of themselves as the spiritual descendants of Davy Crockett and John Wayne, have become completely passive. They’re too lazy or too scared to pull up stakes and start a new life somewhere else when their blue collar jobs are lost to 21st century realities. Instead, they use opioids and vote for a huckster who promises to squeeze a few more years’ worth of jobs out of dying industries.
The thing that sparked these ruminations was the devastation caused by Hurricane Harvey in Houston. They say this is the third “500 year flood” to hit the Houston area in three years. Time flies when you’re having fun, I guess.
Texas Governor Greg Abbott is a climate change denier. His predecessor was too. Apparently that’s cool with a majority of Texas voters, who are in the process of conducting a real-time experiment in the Tragedy of the Commons. Regulations are bad for business, and business always comes first. Corporations are people!
I wonder how many folks in Houston will just collect their insurance money and rebuild new homes and businesses right on top of the ones Harvey destroyed. How many “500 year floods” will it take to make them think about moving to high ground?
I don’t want to see people homeless, hungry, or unemployed. I’m happy to help pay for the relief effort, and also for better disaster preparedness. In any election about taxes, I always vote for the candidate or ballot initiative that wants to raise mine. Read my lips: Yes, new taxes!
Still, I’m not wild about throwing good money after bad to rebuild Houston (or New Orleans, or the trailer parks in Tornado Alley) exactly as it was before Harvey, given the probability that future mega-storms will wash everything away again in the next few years.
I wish we had political leaders with the wisdom and courage to tie disaster relief to smarter rebuilding efforts. Does it make sense to pay people to keep rebuilding in flood prone (or any other disaster prone) area? What if we said that you only get one bite at the disaster relief apple? After that, you’re on your own when the next big one blows ashore.
Probably that’s a dumb idea. Probably it would cost so much more to do things the right way that it would be political suicide to advocate for it. Maybe there’s no safe place to rebuild in southeast Texas. Maybe we’ve reached the point where there’s no more Territory to light out for. Houston gonna Houston, come hell or – more likely – high water.
There’s a blogger named Jim Wright, who has a blog called Stonekettle Station. He recently wrote an essay (link below) about despair and belief in a better future. He didn’t use this term, but he’s basically saying that what this country needs is more Shraddha – a Sanskrit word that means confidence, or faith in our own abilities.
In the comments section of Stonekettle Station, someone posted a summary of an unsourced observation about our national character. I wish I could credit and cite the original author, because I think his or her comment is precisely on point.
Here’s the context. Wright, using space exploration as a metaphor for progress, wrote: “Creationists don't build starships. And modern conservativism has been eaten alive by the Creationists. But guess what? Liberals don't build starships either. No, instead they spend all their time and effort arguing about the advisability of sending humans to other worlds when we haven't even fixed (insert endless list of causes) and they never actually get around to building the damned ship.”
“You know who builds starships? People who believe, that’s who. Those who believe in the future, those who work every damned day to advance civilization, those who stand steadfast against the fall of night. Once upon a time, those people were Americans. And they can be again.”
The anonymous comment, edited and paraphrased slightly, was this: “Americans are brilliant at helping each other through adversity. Hurricanes, fires, diseases, death, you name it, we will rally the troops and put our own lives on hold to help someone in need. But Americans, on the whole, are terrible at passing legislation or implementing policies that would prevent some of these problems in the first place, or take care of those in need before it becomes a crisis.”
“We are a nation of wannabe heroes. We all want to save the day by volunteering in times of trouble. But we do not have enough people who are willing to do the ground work (or support those who do) to make sure those troubles can be avoided whenever possible. People who give a shit about the people who are barely existing every day, not just during disaster. We have a deficit of care. The US doesn't need more heroes. We need people who care.”
I like that. It reminds me of the fundamental teachings of the great religions –doing unto others as you would have them do unto you, and practicing kindness and compassion.
That does beg the question of whether it’s possible to embody those teachings in 21st century American politics. It certainly won’t be easy. If convincing people to do the right thing was easy, Donald Trump wouldn’t be president.
But it seems like it would be worth the effort. Count me in. And I’ll be writing more on this topic soon.