The Conservative Classical Liberal

With several books out recently that contain the word "Liberalism" in the title, I have been giddily traipsing across the internet exploring ideas and definitions of conservatism. The intriguing game for me is coming to understand and articulate how many contemporary conservatives are actually classical liberals. Isn't that fun? From Patrick Deneen's hot-off-the-presses Why Liberalism Failed to the boldly titled and eloquently researched The Retreat of Western Liberalism by Edward Luce, there is much to entertain the minds of Burkean-Kirkean conservatives. For a while I have maintained a pretty consistent "conservative-but-not-Republican" eye toward the issues, as I generally find myself aligning with the fiscally-conservative-but-socially-conscious camp. Many would simply identify that as being a moderate - and I don't quarrel with that view. There are simply so many contradictions and dead ends in the party politics that have made the heads of America's center-right spin. Religion would be a key component of that, with the roots of dissent going back to the rise of Ralph Reed in the 80s and 90s. It seems that many conservatives draw a line in the sand on "their" ideology as being intrinsically linked to a firm religiosity, notably Christian. But the line of thinking I tend to follow believes, as George Will so eruditely explains “an individual’s faith is not a requisite for good citizenship; that democratic flourishing does not require a religious citizenry; that natural rights do not require grounding in God.” Tell that to Focus on the Family though. As I've wondered around the blogs and think tanks, I've enjoyed discovering The Imaginative Conservative, a website filled with commentary and scholarship exploring conservatism in the contemporary age. There I found a wonderfully succinct bit of Kirkean wisdom worth repeating:

The conservative is concerned, first of all, with the regeneration of the spirit and character—with the perennial problem of the inner order of the soul, the restoration of the ethical understanding, and the religious sanction upon which any life worth living is founded. This is conservatism at its highest. - Russell Kirk

And, as I continue to explore the Burkean-Kirkean tenets of conservative thought, all the while pondering ideas of the Emerson-ian and Thoreauvian conservative, I am always amused to get lost in thoughtful ponderings such as this one from the New Republic:  Everyone Hates Henry David Thoreau.

If I'm the Media, what does that say?

I believe in the news. And, as much as any rational, educated person can be reasonably well-informed while also scrutinizing any source of information, I also believe the news. That seems to be an ever more rare and suspect position in the era of fake news and Russian trolls, and I think a lot about what that means for contemporary society. The number of people who "don't believe the news" or simply don't pay attention to the news always surprises me (with increasing frequency), and a couple of recent conversations have re-framed this for me in interesting ways.

For one, I have an old college buddy who regularly challenges my blog posts and tweets as being part of "the media." The criticism mostly implies that I am "brethren" to the liberal mainstream media that is in conspiracy against the President and his agenda. Now, I am definitely a critic of the current White House, and I will occasionally post about relevant issues. But I'm a personal blogger with a couple social media accounts. That ain't "the media." For me, the media are professional news organizations such as The Wall Street Journal, CNN, and NBC. Journalists are people who have trained to report the news and information. While any individual and organization is bound to have bias in the way stories are reported, I'm fairly comfortable with the state of news.

The issue of a news organization's "trustworthiness" came up over Winter Break with my middle-school-age daughter and one of her homework assignments, and the subsequent discussions I had with another parent also baffled me a bit. I was initially annoyed by the task my daughter had because she was asked to gather some factual information on a government-associated issue (hers was military spending), and her teacher told her she could not use news organizations because they were biased. She was instead steered toward using "a dot-org" because it's unbiased. Now, clearly any educated person knows that Americans for Prosperity and the Progressive Policy Institute are both .org groups, but each has a clear bias and agenda. So, I didn't like the assumptions about a website's inherent bias or the implication that CNN would be intrinsically biased about reporting of military spending.

Yet, interestingly, when we did a bit of researching, the quickest way to find simple facts about spending was, in fact, to go to a ".org" like Pew or the Petersen Foundation, and all searches of news sites truly did offer some biased commentary even in the headlines. And, I guess a lot can be said for not just turning kids loose on news websites because it's not so easy to simply go to Time or CNN or the WSJ or Fox and just collect facts and information.  That said, I am surprised by people who simply don't read or watch "the news," and I am a bit saddened by people who choose to remain somewhat aloof and uninformed simply because "all news is just biased."

Certainly, as an educator and teacher of rhetoric and argumentation, I am committed to developing a better understanding among my students about "what's out there," and I still seek to create "people on whom nothing is lost." This challenge of interpreting the media is actually in the media with the recent AP report that "States Push Media Literacy in Schools." While that goal is already ripe for criticism because of who will teach what to whom, it's probably a worthy goal for schools. And, interestingly, even as I was composing this post, I was challenged to find some sources. For example, in terms of an organization actively pushing a political party's agenda, I immediately referenced AFP. But I was initially at a loss to come up with a comparable group pushing the Democrats agenda that had equal prominence. Here's a good question: who makes up the progressive version of AFP?

Lawmakers in several states have introduced or passed bills calling on public school systems to do more to teach media literacy skills that they say are critical to democracy. The effort has been bipartisan but has received little attention despite successful legislation in Washington state, Connecticut, Rhode Island and New Mexico. Several more states are expected to consider such bills in the coming year, including Arizona, New York and Hawaii. "I don't think it's a partisan issue to appreciate the importance of good information and the teaching of tools for navigating the information environment," said Hans Zeiger, a Republican state senator in Washington who co-sponsored a bill that passed in his state earlier this year. "There is such a thing as an objective source versus other kinds of sources, and that's an appropriate thing for schools to be teaching."

I'm not sure what the answer is, but I do know a few things. I will still read the Denver Post everyday and the Wall Street Journal on the weekends. I will still subscribe to Time Magazine and occasionally check in with CNN. I will still get my news and news commentary from sites like The Atlantic, Vox, the Washington Post, and the New York Times. And I will still trust my ability to read news with a critical lens, rather than simply choose not to read.

And I will maintain that I am not "the media."

Ideas Junkies & their Gurus

America is fascinated with ideas - just take a look at the non-fiction bestseller lists across the country and then review the careers of people like Malcolm Gladwell, David Brooks, Daniel Pink, Thomas Friedman, and others. We love to read and think about cool stuff. As a self-diagnosed "ideas junkie," I have been thinking a lot about my list of favorite thinkers and ideas-writers. I got to thinking about this when I recently read a review of Daniel Mendelsohn's new book An Odyssey: a Father, a Son, and an Epic. 

Looking in to Mendelsohn's work, I discovered him to be a thoughtful and erudite literary and social critic. His website led me to other works of criticism, and I just disappeared down the Amazon.com rabbit-hole of more and more books. Literally, I (and many others) just can't get enough of writers who so smoothly introduce the general populace to ideas and information that we would probably never encounter on our own. Perhaps no one has done this so effectively - and to such success - as former journalist Malcolm Gladwell who taught us about The Tipping Point and people known as Outliers. 

So, who do you like to read?  Here are some people I like to call "Ideas Gurus" who catch my attention regularly with the cool stuff they've been reading and thinking about:

Thomas Friedman

David Brooks

Daniel Pink

Daniel Khaneman

Stephen Levitt

"I am What I am" - Poem, 2018

Art, more art. That is what I regularly tell myself ... and others. Being a creator more than being a consumer, seeing the world as an artist does - these are my goals for 2018. So, to begin this new year in pursuit of art, I offer this poem that I just ran across in an old folder at school and that I apparently wrote years ago, though I can't recall when.

I am what I am; 

Teacher, husband, father,

I am what I am.

More conservative than most people expect,

More liberal than I might admit,

I am what I am.

A traditionalist who likes to push the envelope; 

a painfully shy extrovert,

I am what I am.

Smart enough to know better, foolish enough to

make the same mistake twice,

or three times.

I am what I am.

Fiercely loyal to those I know well,

strongly suspicious of too many others;

I am cautious and carefree, and while 

I am always learning and usually willing

to listen, I figured it all out a long

time ago.

I am what I am.

Madly in love with my wife, amazed with,

inspired by, devoted to, and enamored of

my children, I live for my family,

and I can't get enough of them.

I am what I am.

In perpetual pursuit of the truth, constantly

refining my craft, fascinated by the whole

world, desirous of everything

at once, I am completely satisfied, but

always questing for more.

I am maniacally, cautiously

at peace with my life.

I am what I am.

Christmas Eve 2017

Well, here we are again. It's a white Christmas in Denver, and the family is here and safe and warm, and I'm reflecting on another year. Listening to Pandora.com, I am reminiscing about my favorite holiday songs, many of which take me back nostalgically to working winter breaks at the Pasta House, Co. in the St. Louis area. The Christmas tape had songs like:

And

And, now that it's thirty years later, and I'm living in Colorado, I've added a few favorites to my list such as:

Looking back, I realize that twelve months ago I was "Looking for Something about Life." I imagine I'm still doing the same in 2017. A year later I've managed to learn a little about playing piano, and I am forever trying to work a bit more art and culture into my life. The world continues to baffle me, though I am inclined to worry less about that which I cannot change, and I've come to realize that people will believe or not believe what they want with little help from me. Thus, I am trying to focus on hugging my people and tending my own garden as much as I can.

Merry Christmas.

Mendelsohn: a father & son study The Odyssey

Man, I really dig smart people. And veteran scholar and critic Daniel Mendelsohn definitely qualifies as one of the smartest people in the contemporary humanities world. If you're a reader, and especially if you are a reader of reviews and essays on the classics and humanities, you've most likely read some DM before, as he has been publishing critical commentary for years. Now he's released perhaps his most personal work with his re-visiting of Homer's The Odyssey in a seminar class at Bard College with his 81-year-old father sitting in on the class. Wash Post writer Wendy Smith offers an engaging and inviting overview of the man and his project as "Daniel Mendelsohn learns that teaching his dad 'The Odyssey' is a classic trip."

Daniel Mendelsohn is one of the finest critics writing today and the most broadly erudite, as comfortable and astute assessing blockbuster movies as he is when writing about classical Greek and Roman literature. He’s also an elegant and moving memoirist, of his personal history in “The Elusive Embrace” and of his family’s entanglement with the Holocaust in “The Lost.”  His lovely new book, “An Odyssey,”draws on all Mendelsohn’s talents as he braids critical exegeses into intimate reminiscences to illuminate them both. His 2011 seminar at Bard College on the “Odyssey” becomes a voyage of discovery not just for his students but also for Mendelsohn, who gets more than he bargained for when his 81-year-old father, Jay, decides to sit in on the class.

Art, more art - in Denver

Some time around a year ago, I concluded that what I need more of in my life was art. Art, jazz, photography, food, culture, .... life. The reality was that while I am pretty well-established and successful in my personal and professional lives, I was reeling from a sense of ennui, and I needed to be reminded that music, art, literature, and culture are the "things we stay alive for." For that reason, I am glad that even as a school administrator, I have remained in the classroom with a connection to the humanities that give us meaning and understanding. And I am also thankful for writers and critics like Denver's Ray Rinaldi and the Denver Post for continuing to cover the art world as an indispensable part of news and society. Reading about those neighborhoods where art is thriving, I am inspired and fulfilled, not to mention reminded to see the world like an artist.

These days, the Golden Triangle is the serious contender. While other districts have been turned upside down by gentrification, the triangle has remained a reliable place to see good work, due mostly to the fact that four of the city’s most venerable and trusted dealers call it home, with William Havu, Sandra Phillips, Tina Goodwin and Bobbi Walker all running namesake businesses within a few blocks of each other. The neighborhood also happens to overlap geographically with the city’s well-hyped Museum District, which means it hones in on the arty aura of the Clyfford Still Museum, the Denver Art Museum, The Art hotel and, starting in March, the newly relocated Kirkland Museum.

The world is alive. Get out there and see it.

George Will explains the Wedding Cake/Gay Marriage Issue

Making a cake is not practicing or "exercising" Christianity. For me, it's that simple. It's all in the words of the amendment:

Amendment I. Congress shall make no law respecting an establishment of religion, or prohibiting the free exercise thereof; or abridging the freedom of speech, or of the press; or the right of the people peaceably to assemble, and to petition the government for a redress of grievances.

Having been born and raised Catholic, and having practiced that religion for many years, I understand the perspective of Masterpiece Cakeshop owner Jack Philips, who believes that his religion and faith do not approve of homosexuality and subsequently the legality/legitimacy of same-sex marriage. That said, I cannot fathom how he extrapolates that belief into arguing that conducting business at his cake shop constitutes violating his religious beliefs. While I do know the origin of the opposition to homosexuality in Scripture, I also know that doing a job is not practicing the religion, and nowhere in Scripture does it expect, command, or encourage the faithful to deny doing business with anyone, including those believed to be in a state of sin.

Making a cake ain't going to church or receiving a sacrament, Jack, and thus you are wrong in your interpretation of your faith, the Constitution, and the law.

Conservative writer George Will expounds on the issue as well this week in his commentary, More Wrongs than Rights in Masterpiece Cake Shop Case,  anticipating the Supreme Court ruling on the cake issue and Colorado's anti-discrimination legislation.

The First Amendment speaks of speech; its presence in a political document establishes its core purpose as the protection of speech intended for public persuasion. The amendment has, however, been rightly construed broadly to protect many expressive activities. Many, but there must be limits.

Phillips was neither asked nor required to attend, let alone participate in, the wedding. Same-sex marriage was not yet legal in Colorado, so Craig and Mullins were to be married in Massachusetts. The cake was for a subsequent reception in Denver. But even if the cake were to have been consumed at a wedding, Phillips’ creation of the cake before the ceremony would not have constituted participation in any meaningful sense.

I do believe Will goes a bit off base when he criticizes the plaintiffs for filing the case. Sure they could have gone to other shops, George. But that's not the point. Other consumers in other towns might not have that luxury, so the case had to be resolved, and Philips had to be sued.

Stop Reporting Local Bad News

There was another traffic accident (break in, house fire, fight, robbery, hit-and-run, etc.) in Colorado today. I would know about this event, of course, if I happened to tune in for my local news, broadcasts which are seeing a noticeable decline according to recent sweeps.

The chief reason for the decline is obvious: Digital devices continue to draw attention away from television as younger audiences desert the medium in droves. According to a September 2017 Pew Report, in a drastic change from a generation ago, “the internet substantially outpaces TV as a regular news source for adults younger than 50.” It’s also possible that KUSA was hurt by the loss of a viewer favorite, longtime anchor Adele Arakawa, who left in June after 24 years on top of the ratings.

Or perhaps it's because the stories they feature are not really news. Perhaps one reason viewership declines is that no one really needs to, or wants to, hear news about a traffic accident or criminal act that is not "newsworthy" to others in any relevant way. Henry David Thoreau in Walden: or, Life in the Woods noted that "to a philosopher all news is gossip," and he can't fathom ever getting much communication via mail or otherwise that was actually worth the paper it was printed on.

Daily life in contemporary America, especially in a large metropolitan area like Denver, is filled with fascinating and newsworthy stories with pertinent information and knowledge that can lead to a more erudite population. But single traffic accidents or singular instances of criminal activity like robberies and break-ins aren't such information. When I flip the news on and see a report on a local crime, followed by a traffic accident, followed by a house fire, followed by .... well, you know, then I am uninterested and turn off the news. I am not a more informed citizen, voter, father, teacher, or neighbor because I learned of a traffic accident in Thorton or a robbery in Aurora.

Give viewers more illuminating matter, and perhaps they will return.

New Policy for Dept on Ed Civil Rights?

"So, can a teacher have a Christmas tree and a crucifix on his/her desk?"

As we approach the "holiday season," which of course includes Christmas, the annual questions about religious holiday displays on public property will once again flare up on news commentary and social media. There are clear guidelines for what can be deemed acceptable displays, but those are always going to be contextual based on the time, place, and people. And these questions are part of a larger socio-cultural question about civil rights in schools that spans a range from Christmas songs to reading lists.

At the federal level it appears there will be some changes in how the US Dept of Education handles such issues, with the emphasis moving to "individual complaints rather than systemic problems."

WASHINGTON — The Education Department wants to narrow the scope of civil rights investigations at schools, focusing on individual complaints rather than systemic problems, according to a document obtained by The Associated Press. Under the Obama administration, when a student complained of discrimination in a particular class or school, the education agency would examine the case but also look at whether the incident was part of a broader, systemic problem that needed to be fixed. Proposed revisions to the department's civil rights procedures, distributed last week among civil rights officials at the department, remove the word "systemic" from the guidelines.

It seems unimaginable to me that we still debate reading lists and are "banning" books like Fahrenheit 451, but apparently that's where we still are.

"The World is Too Much with Us ..."

In these times, these strangely complicated, yet oversimplified times, it's worth looking back to the 18th century for some insight from the masters. Is our progress really a regression? Do we "lay waste our powers" when we spend too much time "getting and spending"? Is there something we can learn from "heading out under the open skies and listening to Nature's teachings"?

The World Is Too Much with Us

The world is too much with us; late and soon,

Getting and spending, we lay waste our powers;

Little we see in Nature that is ours;

We have given our hearts away, a sordid boon!

This Sea that bares her bosom to the moon,

The winds that will be howling at all hours,

And are up-gathered now like sleeping flowers,

For this, for everything, we are out of tune;

It moves us not. --Great God! I'd rather be

A Pagan suckled in a creed outworn;

So might I, standing on this pleasant lea,

Have glimpses that would make me less forlorn;

Have sight of Proteus rising from the sea;

Or hear old Triton blow his wreathèd horn

Ponder and get back to me.

Does Bill Gates Ignore the Family Connection?

In reading a bit of commentary from The Villager, a community newspaper in southeast Denver, I ran across an interesting bit of ed-reform criticism from writer Joneen Mackenzie, who publishes a regular relationship column for the paper. Mackenzie's piece about how "Families Play a Key Role in Child's Success" calls out Bill Gates and the Gates Foundation for ignoring and excluding the role of family relationships as they seek to reform and improve public education. Specifically, she references and summarizes an article by Ian Rowe of the Fordham Institute that criticizes Gates and all his "investments" in ed-reform because of his "Neglecting to mention family structure and stability—and, more importantly, omitting any strategy to use schools to strengthen those levers—undermines the very ability of all of us who have committed our lives to improve outcomes for children." 

This important factor in the academic success of children is a complicated bit of sociology, and it poses a challenging dilemma for anyone attempting to improve educational outcomes for students whose lives outside of school not only fail to support an academic focus but more than like subvert and compromises them. The tough conversation also wades into complicated socio-cultural arguments about the importance of two-parent homes and the ability of all parents to adequately contribute to their children's education. If we're being honest, we can't fix or solve the challenges kids face outside of their school time. Or can we?