Glasgow Caledonian University 1: Princeton & Harvard 0
Disclaimer: I went to
a “Liberal Arts” college for my undergraduate degree. And, no, “Liberal” does not connote leftist,
godless, pagan, hedonist potheads (though I’m not judging those either). Instead, it suggests that an educated person,
for the sake of general civil engagement and, at times, for elocution, is
sufficiently exposed to a breadth of the humanities so as to not be incapable
of logical formation and engagement. One
of the values of exposure to the humanities is the resulting capacity to
critique your own experience and participate in public debate without coming
across as illiterate.
This week’s alumni performance by the Hon. President Hassan Fereydoun
Rouhani of the Islamic Republic of Iran (graduate of Glasgow Caledonian
University) and U.S. Senator Ted Cruz (R-TX) of his imagined Evangelical
Republic of Texas (graduate of Princeton and Harvard Law) served as an
exceptional example of the dysfunction of our ‘civil society’. The quotes below were both, in part,
pandering to an illiterate electorate.
Whether you’re an anti-Semitic revolutionary in Iran or a Bible thumping,
tea-swilling patriot in Texas, the likelihood that you’ll spend much more time
in contemplation than the few milliseconds it takes to figure out that “that
guy sounds funny” as you reach for your god-given-right-to-bear-arms pistol that
you’re packing is pretty slim.
When seeking to describe the profound injustice associated
with the idea that a society should have a mechanism where the citizens of a
country have to pay for their ravenous consumption of industrial medicine (you’ll
notice I will not use the term “health” or “care” as we’re not predisposed to
either), Senator Cruz compared the Patient Protection and Affordable Care Act
(PL 111-148) to a Nazi state behavior.
"You go to the 1940s, Nazi Germany. Look, we
saw in Britain, Neville Chamberlain who told the British people, accept the
Nazis. Yes, they'll dominate the continent of Europe but that's not our
problem. Let's appease them. Why? Because it can't be done. We can't possibly
stand against them.
"I
suspect those same pundits who say defunding Obamacare can't be done, if it had
been in the 1940s, we would have been listening to them. They would have been
saying we cannot defeat the Germans."
What Ted
apparently failed to attend or flunked out of in Princeton and clearly
neglected in Harvard Law School was any course that would have taught him that
rhetoric, if designed to be taken seriously and critically, must not be prima facie (that’s Latin for those of
you who know who you are) falsifiable.
Neville Chamberlain was actually holding onto a global desire for peace
that following the First World War had given rise to the League of
Nations. In 1938, as the Third Reich was
seeking to annex Sudetenland (a German majority region of Czechoslovakia that
had been created under the Versailles Settlement), Chamberlain desperately
sought to avoid an all-out war in Europe.
Advocating for the avoidance of conflict is not cowering. In fact, Mr. Cruz, it was Chamberlain who
actually sought a moral advantage over actual immorality in Germany. Oh, and Chamberlain was not in the 1940s –
his Munich Agreement was in 1938. But
you would have known that if you were a scholar of history.
Which leads me to
my second Nazi Germany reference. When
asked if he subscribed to the denial of the Holocaust like his predecessor,
President Hassan Fereydoun Rouhani stated that his posture was
not to comment on the history (ambiguous in whether he meant the 1930-40s or
whether he meant President Ahmadinejad’s reckless rants) but he went on to make
a lucid and morally unambiguous response evidencing an argument for apolitical basic
human values.
"I
have said before that I am not a historian and historians should specify, state
and explain the aspects of historical events, but generally we fully condemn
any kind of crime committed against humanity throughout the history, including
the crime committed by the Nazis both against the Jews and non-Jews, the same
way that if today any crime is committed against any nation or any religion or
any people or any belief, we condemn that crime and genocide. Therefore, what
the Nazis did is condemned, (but) the aspects that you talk about,
clarification of these aspects is a duty of the historians and researchers, I
am not a history scholar.”
So here we sit. We have a U.S. Senator Holocaust trivializer
(suggesting the genocide is comparable to having to pay for your x-rays and
over-priced pharmaceuticals) and an Iranian President “fully condemning any
kind of crime committed against humanity throughout the history.” Lest you think that this is mere theater and
politically posturing, think again. It
is reprehensible to think that the United States Senate is insufficiently
constituted to allow hate speak in 2013.
It is even more reprehensible that major news outlets failed to
celebrate the substance of President Rouhani’s statement choosing instead to
focus on his statement that he was not a scholar of history. He acknowledge “the crime committed by Nazis
both against Jews and non-Jews.” This is
an amazing step forward for a member of the Supreme National Security Council
and Expediency Council.
Our world and
its economy our destabilized by reckless rhetoric. When uninformed, we react to hyperbolic
diatribes rather than engage in thoughtful discourse, we create schisms which
frequently lead to great instability. Senator
Cruz brought dishonor on the American people and the institution of the
Legislative branch. President Rouhani
took a giant leap forward for an Iranian President (angering his revolutionary opponents
at home) to open a door for appeasement.
Who is Chamberlain? Who is
Hitler? Who are Germans, Americans,
Iranians? Let’s let history serve as a
teaching metaphor so, through it we may learn to build a More Perfect Union.
Final Note. Near the corner of 25th and
Madison in Manhattan is the Memorial to the Victims of the Holocaust
Injustice. This amazing memorial
sculpted by Harriet Feigenbaum is emblazoned with the quote:
“Indifference to Injustice is the Gate
to Hell”.
For those of
you who still value humanity and the celebration of our finest moments as well
as our most despicable, I commend its visiting to you. Its subtle presence is disarming but its
impact reminds us all to be human.
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David,
ReplyDeleteVery well said and thank you for being the 'a' voice of sanity. Mushin
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ReplyDeleteHi Dave
ReplyDeletecouple of personal anomalies this week for me.
Firstly i rarely leave it till a Tuesday to read(UK GMT is around 11pm)and secondly i rarely ever dream of commenting on a site littered with readers iam sure some of the most brilliant minds around
It's not often in the waking state that my home town and place of residence (Glasgow) gets a mention rounds these parts.
It would also perhaps dovetail to express the Nazi references as something i felt rather too much to just read without my little comment.
I have to say,it did eventually clarify my Mr Spock like ears when seeing Glasgow in the title to then see someone who's most likely not been to partial to the dominant theme of West of Scotland upbringings in the play of Catholisism.
A perculiar city that heads the highest unemployment in the UK ...a city that heads the highest heroin deaths in the UK(times 3 most of the apparent English 'rough' cities)...and,finally a polarizing factiod to the previous ones IE a 'lowest'...yep,life expectancy...we're hitting 56 at present which is worthy of the ahem 'inverted' lowest in Europe it sure makes for references outwith our Victorian era genuises of medicine and invention etc
On the macro scale when you say to Randy in last years interview(by the way,you did [promise an interview on Tax David i'd drop everything for to hear)about us still being in the Pope Innocent 3RD era of dominance it's always useful for one of your readers to apply his microcosm engagement.
Iam just for a moment trying to tie Glasgow/Nazis/and crystalised expressions of a mainstream religion.
My sound bite response would point to children Dave!
As someone who managed to swim through a childhood with so much abuse that early memories are now just coming back(after 150k of money spent on denial based new age and spiritual therapy of such)and thankfully now an insistance on the perpetrators it's interesting for me to note the levels of denial.
yes,denial about the external(to which being bed bound in large parts in adult life leads one to in 2006 an interesting chap with an interesting bow tie doing in talk on 'house of cards')(oddly,an excellent BBC play from the late 90's halcyon era)
Yes,the denial of the holocaust..Yes,the denial that FAMILY VIOLENCE (even round these parts)(which are the finest i'd say for a high school 15 year old drop out that's spent more time round the internet thanks to various psycho somatic illnesses)(thanks to levels of abuse that can only be allowed via the forth commandment 'love thy parents' and the wider system of it's implicit religion)
Yes,a system where the father is correct(coiencidently a system that then allowed an already strict approach in Germany to galvanise in cultural insistance during and after WW1 to ramp up the corrective attitudes to child rearing...which then made the symbolic extrapolative impulse of a severe beaten child to be the archetype of repressed rage and to then himself be the expression of 'Father' to whom 'we the ....German people' could not psycologically speak out against.
And,as full circle of the entire human exierince to deny not only the horrors(which the infants mind has to as survival)but to then deny it at any scale one wishes to chose(as reference to Dave's latest gem)
But,iam sure along with the truthers of today and tomorrow the truth about ones childhood will be met with insight.
Take care