Bob Schwartz

Studying the unknowable. Speaking the ineffable. Explaining the unexplainable. Why go there?

The reason is simple some. It is the clichéd reason that climbers give for scaling the most challenging mountains. Because it is there.

For many others, who find mountain climbing an unnecessarily arduous, dangerous and time-wasting pursuit, there is an answer too. Because it is there. That is, there is the unknowable, ineffable and unexplainable, and the sooner you have even a slight familiarity with this phenomenon, the more realistically humble you will be about what you can know, say and explain. Even if you only amble in the foothills, when you look up to the impossibly high peaks obscured by clouds, you will know you are small. Maybe you walk on and up, maybe you don’t. But just the acknowledgement is something essential.

#ReverseforKindness and Art Insurgent as Advertising See

Among many famous dystopian novels (Brave New World, The Handmaid’s Tale, etc.), 1984 has currently risen to the top of the Amazon bestseller list. But the book to really read is Philip Roth’s The Plot Against America: A Novel (2004)

In this alternative history, one of the world’s biggest celebrities surprisingly becomes the Republican presidential nominee and defeats FDR in the 1940 election. Charles Lindbergh, a known Nazi sympathizer who wants to keep America from fighting Germany, is a friend of Hitler and an enemy of the Jews. And he is President of the United States.

Here are just a few reviews:

“A terrific political novel. . . . Sinister, vivid, dreamlike . . . creepily plausible. . . . You turn the pages, astonished and frightened.” — The New York Times Book Review

“Roth’s most powerfrul book to date. Confounding and illuminating, enraging and discomfiting, imaginative and utterly–terrifyingly–believable.” — San Francisco Chronicle

“It’s not a prophecy; it’s a nightmare, and it becomes more nightmarish–and also funnier and more bizarre–as is goes along. . . . [A] sinuous and brilliant book, with its extreme sweetness, its black pain, and its low, ceaseless cackle.” –The New Yorker

“Ambitious and chilling. . . a breath-taking leap of imagination. . . . The writing is brilliant.” –USA Today

“Intimately observed characters in situations fraught with society’s deepest, most bitter tensions. . . . Too ingeniously excruciating to put down.” –Newsweek

“Raises the stakes as high as a patriotic novel can take them. . . . Effortlessly, it seems, Roth has led us to suspend disbelief; then he makes us believe; then he suspends this belief and finally removes it. . . . A fabulous yarn.” –Los Angeles Times Book Review

USA Today reports:

BOMB THREATS AGAIN RATTLE JEWISH CENTERS

Another wave of bomb threats swept through Jewish community centers across the nation Tuesday. Centers from Albany, N.Y., to Boulder, Colo., to White Fish Bay, Wis., to La Jolla, Calif., were among those evacuated. Fourteen centers in 10 states plus a Canadian province received threats, according to the JCC Association of North America.

“While the situation is developing, most have already received the all-clear from local law enforcement and resumed regular operations, with a heightened level of security,” David Posner, director of strategic performance at the New York-based organization, said in a statement.

Posner pointed out that Tuesday marked the third time in January that Jewish community centers have been targeted by bomb threats. On Jan. 18, 27 centers in 17 states received threats, he said. On Jan. 9, 16 centers in nine states were targeted, he added.

“We are concerned about the anti-semitism behind these threats,” Posner said.

It was not clear how many centers were affected.

Such scares are not rare, the Anti-Defamation League acknowledged. In the other January cases, officials allowed staff and children to return to the centers within a few hours.

“This unfortunately looks like the latest round,” Elise Jarvis, associate director for law enforcement outreach at the ADL, told USA TODAY. “So far the ones that were investigated were found not to be credible threats. But at the same time we need to take every one extremely seriously.”…

Jarvis would not theorize on the motive for the calls.

“It’s extremely disruptive; it can cause fear and panic,” she said. “It’s hard to know what motivates all this without knowing who did it.”

David Posner attributes it to anti-semitism. Elise Jarvis is more careful and circumspect, holding off until the perpetrators are known. Neither suggests that there is a marked increase in such incidents due to the current political climate.

They do not suggest that the environment is one in which pre-existing biases find a certain comfort and normalization. Not exactly encouragement or enabling, but something maybe close to that. They don’t suggest anything like that. But on a day when 14 Jewish community centers were threatened—thankfully empty threats—one might suggest something like that and might not be wrong.

Only ten days into his administration, Trump has begun the purge of government officials who disagree with him, with the firing of Acting Attorney General Sally Yates. It took Nixon almost five years before he got rid of a conscientious Attorney General. Elliot Richardson left on 20 October 1973, an event now known in history as the Saturday Night Massacre. Things seem to move much faster in the 21^st century. There is more of the same undoubtedly to come.

For people of conscience, government posts and titles have always been dangerous. Here is a story from Chuang Tzu (c. 4th century BC), “one of the most intriguing, humorous, enjoyable personalities in the whole of Chinese thought and philosophy.”

Someone offered Chuang Tzu a court post. Chuang Tzu answered the messenger, ‘Sir, have you ever seen a sacrificial ox? It is decked in fine garments and fed on fresh grass and beans. However, when it is led into the Great Temple, even though it most earnestly might wish to be a simple calf again, it’s now impossible!’ (The Book of Chuang Tzu, Chapter 32)

“A Republican congressional aide said the House Homeland Security Committee wasn’t consulted on the executive order, and an aide to a Republican House Judiciary Committee member said he wasn’t aware of any committee members or staffers being consulted. On Sunday, a senior leadership aide said congressional leaders had no role in drafting the order.”

“Florida Senator Marco Rubio, who ran against Trump for the Republican nomination, said he had been trying to get more information about the orders but that State Department officials told his staff that they had been ordered not to talk to Congress.”

In the adapted words of a PBS profile:

He was a small man with a crippled foot, a disproportionately large head and a fragile body. He was much disliked because of his malice and ill will, and though a mesmerizing orator, he lacked charisma. Nevertheless, he was a man of tremendous enthusiasm with an endless supply of ideas, and a master of mass psychology.

He was made propaganda chief. After the party came to power, he began to clamp down on all forms of artistic expression. He took control of the news media, making sure that it presented domestic and foreign policy aims in terms of party ideology. He played probably the most important role in creating an atmosphere in the country that made it possible for the party to commit terrible atrocities.

He devoted much of his efforts to boosting morale. He wrote innumerable articles and speeches rousing the people, promising wonders and providing projections he knew were pure fantasy.

Who is this man? And why is he here?

For almost two years, it has been apparent that the new President has a simple view of America. He repeated his mantra today:

America is in awful, terrible, horrible shape.

America needs a savior who doesn’t believe in the old and conventional ways that have only made things worse.

He is the one and only savior.

From a non-clinical perspective, terms like “savior complex” or “messiah complex” are sometimes used. Clinically, according to the DSM-IV-TR, the diagnostic criteria for delusional disorders, grandiose-type symptoms include grossly exaggerated beliefs of:

self-worth
power
knowledge
identity
exceptional relationship to a divinity or famous person

The one item on that list that doesn’t apply anymore is “grossly exaggerated belief of power.” Starting today, that would-be savior is the most powerful man in the world.