Bob Schwartz

Everyone is someone else’s pain, or at least pain in the ass. We don’t always know this or acknowledge it about ourselves, thinking how we are put upon or suffering at the hands of others, yet unwilling to see how others are overlooking our own silliness or meanness.

We are constantly getting breaks from family, friends and particularly from those in loving relationships. Since we can’t actually count the number of breaks we get—most are silently and even unconsciously given—the best path to balance is to give breaks to others as infinitely as possible. This can seem painful, because we are convinced it is our duty to make the world or someone we know and love “better.” Except that more than we realize, others are making the world better by allowing us to be who we are without comment or critique. Compassionate criticism has its place, but so does giving breaks, more often than we do.

It would take a million pages just to start talking about the differences between men and women. Here’s just one.

Many of us run through a checklist before leaving home for the day. Whether you are forgetful or just overloaded with thoughts, this is a good way to avoid inconveniences and annoyances.

The simplest checklist in these times is “phone, wallet, keys.” This is elegant and practical. Missing any one of these can be a problem, but the other two can help solve it. Missing all of them is a big problem, with a lot of downside, and nothing up.

In most cases, men have pockets, and they often use these pockets to carry things. And, not coincidentally, three primary things are phone, wallet, keys. The checklist doesn’t have to be mental. A quick self-pat-down does the trick. This can take literally a few seconds, and is minimally invasive.

Women may have pockets, but frequently they do not carry much in them. Many women carry some sort of handbag or shoulder bag for items such as…phone, wallet, keys, and more. They may use the same bag each day or day part, but they also may change bags for style or size.

This makes the morning checklist for women complicated. Even when care is taken to make sure that a bag includes the essential items, there is no true certainty until the contents of the bag is inspected. No pat down is available. And then, there are multiple bags, so at any moment, the phone may be one place, the wallet another, the keys another.

As with all the differences, we can’t over generalize. And we can’t fix—because there’s nothing to fix. We celebrate the way things are, even when—or especially when—that includes the occasional missing essential. As much fun as it might be to pat down your favorite woman, completely aware that her pockets are empty, you make do with a very short and sweet, “Got everything?” Which whether it works or not, does say it all.

In a fantasy world, the marriage between politics and public policy is an ideal one. Each loving and respectful partner contributes thoughtfully and constructively, and the outcomes are not just positive, but even better than we could imagine.

Suspend imagining and consider this. The offspring are often so ugly and unacceptable that we avert our eyes, ashamed not of the partisans and pragmatists we have put in positions of power, but of ourselves for our reticence and complicity.

The New York Times reports  that after the shooting of Gabrielle Giffords in early 2011:

The Justice Department drew up a detailed list of steps the government could take to expand the background-check system in order to reduce the risk of guns falling into the hands of mentally ill people and criminals.…Most of the proposals, though, were shelved at the department a year ago as the election campaign heated up and as Congress conducted a politically charged investigation into the Operation Fast and Furious gun trafficking case, according to people familiar with the internal deliberations.

Even if none of the proposals—some of which would not have required Congressional action—would have altered anything in Connecticut is beside the point. Politics stood in the way of positive policy and brought it to a standstill. Once again.

This election year has been a test. We muster moments of idealism, gathering genuine evidence of progress. But time after time, something happens to draw us back to a lingering cynicism we can’t shake. We have to shake it, for the sake of all of us, for the sake of those who are weak and need our strength, for the sake of the broken who need fixing. But it can be so very hard.

Jimmy Carter was one of the most interesting President’s of his generation. We know that from his distinguished career as a statesman and man of public faith after he left office. But even as President, he brought a certain humanity and candor to the office that was unique. This also left him uniquely vulnerable, as events and political strategy overtook him.

In the midst of the energy crisis of 1979, Carter gave an address since known as the “malaise” speech, even though he never used that word. In it he said:

I want to talk to you right now about a fundamental threat to American democracy. . . . I do not refer to the outward strength of America, a nation that is at peace tonight everywhere in the world, with unmatched economic power and military might. The threat is nearly invisible in ordinary ways. It is a crisis of confidence. It is a crisis that strikes at the very heart and soul and spirit of our national will. We can see this crisis in the growing doubt about the meaning of our own lives and in the loss of a unity of purpose for our nation. . . .

There is no direct connection between that speech and the current circumstances. Except if we don’t use today to start examining “the meaning of our own lives and…the loss of a unity of purpose for our nation”—an examination we suspended for this election year—we are never going to get back to it.

We have to start criticizing those we otherwise like and praising those we otherwise don’t, without worrying about political impact. Every Democrat winning or losing, every Republican winning or losing, is not going to change things. Jimmy Carter’s “crisis that strikes at the very heart and soul and spirit of our national will” is inexorably tied up with the events of this week. We are going to find that will, starting today.

MSNBC is running the NBC News broadcast of the events of September 11, 2001 in real clock-time. That is, when it was 9:59am on that date, it is 9:59am today.

Today we have an eleven-year knowledge advantage. Where there was ignorance and speculation about exactly what was going on, we know much more for certain.

We are so stunned still that we are struck silent, but not quite silent. We want to make sense of our tragedies public and private. We don’t just want explanations. We want lessons.

We have more than enough smart talking heads to make articulate, insightful statements. Not to mention those other smart people who have devised strategies to respond, some more popular and effective than others.

And then again there is silence. For a few hours on that day, professional journalists combined with first responders and horrified citizens to say everything that could be said in the moment, maybe all that needs to be said today.

It’s okay to stand dumb. Just for a day.

For those who wonder whether meanness is a sin or vice, you can start with Summa Theologica by St. Thomas Aquinas, where Question 135 addresses the issue. Or you could ask your parents or your elementary school teachers or your spouse or your children: It’s not nice to be mean.

Which should make us think about why rampant meanness is not only acceptable, but encouraged, entertaining, and profitable. Cheaters may never prosper (though they often do), but meaners are doing very well these days.

Saying that all things virtuous seem to be dying and on life support is an overstatement that doesn’t get us far. Instead, four possible explanations of how what was once a private disturbance has become such a pandemic, a public poison:

Meanness by proxy: All art and performance is based on the ability and willingness of creators to express what we can’t or won’t. It would be nice to think that we only long to be the one who can move people to tears or laughter, inspire people to reach higher, and if we can’t be those creators, at least they are doing that for us. The same thing unfortunately applies to darker messaging, though. We may not be able to attack quite so sharply and eloquently, but we appreciate that someone can. “Yeah, what he said!”

Meanness as superiority: This is a subset of meanness by proxy. There’s perversity in enjoying the meanness of others, but at the same time taking pride in being one who would never say something like that because…we are better than that and would never be so mean. (Whatever the theological status of meanness, by the way, pride is definitely on all the lists of sins.)

Meanness as incompetent and faulty criticism: This is the explanation of meanness as sub-juvenile behavior. When little children aren’t sure why they hate somebody or something, or can’t articulate it, they revert to name-calling and indiscriminate meanness: “You’re a poo-poo head!” It’s a fantastic dream that one day, thanks to some spell, the most gratuitously mean would be magically forced to speak only such childish epithets.

Meanness unconditioned by a thought/speech barrier: The thought/speech barrier, the wall that should keep many thoughts from ever being spoken, is dissolving. Whether phenomena such as Twitter are causal, enabling, or merely symptomatic is beside the point. Thought moves from brain to mouth (or keyboard) at the speed of synapse. Mean heart becomes mean words in a literal instant.

There is a genuine critical function, which can be exercised with thoughtfulness, care, and respect. That simple sentence, a foundation of a free, enlightened society, is looking particularly quaint, and seems for many to have lost its meaning.