E Pluribus Unum: The Eclipse and Our Unity.

It was a remarkable day, wasn't it, with everyone focusing on the sun and its eclipse. People of all races and ages and political persuasions were putting aside all that for a moment with a greater, single unified focus. All the various tribalisms gave way, if only in our attention, to a passing sense of our common plight and wondrous journey on this small planet dancing around a minor sun, tucked away in a far corner of a galaxy among billions of others, flying through space at greater and greater speeds.

I was reminded of our unofficial national motto, found on coins and often repeated—the Latin phrase, 'E Pluribus Unum,' one from many, or "out of many, one." That's the brilliance of our history as a nation. We weren't founded on the traditional basis of "soil and blood" that's so common for national origins around the world. We didn't all always live here or come from ancestors who did. We're not all related by the tightest weaves of family and tribe. We have originated from many places and nations, and out of many religions and views, and yet we came together under a single set of ideas to unite us as the classic hope of the world.

In the gym today, my workout partner Don and I talked about tribalism and the global imperative. We can't survive as a species and as a world unless we're ultimately able to rise above the identity politics and splintered nationalist affiliations that spark anger and hatred and wars. Carl Sagan and other astronomers have worried that we've never had verifiable contact with an advanced civilization from another planet, perhaps, because intelligent beings always destroy themselves before they can engage in extensive intergalactic communication or travel. We seem to be rushing down such a path ourselves, with hot spots around the world, and nuclear weapons poised for action while irrational rhetoric heats up with threats and warnings. Perhaps we need a new attitude focused on our commonalities. Maybe even the celestial event of today can remind us of this. It's easy to do globalism badly. It's easy to do anything wrong. As Aristotle suggested with his favorite analogy of an archery target, there are lots of ways to miss any bullseye, and there is only one place to hit it precisely right.

I would encourage all of you to ponder this. Let's find ways of celebrating our differences, while valuing each other and rising about the tribalisms that threaten us and our future. Let's find something to focus on that will unite us and not divide us. Any other path will lead to an eclipse that no one will want to see.

Respect. Honor. Goodwill. An Election Day Thought.

Respect, honor, and goodwill.

Friends! Remember in all your interactions with others today, the qualities of respect, honor, and goodwill. If the other person doesn't deserve these things, you do deserve them: to respect yourself in word and deed, honor the best within you, and lead the way in goodwill. Neither the weight of the world, nor the demands of national justice should be on your shoulders today. Dig deep. Reach high. Make yourself proud of your own kindness and grace in demeanor, tone, and word.

I've already had to turn the other cheek once this morning. I wanted to tell the guy to kiss that cheek, long and hard. But I didn't. I wished him well and offered a blessing. Remember Polonius and Hamlet, when the prince has just suggested that he treat some men well:

Polonius: My lord, I will use them according to their desert.

Hamlet: God's bodkins, man, much better! Use every man after his desert, and who should 'scape hanging? Use them after your own honor and dignity; the less they deserve, the more merit is in your bounty. Take them in.

Let's set an example today for how a person should act under trying and challenging circumstances. You may hear things that nearly make your blood boil. Overcome them with the power of your inner spirit. That person has likely lost or damaged theirs. You're the one who can set the example. 

Good Wishes for a Great Day. And may God bless America, not in accordance with our merit, but out of the abundance of divine bounty!

Art and Social Responsibility

My wife and I were sitting at home and watching a bit of television. I think we had just flipped the channel and there was suddenly an ad for a forthcoming movie, soon showing in your local theater, called Suicide Squad. The new live action DC Comics thriller is about a group of supervillains who are set free from prison to save the world from some major threat. The Joker of Batman fame may be the tame one. But the ad just shows a bunch of people done up as anarchist freaks, heavily armed with an outrageous arsenal of weapons, and jumping over a police car on a city street in the dark of night, on their way to commit some form of mayhem.

I thought, "Really?" Then, "This week? With what's going on in our country right now and around the world?" Do we actually need wild images of crazy people threatening and shooting other people against a great rock sound track and with vibrant colors and heavy attitudes? And Will Smith plays one of them? Our Will Smith? I did a little Googling and saw a trailer that features a scene of Will Smith in prison being beaten viciously by police, or prison guards. Really? That's a good image for our day?

As soon as the commercial was over, and I was sitting there, mouth open at the sheer absurd inappropriateness of what I had just seen, given our current situation in the nation and the world, when a second ad came on, this time for a good old fashioned horror flick, where people are terrorized and killed in normal ways, by ordinary horror film bad guys, and with the standard gore to match. My evening was complete.

Sometimes, I understand why Plato wanted to ban creative artists from the good society. Some of them just seem to have no sense of social responsibility whatsoever.

I once lived next door to a pretty famous architect - Harvard, Berlin, and Bauhaus trained - a minimalist in aesthetics and a true intellectual. He designed some beautiful private homes in his day, if you like concrete and glass. But one day when we were talking, he went on a rant about modern architects and social responsibility. He said, "Have you ever really looked at the Art and Architecture Building at Yale, downtown in New Haven?"

I said, "Yeah, I went to look at it the other day and couldn't find the front door."

He laughed. "That's the problem. Paul Rudolph hated the world and the universe around us the year he designed that building. He specified porous concrete for the surface so that all the dirt and soot of New Haven would collect on the thing and it would look ugly and hideous, reflecting his view of the cosmos around us. They have to sandblast it every few years or it's a mess. And the door is placed to confuse you, like life, he thought."

I was shocked. He continued, "If you're a painter, and buy your own materials, paint what you like. It's up to you. But if your art is in public, like a building, and it's funded by other people, then you have a social responsibility as an artist—and most artists don't get that in the least."

I see all the time what my neighbor meant. Most new novels these days are described as "dark" and "grim" and "bleak" and "disturbing." I think: "THAT'S what we need now? REALLY?"

Don't we need hope and inspiration and wisdom and guidance? What's wrong with those things as the focus of art? Why can't more books and films and television shows give us that and still have high credibility as art?

As I write this, the two most recent news headlines this hour are:

Driver plows through Black Lives Matter Protestors in Illinois

Three Dead in Shooting at Michigan Courthouse

And the American city photo of the hour is this:

We live in a time when we're knee deep in emotional gasoline. We don't need artists running around lighting matches, tossing them down, and laughing at the results, while hoping for the rest of us to keep them in luxury homes far from the fray.

I know. I sound like an old fart. But I had the same belief when I was young. Boycott the bad. Insist on something good. Free speech is great, vital, and the foundation of a democracy. But social responsibility is just as important.