Flannery O’Connor and The Limits of Political Reasoning

In the early 1940s, a young southern writer by the name of Flannery O’Connor spun a tale about an extremist politician and his base that resonates deeply today.

An election campaign is on for the governorship of a southern state. Every time the mild mannered college teacher Rayber goes to get a shave or a haircut, the men who work in the local barbershop are talking and laughing about their favorite candidate, the wildly racist strongman, Mr. Hawkson, known as “Hawk,” and they often repeat with enthusiasm something outrageous he’s just said at a public rally.

Hawk’s campaign is all bluster and insults. He’s got pet-names for his opponents, diminishing “effeminate” epithets that his followers relish and love to repeat. The head barber at one point says that all his talks are “killeroos,” as he recounts to the roomful of chortling and celebrating men some of their candidate’s most recent racist statements. Rayber is shocked that they’re speaking so crudely while quiet George, a young African American man, sweeps the floor of the shop toward the back. The professor has to speak up.

“A great many people,” Rayber said, “consider Hawk a demagogue.” He wondered if George knew what demagogue meant. He should have said “lying politician.”

“Demagogue!” The barber slapped his knee and whooped. “That’s what Hawk said!” he howled. “Ain’t that a shot! ‘Folks,’ he says, ‘them Mother Hubbards says I’m a demagogue.’ Then he rears back and says sort of soft-like, ‘Am I a demagogue, you people?’ And they yells, ’Naw, Hawk, you ain’t no demagogue!’ And he comes forward shouting, ‘Oh yeah I am, I’m the best damn demagogue in this state!” And you should hear them people roar! Whew!”

Rayber is stunned. He doesn’t know what to say. There are so many issues at stake in this election. There are too many obvious things deeply wrong about this man, Hawk. The progressive but timid college teacher can’t figure out where to start. He wishes the barber would read some things. The man says he doesn’t have to read nothing. All he has to do is think, using horse sense. No big words are going to make any difference. Doesn’t Rayber know that Hawk is gonna keep those other people in their place and make sure everybody like him and the teacher make more money if he’s elected? Rayber tries to point out that a little extra money isn’t going to mean anything if the state collapses under the weight of Hawk’s total incompetence and crazy beliefs. So he vows to defend his own sensible candidate some time soon in the barbershop and enlighten all of them. The barbers laugh more and say that he just can’t use the phrase ‘goodgovermint.’ That’s not allowed, they snicker.

Rayber goes home and writes a two page statement about the vast differences between the candidates. At first, it’s hard. The real issues are so obvious. Where should he begin? How do these men not see such things already? He laboriously writes out what’s wrong with Hawk and what’s right about the clearly better candidate, the reasonable and progressive Darmon. He then takes this little two page speech to a friend, the philosophy professor Jacobs, explains what’s going on, and reads it aloud to practice and get some feedback. The philosopher says, simply, “I never argue.” Rayber insists: But what if you’re right? “I never argue,” Jacobs repeats, knowing the futility of what his friend is attempting.

Our hero goes back to the barbershop and reads his treatise aloud, hoping to refute and reform these men, using the real issues and clear reason. They laugh and laugh and laugh. In the end, he punches the barber and runs out of the shop.

The seventeenth century French scientist Blaise Pascal, as well as the prominent eighteenth century British philosopher David Hume, both understood that, for most people, reason is the servant of passion and can rarely undermine or overturn its commitments. Emotion trumps all. So when a political candidate appeals to the basest and most fundamental fears, resentments, and sources of personal bitterness, no amount or quality of reasoning can possibly make a difference. You either walk away, or someone throws a punch.

It’s a sad commentary on the human condition. And in this classic story, “The Barber,” Flannery O’Connor anticipated well what’s going on in our current presidential election. She captures in the character of Rayber the total confidence of progressives in being right, the accompanying astonishment that anyone could possibly support someone like Hawk, and our often Quixotic approach to any attempt at explaining what’s what and turning things around.

Aristotle believed that politics is about how best to live well together. As such, in principle, political discussion should be among the most ennobling forms of discourse. When I recently suggested this during a breakfast in New York City at a table of corporate leaders overlooking the Statue of Liberty, everyone laughed so suddenly and loudly I thought a few might choke on their eggs. There can clearly be a huge gap between theory and practice. And it's one we're all experiencing quite vividly right now. And yet, despite Rayber’s ratiocinative failure in the story, and my own experience of strict limits in similar efforts throughout the current campaign, I remain stubbornly convinced that cool and sensible reason has a role to play. Or else, our democracy is doomed. And if you happen to disagree, please don’t tell me. I’d hate for somebody to have to get punched.

What Moves Us Deeply?

I'm a fairly emotional person, but I've never teared up over a great business deal. I've smiled. I've laughed with pleasure. I may have gotten all tingly. But in such a setting, I've never had to rub my eyes or reach for a hanky. No tear has ever trickled down my cheek from the successful negotiation of a great contract or a big sale. And yet, I often get misty-eyed when I see other forms of human excellence. Why is this?

Just the other night on America's Got Talent, a show I haven't followed over the seasons, but that I happened to linger on while flipping channels, I had such an experience. A thirteen-year-old girl walked tentatively onto the stage and then amazed us all with her voice. Laura Bretan was cute, sweet, and humble in every way. And she looked so very young on that big platform. But her vocal abilities instantly took the audience to a new place. Everyone rose to their feet.  It was almost a spiritual experience. Simon Cowell said that in all his years, he had never seen anything quite like it.

In case you missed the performance, it's well worth a few minutes on YouTube. And make sure the Kleenex is nearby, if you're at all like me.

Maybe I'm just an emotional mess. But, almost like Robert DeNiro's character in Analyze This, I tend to get weepy at certain things. I don't sob and honk my nose, but I feel the tear ducts awaken, and sense a moistness around my eyes. I may even get a little choked up. It's a bit harder to speak for few moments. I think my sensibilities are much more selective than DeNiro's were in the famous film. But they still range over many things. I get misty when I see real courage in action, and wonderful acts of kindness. I tear up at exceptional displays of human excellence when they rise above expectations and somehow capture elusive aspects of beauty or goodness. An example of self-giving love that's shown in extraordinary ways can get to me and move me deeply.

What touches us in such situations? It may be something that's deeply of the soul, or at the core of the human spirit—even something of virtue, in the classical sense. The Greek word ARETE (Aratay), which can be translated as excellence or as virtue, may come close to capturing at least part of it.

It's especially moving when ordinary people rise above our common experience and in their actions reflect something that's both high and deep, something truly inspiring that hints at perhaps why we're here, and what we're all supposed to be living in our own ways and with our own opportunities. It's as if these moments remind us of the special wonders and mysteries of life that the daily grind can hide from us. And thus, they speak to us. Yes, that's why we're here. Yes, there's real beauty. Yes, there's genuine love. Yes, there's much more out there, or in here, in our souls, for us to embrace and live and enjoy.

So the next time you see something that moves you and you reach for the Kleenex, remember that it can also be a moment to reach for the stars, and aim high in your own life, with your own talents and opportunities, and in your own potential impact on those around you. Let the moment reconnect you to something great and reinforce the best that's in you.

You Got To Want It

What's necessary in order to be really good at something? Well, the right talent, or set of talents, for one thing. And lots of work, or practice, for another. But still, there's something else.

Let's ask a really different question. How should you react when someone wanting to help you suggests or even recommends you for a new job, position, role, opportunity, or goal that doesn't strike you as quite right? Your friend/fan/helper/coach/mentor/agent is excited about the new possibility, but you're uneasy, or unsure. You don't feel an inner fire. Sometimes, it's great to stretch outside your comfort zone. And yet, you should always listen to your heart. Here's an example. A Hollywood agent in the 1950s has discovered an attractive young woman he wants to put in the movies. Good things are happening for her already. A prominent man in the community, a bold-faced name in the papers, someone having his picture taken all the time, wants to marry her. The agent is himself relating what happened next, out in Los Angeles:

Then wham! The Story of Dr. Wassall. You see that picture? Cecil B. DeMille. Gary Cooper. Jesus. I kill myself, it's all set: they're going to test her for the part of Dr. Wassell's nurse. One of his nurses, anyway. Then wham! The phone rings." He picked a telephone out of the air and held it to his ear. "She says, this is Holly, I say honey you sound far away, she says I'm in New York, I say what the hell are you doing in New York when it's Sunday and you got the test tomorrow? She says I'm in New York cause I've never been to New York. I say get your ass on a plane and get back here, she says I don't want it. I say what's your angle, doll? She says you got to want it to be good and I don't want it. I say what the hell do you want, and she says when I find out, you'll be the first to know.

That's O.J. Berman talking to our narrator, the upstairs neighbor of Holly Golightly, in Truman Capote's short novel Breakfast at Tiffany's.

Holly's words ring true: You got to want it to be good. It's true of acting, and of almost anything else. In considering a new opportunity or possibility, you have to ask yourself, "Do I really want it?" Can I envision it happening? Does it stir me up? Would it be fulfilling and fun? If not, it's probably not right for you, at least, not now. But if so, if you do want it, if it lights a flame in you, then you have one of the main conditions for success - an emotional commitment.

Life is too short to concentrate our energies on things we really don't care about. Find something you want, and pursue that with your whole heart. And if you're like me and are already doing it, keep at it!

When Things Go Wrong

We live in a world where things often go wrong. In fact, you can divide all of your life into three basic kinds of time segments:

1. The time when you're waiting for something to happen, wanting it to happen, and perhaps doing all you can to make it happen,

2. The time when it either happens, and you're glad, maybe even elated, or perhaps relieved, or else,

3. The time when it was supposed to happen and didn't, and you're either sad, or mad, discouraged, or even worse.

In the book by Hermann Hesse, Siddhartha, published in 1922, which I wrote about yesterday, there's one very interesting story. The young man Siddhartha is working for a very successful and wealthy businessman. The rich man is always worried about something, or angry when anything doesn't go right. Siddhartha is never worried or angry. He treats business like a sport to play, and in a very pure way, where he simply enjoys the playing, without any concern about who wins or loses. And because of his attitude, he wins much more often than he loses.

One day, he makes a trip to a distant town where he's hoping to purchase a crop that he and his partner can then resell for a major profit. But when he arrives at the town, he learns the deal has already been made, with someone else. Rather than reacting with sadness, anger, frustration, irritation, regret, resentment, concern or worry, fuming that he's wasted all the time and energy of travel for nothing, he quickly turns nothing into something. He meets the people of the town and gets to know them. He visits with them, eats with them, and plays with their children. He has a wonderful time making new friends with those who will probably now very much want to do business with him in the future. His older partner wouldn't likely have done any of this, but would typically have stormed off in a huff, furious that he'd missed the great opportunity he'd pursued.

A CEO once told me that it's his job to worry. And from what I could see, he does it very well. But is that really a mission critical job? What does his worry accomplish that simple planning, checking, and exercising vigilant care couldn't do? I can't see how the worry, the tension of anxiety, adds anything to the mix of productive endeavor. Most negative emotions, in most situations, are the same. Our hero, Siddhartha, by not worrying or allowing any negative emotions to overtake him, was easily able to turn nothing into something. He showed how we can all be opportunistic in a very positive way, at those times when things initially don't seem to go our way, and, in fact, in almost any situation in which we find ourselves. We can deal positively and creatively with whatever happens, and make the best of it.

And I can't think of anything better than that.

Who People Are

I've been reading a lot of Young Adult (YA) fiction recently, just to see what it's like - books such as the Hunger Games trilogy, the Divergent trilogy, The Bell Jar, and three titles by John Green, The Fault in Our Stars, An Abundance of Katherines, and Paper Towns. It's been a great ride. And I've especially enjoyed the story telling techniques of John Green. I loved the characters in his tale about young cancer kids, The Fault in Our Stars (made into a major motion picture), but really disliked the bleak philosophy that he chose to put in, underlying it, a world view which was too easy for the narrative, and in my view, unearned. An Abundance of Katherines is about a road trip two friends take, driving the interstate from Chicago, and they end up in Tennessee. One of them has only dated girls named Katherine. Until now. Hence the title.

Perhaps the most interesting of Green's books is Paper Towns (soon to be released as a major motion picture), set in Orlando. A group of high school seniors is approaching prom and graduation. The narrator is one of them, and is smitten with a girl in his class he's known since elementary school. But he's a geek, and she's super popular, and he mostly views her from afar, until these last days of school, when she suddenly includes him as her driver and support on a long night of revenge pranks aimed toward the boyfriend who has cheated on her, and the girl who lured him away, along with anyone who likely knew and didn't tell her what was going on. She turns out to be a master of the grand gesture and the intricately magnificent prank. She's courageous, intelligent, over-the-top creative, and stunningly beautiful, and our narrator falls deeply in love with her. Or does he? She suddenly disappears, leaving home and school with no explanation, but she sprinkles what look like clues around the neighborhood, using Woody Guthrie lyrics, Bob Dylan songs, and Walt Whitman's Leaves of Grass as sources of code and dark hints that seem to point toward an impending suicide. There is a desperate search on the part of the narrator and his best friends, a wild road trip from Orlando up I-95 to New York State, and unexpected discoveries that surprise the reader as much as the kids.

The main theme of the story seems to be as important as it is simple.

We often think we know who people are, and in reality we've just been misled by surface appearances. We come to love, or admire, or respect, or resent, or despise mere caricatures that we mistake for real people. We judge books by their covers, people by their appearances, and situations by their most obvious, and often misleading, interpretations. We think we know, when we don't. We rush, then jump, to conclusions in ways that can eat up our time and mess up our lives.

The book's narrator learns, and shows us, the wisdom of not rushing to judgment or letting our emotions dash about on their own, disconnected from the true realities to which they should be responding. I came away from the book with a renewed sense of the importance of pausing, waiting, and looking twice before passing judgment too quickly on anything that catches my eye. Not a lot in this world is exactly what it at first seems.

Wisdom is not easily misled by surface appearances. Wisdom digs deep. It embraces truth. It can wait to see what's what.

Paper Towns was a fun read, and insightful. You might enjoy it as a light summer book. Click on the title to see it on Amazon.

The Rapture of Being Alive

I was just reading, on an airplane yesterday, a book manuscript by a new friend, and I came across a passage where he was quoting Joseph Campbell. Campbell, the great professor of mythology who popularized the phrase “Follow your bliss,” was surmising in the quoted prose that what most people are seeking for their lives isn’t necessarily a sense of meaning, but rather an experience of really being alive, and not just existing. The phrase that caught my eye was this: ‘so that we actually feel the rapture of being alive.’

The rapture of being alive. Do you ever feel this? Do you ever feel something that could well be described this way?

I’ve felt this many times, in fact, too many to number. And it’s always a moment, or a time, of refreshment, re-invigoration, and even regeneration. When such a feeling comes over me, it’s almost like I’m being pulled back to a realization and a focus that I deeply need, but that I’ve drifted away from, silently nudged by the demands and vicissitudes of an active life. The suddenness of the rapture jerks me out of the everydayness of my ordinary sensibilities, and reminds me of the strange and mystical joy of being alive. And this, in turn, restores to me a perspective for everything I do.

It makes me wonder how I ever let this experience, this realization, this perspective, wane in the first place. It should be a constant, grounding sensibility underlying each of my waking moments. There should be a “Wow!” underneath and around everything.

It’s all about keeping the cosmic wonder alive. It should be the air we breathe, the ground we walk on, the magic we take in every second of every day.

I suspect that, to the extent that we can manage this, it will make everything better and easier - the choices, the challenges, the opportunities and difficulties. There is magic and wonder in everything. We can’t consider the biggest cosmic and metaphysical truths without realizing this. But to feel it, to sense it, and to live with the realization every day - to capture the rapture in the ordinary course of things - is to me not a substitute for a sense of meaning, but the only way to get a true fix on the deep and rich meaning there is to be found.

So, my advice: Go capture some of that rapture today.

What It Takes To Be Understanding

There are deep philosophical truths that are connected intimately with our lives, day to day. When we understand them, we're able to be at peace, live well with others, and make our difference in the world without a lot of the emotional turmoil that lots of people feel.

I've mentioned it here before, but for three and a half of the past four years, a movie played in my head. From the first minute it started happening, I began to write what I was seeing and hearing. The story, I soon found out, was set in Egypt in 1934 and 1935. So far, the movie has resulted in 8 novels, an epic tale of friendship, love, meaning, the deep truths behind the curtain of everyday events, the power of the mind, and the possibilities for transformation and redemption in our world. It's the most fun I've ever had writing anything. And all I had to do was take dictation. You can read more about these stories on my website, under "Novels." I have not yet given them to a publisher. But I want to share snippets now and then right here.

Today, I came across a passage I wanted to pass along to you. We're in the 7th book. One 14 year old boy has just revealed something to his uncle, something that he and his best friend have just done that they think might get them into serious trouble. The uncle hears it all with great understanding and calm. The boy's young friend then remarks on how incredibly understanding the older man always is, and the man says this:

"I thank you for those kind words, Mafulla. It’s easy to act in an understanding way if you truly do understand. When our eyes have been opened, and we see even a glimpse of the true big picture for things, that vision of our overall context, along with the confidence and compassion it breeds, allows us to be, in most matters toward those around us, as you put it, incredibly understanding. We’re then comfortable enough to have a certain trust in the way things play out and develop. Too many people run around shocked and panicked and angry and worried because they’re untethered to the deepest truths. Plus, they don’t see others truly. And, as it’s well been said, the truth can set you free."

The sentence that really jumps out at me is this: Too many people run around shocked and panicked and angry and worried because they’re untethered to the deepest truths.

When we tie our hearts and minds to the deepest perspectives on life, and allow those truths to guide our feelings and actions, we'll flourish. When we don't, we won't.

My goal as a philosopher, and my hope for these novels, is that they will help more people to do exactly that. We should always act in accordance to our highest understanding, and let that wisdom guide us in every way.

Understanding yields understanding. Wisdom brings good things to us all.

Who Will Cry When You're Gone?

Who will cry when they first learn you're gone?

Ok, I don't want to be the philosophical version of Debbie Downer here, but we need a second day on the topic of death, I think, but only obliquely, and as the source of a question. Yesterday, I mentioned an announcement in church of a great man's impending departure. Immediately, tissues and hankies were visible all over the sanctuary, as people dabbed their eyes. And that caused me to reflect on a very sad fact. There are top leaders in the world of business who seemed to have nothing more than an acquaintance relationship to their own family members. Their time is always spent elsewhere, and their energy. And at work, they're all business. They don't go around touching the hearts of others.

The people who will cry when they first learn that you're gone will be the people whose hearts you've touched with kindness and love, with affection and concern, with support and encouragement. How many are there? That, to me, is a measure of a life well lived. And we don't all measure up as we would like. But as long as we're still here, we can do something about it.

I think it's interesting to use what I like to call "The Inner Circle Principle." Your life can be imagined as contained within concentric circles. Family and best friends are the closest, innermost circle. Then, there are increasingly remote orbs of friends, co workers, neighbors and other acquaintances who also surround you. Ideally, you should be touching people's hearts in every contact you have. They deserve that. And so do you. But as a practical matter, it can help to concentrate first on the inner circle of people in your life - family and close friends. Are you acting toward them with kindness and love, affection and concern, support and encouragement? Are you paying attention, and doing the little things that will help them and touch their hearts? Or are you always in a hurry, distracted, and needed elsewhere for "important things"? These are the important things.

Give people what they most deeply need while you're here, and you'll make them wish you would stay on and on. And then, when they do learn that you've left for a distant shore, some tissues and hankies will likely appear to signal the good memories that you've left in their hearts.