THE
SPIRIT OF THE DAY
James
R. Fisher, Jr., Ph.D.
©
November 10, 2020
It is an interesting time. I mentioned (in an e-mail) that I doubt the
sophistication of President Biden to manage an economy much less a country,
such as the United States.
Someone who has read
all my books, and all my e-mails, and whom I have actually written one book
thinking of him in mind, seeing him as the professional lost in his career, has
asked to be removed from my e-mail list, which I did promptly. This breaks a thirty year connection.
The reason for the
separation? He writes: “I am for the new president and I don’t want
to hear a word that may be negative about him.
Besides, I lost my job, I’m now 60 years old, the company has had to
downsize and it is because of Trump and his handling of the coronavirus
pandemic.”
Now, this is a thinking
man, an engineer, a professional and a person I am fond of, but I had to react,
at least to myself, “Say what?”
For nigh on four years
I have constantly been reminded electronically through e-mails, The New York Review, Foreign Affairs, The Tampa Bay Times, and network and cable television communications,
and yes e-mails (now from China) what a terrible person Donald J. Trump is.
I have been asked to absorb
them at face value, comments far beyond mine of the new president’s lack of
wherewithal to lead, while l continue to peruse these media, and haven’t ask
anyone to quit writing to me.
Do I agree with these
assessments? No. Am I surprised by these assessments? No. Do
I think President Trump is like Beelzebub, and a continuous danger to me and
everyone when no longer president? No. Did he destroy America, fuel the coronavirus, destabilize
the economy, cause “global warming,” or create international crises? Of course not. Even Attila the Hun couldn’t do that; nor
could Abraham Lincoln whose critics were equally savage.
I see President Trump
as a flawed man like us all, but a “doer,” a man with ideas, and a man with a
plan to put America back to work again without apologies, a nationalists more
than a Republican. In fact, a number of
prominent Republicans abandoned him because he wasn’t doctrinaire enough.
Trump was a man tired
of the United States being the hardware store, food bank, loan agency, and policeman of the
world, allowing these other affluent nations of the world to be American
dependents. And like anyone who allows
you to do for them what they best do for themselves, you can never do enough, so no surprise, they, too, constantly threw arrows at President Trump.
If you noticed, these
nations now are elated that he is gone, believing the money train is back to
make up for these deficit indulgences, and they may be right. It remains to be seen.
A reader writes that he
read a book that a journalist provides page, chapter and book on all the bad
things President Trump has done, and along the way what a despicable man he
is.
It reminds me of an
experience. When I was a young
businessman traveling a lot, I would read a whole book on a long flight. This was after President Richard Milhous
Nixon resigned. After Nixon’s Watergate,
which admittedly was his low point, he was rushed out of office before being
impeached.
It so happened I was on
a plane going somewhere for Nalco Chemical Company on business, and reading a
Lou Cannon book on Nixon. Nalco always
had me assigned to first class on these flights although I didn’t drink, while
Honeywell whom I worked for later always had me in business class. I mentioned this because the lady sitting
beside me saw I was reading this book on Nixon, and said, “Isn’t he the most
despicable man you have ever heard of?”
I looked up, and said, “Madam, I thought President Nixon was the
greatest president in my lifetime,” and that of course included President
Kennedy. The woman buzzed the stewardess,
as they were known in that time, and asked to have her seat changed.
“But, Madam,” the flight
attendant said, “we have no other seats available in first class.” I smiled into my book.
Not dissuaded, the
woman said, “Perhaps someone might not mind changing seats with me.”
Exasperated, the flight attendant said, “Yes, madam, I’ll check.”
She did and no one wanted to give up their present seat.
At the time, I was a Nalco executive with an engineering background, and no knowledge or training in the social dynamics of people. Later on, when I returned to academia, now in pursuit of a Ph.D. in social psychology, I learned about people and "territorial imperatives," that is, how people tend to treat their current situation, whatever it is, as sacrosanct and belonging to them.
The woman had to stay with me for our three hour
flight, drank a lot, but never touched her food. Meanwhile, I finished my book.
It is good that people
have opinions. My wonder is how valuable is it to “buy the party line” or “the
ideas of journalists, the intelligentsia much less party wonks or the media.”
The “Spirit of the
Times” is to have passion for certain ideas at the expense of not having
passion for others, which is not only all right, it is the way we are as
citizens of a Democratic Republic. But
are they our ideas, our thoughts, our passions, or are they subliminally
acquired?
In any case, if we’re
going to buy into the idea that our current president is a bad man, but our new
president is a good man, that – to my mind – doesn’t speak too highly of us as
independent thinkers.
You can only imagine
what kind of responses I have gotten to my recent missives. I would like to say “they are interesting,”
but truthfully, they sound too much as if they are coming out of well-paid “talking
heads.”
I’ve been working for
the past ten months on a book as if I have been sitting across from
longshoreman philosopher Eric Hoffer inhaling his terrible cigar smoke as he
talks on and on about, not about what everyone thinks, but what he thinks and
why. It has been quite refreshing.
Some of you readers sound
like Hoffer, but some others sound like everyone which means no one. My aim is to hear what you think and why, not justified because some author, pundit, or academic says it is so, or you think says it better than you can. I want to hear what you think, period. As I've said many times, I'm not interested in you agreeing with me. I am not on a crusade for anything.
Therefore, it was refreshing to
hear from one reader whom I quote to end this:
The reason I share this
with you is because the writer is his own man with his own opinions and a
balanced perspective on things. Hoffer
would love his quip because he believed governance was not about the elected,
but about every man in the trenches, which to him were like Kierkegaard's "common
man."
A company survives, not because of its competent or inept management, but because of its people; the same is true of a nation.
What goes on
in each of our own little worlds, which hopefully is not contentious, saves us all as individuals, and in turn saves our nation.
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