Not with a bang

Contemplating freedom

In his poem The Hollow Men, T.S. Eliot concludes, “This is the way the world ends/Not with a bang but a whimper.” For many this is a likely outcome; silently taken in their sleep, or in coma, or quietly passing from wokeness to death. For others, the denouement is more explosive and sudden – murdered in combat, often in the fetid swamps of far off places, buried in disaster, overcome by flood or fire or slides of rock and mud, choking their final breath in the throes of a pandemic.

Endings come to both the tangible and intangible, corpus and soul. The worse death of all is that of a highly preventable sort, that everyone can see coming from far away, that people are pointing at and shouting, that is historically recognizable and readily avoidable. Such are the vicissitudes of historical democracies, from Sparta and Athens through to the 20^th century  – many before us have faced that long, slow, painful demise of democratic governance, not with a bang but a whimper.

It seems reasonable to assert that “freedom” is the defining feature of a democracy. Freedom? The word itself has become twisted by the zealots who claim to prize it so. One is almost reluctant to raise the notion of “freedom;” the term is so misunderstood as to make it nearly unintelligible. Nevertheless, it needs consideration, and perhaps, restoration to the lexicon as a principle that helps humanity to endure. Life, liberty, and the pursuit of happiness – there it is, right in the Declaration of independence – liberty. Freedom. It is in our dreams, and in our birthright.

I will not attempt here a laundry list of what freedom is and what it is not. Rather, I propose that it has fairly simple parameters,  not unlike the Golden Rule: Freedom is the right to do as you please, insofar as you do no harm to others. It is, if you prefer, the right to mind your own business. In this regard, we consider that people have autonomous control over the decisions they make, based upon whatever they perceive to be in their own best interests. In a democracy, law and politics have, essentially, one not-so-simple task. That task is to regulate at the intersection of parties, and to determine if, when, and how much an activity is harmful to others.

A key feature of democracy (and freedom) is that it demands a level playing field. It demands cooperation and participation. It demands careful and judicious consideration of all facets of a dispute. It is not “rugged individualism.” You have a right to mind your own business, but you do not have a right to ignore conditions you create that may cause others pain or loss. You are not special, not because you’re highly educated, or wealthy, or celebrated, or elected to office, or CEO, or of a particular gender, race, or religion. Those are not (or should not be) factors in the equation. You are not merely allowed to mind your own business, you are expected to do so.

We have lost our way.

There are those – and they are legion – who have adopted a purely transactional approach to behavior. The only modulation for their conduct is profit and loss. Laws and regulations are a nuisance to be co-opted by a friendly judiciary or otherwise swept aside, the welfare of others is a concern for others. These would-be oligarchs demand control over the levers of power, the subservience of the poor and working classes, women as chattel, and incarceration, banishment or worse for those who dare oppose their views. They lay claim to belief systems that justify their actions – “Christianity,” “Politics,” “Business” – all the while violating the very principles that form the foundation of those systems. In furtherance of their pseudo-Christian neo-fascist (“illiberal democracy”) insurrection, this cabal would have you believe that they wish to “Make America Great Again.” Nothing could be further from the truth. They malign education, they despise the civil service, they disrespect the military, they scapegoat and create chaos – chaos which they rightly hope will exhaust the will of people to resist.

The figurehead for this movement is a cognitively impaired golf aficionado, but he is far from the real danger. Trump is merely the last straw. His election to the presidency, in 2024, will mark the tipping point. He will not live up to the experience of his mentors – Adolph Hitler, Roy Cohn, Viktor Orbán, Vladimir Putin – he is too old and addled now to do much more than stand aside as his followers build a bonfire fed by democratic institutions. After nine years of “Trumpism,” and five decades of increasingly failed economic and social welfare policies (trickle-down economics, privatized everything, “workfare,” the personhood of corporations, etc.) we approach the long, slow, painful demise of American democracy – not with a bang but a whimper.

Or perhaps not.

In Do not go gentle into that good night, another poet, Dylan Thomas, admonishes his readers to “Rage, rage against the dying of the light.” And so we must. We must rage now, and share our rage at the ballot box. Accept reality – the traditional GOP is dead, and the old rules no longer apply. To vote for your own freedom, you must first accept that for all the times people have cried “wolf!” before, this time is different. The wolf is at the door. Share your rage with others, as I am doing now. And if we fail, hold on to your rage. Do not hang your head in defeat. The pain of cowardice is worse than death. The real patriots in American history took up arms on three critical occasions – to create our democracy, to defend our democracy from enemies within, and to beat back the fascists who would sweep away democracy world-wide. Surely we have it in our power to take back our birthright, one more time – or, at least, go out with a bang.