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Free Liberal: Coordinating towards higher values

Free Liberal

Coordinating towards higher values

Malaise Days, Redux

Ever provocative and insightful, the Wall Street Journal’s and penultimate speechwriter Peggy Noonan this morning writes about her hunch about what a mess the wide world seems to be in. Noonan, noted for her ability to put inspirational words in the mouths of politicians like Ronald Reagan and Bush 41, catalogs her evidence of how things seem to be falling apart. And how the elites need to wake up and do good works to stop this train from careening horribly off the tracks.

In a lot of ways, methinks Noonan’s correct.

But she offers us little in the way of what they should do, or, perhaps more importantly, what attitude they should have in approaching how to right the ship, to shift metaphors.

The first – and most basic – challenge is the very notion of “elites.” Sure, there are folks we encounter who may well seem smarter, richer, or more beautiful in some ineffable way. But are they “elite,” are they “better”? In essence, no, I assert, they are not. They are simply different, blessed with skills, circumstances, and genetics that make their lot a wee bit more pleasant than, perhaps, the situation that you and I find ourselves in. They may well be riding high today, but as the ocean roils, their little square inch of sea water will soon come crashing down amongst the plebes. You can make book on it, at least in some form or fashion.

Noonan’s quite right, too, that many “elites” do resign themselves, in a sense, creating cocoons of comfort away from the rest of the inmates here in the asylum. Perhaps that’s where they need to be, safe and unaffected by the cacophonous rantings of a wounded world.

Or, as some are wont to do, folks can strike out in anger or displays of conspicuous consumption, proclaiming to all that will hear, “This is MY Hummer. This is MY mansion. It’s MINE, and you can’t have it.”

They would be right about that, of course. We all have our own indulgences, at our own levels. But did the latest and greatest bauble or “bling bling” salve your pain? What makes you think the next one will?

It may seem counter-intuitive to some, but Ms. Noonan, I suggest, offered up just the right words when she wrote that we should be a “kinder, gentler nation.” When Bush 41 uttered those words, some took that to mean a return to a top-down, welfare-warfare state, but of course none of that sounds kind or gentle to me.

We need to get down to a more elemental level of what kind and gentle really mean. Wave when someone cuts you off on the road, rather than flipping them the bird. Look the homeless person in the eye when he asks for money, and give if you feel inclined, or smile and say “I’m sorry, I can’t help you today, but good luck.”

But the epidemic of anger and discontent, it seems, is not solved by adding fuel to the fire.

-Robert Capozzi



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