Restoring America's Greatness

You’ve heard it before.  When Barack Obama is challenged about the viability of ObamaCare, he tells us about how well it is going.  Then he adds: Oh by the way, there is no alternative.  The Republicans, he assures us, may complain, but they never offer a potential replacement.

The president articulates this with a straight face, even on the same days that Republican senators and congressmen propose detailed substitutes.  This trope immediately transmutes into a Democratic talking point, which prompts the Republicans to respond by insisting “oh yes, we do.”

How many times have we seen this vignette played out?  How many times have Republicans risen to the bait to grumble that the charges made against them are untrue?  So when will they learn this is not the way to win this argument?  When will they realize it is not how elections are won?

Democrats will never acknowledge the legitimacy of Republican initiatives no matter how reasonable they are.  Their game is to put their foes on the defensive—and conservatives oblige.  In fact, there is only way out of this trap: it is to go on the offensive.

To some extent this is already being done.  ObamaCare is, and must continue to be, mercilessly attacked and ridiculed.  When Democrats have the audacity to argue that their health care law is brilliant because it eliminates two and a half million jobs, the asininity of this claim must be laughed out of court.

But Republicans must do more.  They must have a positive message.  Nonetheless, that message cannot be a detailed legislative agenda.  Mitt Romney tried that ploy when he ran for president and his almost ninety proposals for reviving the economy were regarded as a joke.

No, the message must be short and inspirational.  I, therefore, propose that conservative candidates begin laying the groundwork for 2016 by declaring that it is time to restore America’s greatness.  Instead of picking over the bones of an emaciated corpse, they must rally the nation to bring it back to health.

This is what political winners do.  Obama did it when promising hope and change, albeit never fully explaining which changes.  John Kennedy did it by assuring us he would get the nation “moving again.”  Richard Nixon managed the same feat by swearing he would get us out of Viet Nam.

In none of these cases were specifics on the docket.  Nor were they when Reagan told us it was morning in America, or Clinton focused on “the economy stupid,” or Bush the younger argued for a compassionate conservatism.  All knew that voters want reassurance, not the minutiae of particular policies.

So let Republican candidates not forget that Americans want their country to be great.  They were raised in the belief that it was and are uncomfortable with the possibility that it may be sinking into second-class status.  Obama tells us that stagnation is the new normal and the best we can do.  But is it?

I, for one, disagree.  Our nation can remain the last best hope of humanity—but only if it stays faithful to the principles that made it exceptional.  Obama regards us as ordinary; as no better than anyone else.  And if we pursue his warped vision of social justice, this may come true.

Yet why should we let it?  Why can’t we seize the bull by the horns and liberate ourselves from subservience to the tyranny of Washington Bureaucrats?  The potential of Americans—even of poor Americans—should not be underestimated.  Obama told us “yes, we can” and we should respond “yes, we can—once you get out of the way.”

Greatness is, in part, a state of mind.  It is never granted to those who do not believe they are capable of greatness.  Ronald Reagan knew this.  It is time for his heirs to wake up to this reality.  A little cheerleading is in order!  After all, those of us who love America should want it to be all it can be!

Melvyn L. Fein, Ph.D.

Professor of Sociology

Kennesaw State University

Love Actually

St. Valentine’s Day is almost upon us.  Flowers are sure to be bought, candies delivered, and romantic dinners consumed.  But will there be love?  Ours is a nation that seems to have forgotten the meaning of love.  What with divorce, cohabitation, and unwed parenting having become normal, where has old-fashioned love gone?

The current generation is no different than any that preceded it in wanting to be loved.  The young people of today also dream of finding the perfect someone with whom to share intimate moments.  They too have fantasies of heading into the sunset of life hand-in-hand with a devoted mate.

Yet what do they see on television?  Twerking, oogling, double-entendres, and flat-out sleaze.  The situation comedies over-flow with dysfunction and stupidity.  The crime dramas chronicle brutality and betrayal.  And the news programs, well they suggest that all of this nastiness is for real.

So where is the love?  Some young people are lucky to be born into families where their parents love each other and hence provide a model of what it is.  A growing proportion, however, see nothing of the kind.  Instead they encounter single or divorced parents struggling to keep their heads above water.

Is it any wonder that so many of the current generation confuse love with sex?  Should we be surprised that millions of them cannot tell the difference between falling in love and being in love?

Let us be clear, sex and love are not the same.  When couples are fortunate, they can have both—and the two can reinforce each other.  Nonetheless, the steamy passion of a new relationship does not last.  It mellows with time.

The young who assume that lust alone can forge a lasting bond are mistaken.  If that is all they have, they are sure to wake up one morning to discover that they no longer even like their paramour.  And, by the way, he or she will no longer appear very attractive.

This said, there is an even bigger problem in the assumption that the rapture experienced while falling in love will be the glue that holds a couple together for the long haul.  Infatuation too does not last.  It is an ephemeral part of the courtship process, not a permanent feature of a stable relationship.

Somehow forgotten in the rush to find the perfect someone is that there are no perfect anyones.  We humans—all of us—have our flaws.  None of us survive the close inspection that accompanies lasting intimacy with our facades of faultlessness intact.

And so if love is to endure, it must be around a core of commitment.  Two people must pledge each other their troth—and mean it.  The old vow of remaining faithful for richer and for poorer, and in sickness and health, cannot be empty words.  These must be backed by conviction and the hard work of settling the differences that are sure to crop up.

People who expect that once they fall in love all of their problems will disappear are in for a rude awakening.  Intimate relationships entail a give-and-take and an ability to compromise.  No one gets everything they want.  No one gets anything for free.

Nevertheless, when people are committed; when they can count on each other through thick and thin; they discover that they are part of a caring relationship.  Moreover, this caring is not trivial.  It does not swing through the trees or light up the skies with fireworks.  It provides something better: stability and comfort.

Life can be lonely.  It can be fraught with challenges and disappointments.  Yet having someone who cares—who really cares—can make the journey much easier.  A secure attachment, not a passing fancy, is a bulwark against the harshest of fates.  And because it is, it can be among the sweetest encounters we can have.

I know what love is.  I hope most of my readers will be as fortunate!

Melvyn L. Fein, Ph.D.

Professor of Sociology

Kennesaw State University.

The Paperwork Blues

I hate paperwork!  Even when I was employed as a clinician, I resented the amount of time I was required to devote to recording what I had done.  Instead of counseling, I was compelled to fill case folders no one read.  This seemed to me a waste of time.

I was therefore both surprised—and pleased—by the reactions of my colleagues at Kennesaw State University to the arctic blast of paperwork we are currently enduring.  The growing volume of documentation we are expected to produce also appalled most of those with whom I have recently spoken.

This is the season of our annual reviews.  As is true in most organizations, we professors are asked to report on what we have accomplished this past year and to project ahead what we hope to achieve the next.  This in no way adds to our productivity, but allows administrators to keep track of what is being done.

The problem is that our reports keep expanding.  Just as in bad science fiction, they continue to grow in scope—almost reaching to the heavens.  This year has been made even more onerous by the introduction of a new reporting system—Digital Measures.  Computer based, it was advertised as making our task easier.

But when has a new computer tracking system ever made life easier?  This one not only invites us to elaborate on the details of our accomplishments, but it does so in an open-ended manner.  The upshot is likely to be an arms race in which each participant tries to make sure that no one has documented more triumphs than he or she.

We have already visited this storyline with respect to the portfolios we professors must submit in applying for tenure and promotion.  When I first arrived at KSU, these were limited to two volumes.  Now they are unrestricted.  As a consequence, an administrator recently recounted an applicant who tendered ten huge binders.

My eyes rolled when told this story.  Whose wouldn’t?  Can anyone read and digest this much information, especially when there are many dozens of similar offerings to scrutinize?  What initially looked like a reasonable a way to ensure that no one’s successes are overlooked, guaranteed that most would never be read.

Then there is the problem that in attempting to improve reporting instruments, they are constantly revised.  As a result, people spend more time learning a new system than using it.  Instead of teaching or researching, they are at their computers attempting to figure out what goes where.

Over thirty years ago, when I got my first computers, I also purchased the fanciest programs I could afford.  One of the latter was for desktop publishing.  It enabled me to do brochures and pamphlets on my own.  This ability was nearly magical—and I loved it.

That is, I loved it until I wanted to use the program a second time.  In the interim, I had forgotten how to access its bells and whistles.  And so, I had to relearn them.  In other words, their complexities, forced me to spend more time on programming than on writing.

It is the same with these new reporting systems.  Because we professors do not use them regularly, we forget what is in which pull-down menu.  We must then seek out computer specialists to save us from ourselves, for without these helpers we would remain frozen in our ignorance.

All this, incidentally, is another instance of how bureaucracy is strangling our nation.  Increased levels of administrators demand so much paperwork that this becomes our primary product.  Forget about teaching, learning, researching, or creating.  What matters more is the appearance of each.

Were we faculty members trusted, this charade would be unnecessary.  As professionals, we would do our jobs because we were committed to them.  Instead, we get a paperwork charade.  From top to bottom, people pretend to work, rather than actually do so.

Melvyn L. Fein, Ph.D.

Professor of Sociology

Kennesaw State University

The Death of Higher Education

It sounded so innocuous; so compassionate.  Why shouldn’t the children of the poor get just as rigorous an education as the children of the rich?  Why shouldn’t they have just as good an opportunity to be successful as those born with silver spoons in their mouths?  Furthermore, why shouldn’t the government help out?

These were among the latest recommendations of Barack and Michelle Obama in their ongoing effort to bring social justice to our benighted land.   How, they essentially ask, can everyone be made equal if some are allowed to languish without a college degree?

With respect to financial equality, we know that they have sought to tax the rich so as to transfer their wealth to the poor.  With respect to medical care, they have also sought to strip the wealthy of their Cadillac insurance plans so as to offer ObamaCare to those without insurance.

But what about higher education?  Do they plan to relieve the best educated of their brains and motivation so as to implant these in the have-nots?  Do they honestly believe either that everyone starts with the same mental and emotional endowments or that they can transfer these just as they have attempted to do with other resources?

Actually that seems not to be their plan.  The real objective appears to be to tear down higher education so that no one can derive an unfair advantage from acquiring more knowledge than others.  If they can just make sure that everyone is equally dumb, unfairness will be banished from the earth.

If this sounds like hyperbole, it is not.  It is a straightforward extrapolation from what the Obama’s have endorsed for educational reform.  They tell us that there are not enough poor children attending college; hence they wish to increase their numbers, while providing the appropriate supports.

To hear the Obama’s, one would never imagine that scholarships and student loans abound.  If they are taken seriously, one might assume that few colleges currently offer remedial programs to unprepared entrants.  Nor would one suppose that affirmative action is deeply entrenched at our best schools.

Yet all of these things are in place.  What is more, they have not accomplished the mission they were intended to achieve.  While virtually any unprepared student can find a school willing to admit him or her, ensuring graduation is another matter.  The dropout rates are phenomenal.

But Liberals like the Obama’s have a solution.  Mandate that colleges must graduate higher percentages of their students.  And oh yes, also provide them with more money, more remediation, and greater encouragement.

The fact is that not only don’t these policies work; they never can.  As long as abilities and effort are unequally distributed (as they are), the only way to guarantee that everyone who enters college obtains a credential is to make college degrees worthless.

If everyone is required to learn as much as everyone else, the only method of ensuring this is to arrange things so that everyone learns as little as possible.  Complete intellectual equality can only be attained by insisting on universal mediocrity.  After all, the dumb and lazy cannot even rise to be average.

This, to be blunt, is a prescription for destroying our colleges and universities.  Whatever they have been, once they are flooded with the students the Obama’s want to help, they will no longer be colleges.  They may not even be able to teach as much as our high schools once did.

The president and his wife assure us that quality will be maintained.  But these are the same people who told us we could keep our doctors and health plans.  They are happy talk specialists who live in a world where lollypops grow on trees and chocolate milk gurgles in the streams.

Unfortunately, we do not live in the same universe.  For us, if higher education is to be higher, it cannot be for everyone—only those able to benefit from it.

Melvyn L. Fein, Ph.D.

Professor of Sociology

Kennesaw state University