Lessons from "Fiddler on the Roof"

Lessons from “Fiddler on the Roof”

I love the United States of America.  I love this nation with every fiber of my being.  Last week I was reminded how much I love it when I viewed a playing of the film version of Fiddler on the Roofon TV.

In the past, I was generally taken with the sentimentality of the story. This time around, however, I was struck by its tragedy.  Here were decent people trying to get by as best they could, but repeatedly oppressed by their neighbors.  Merely because they were Jewish, they were ultimately driven from their homes.

In fact, this happened to the grandparents on both sides of my family. Nevertheless because I was born in America I could not identify with their plight.  Nor did I realize the degree to which our country saved them from oppression.  The Russia and Poland of their youth were not free countries.  Ours is!

But then I listen to Bernie Sanders.  His ancestors came from the very same place as mine.  They too were rescued by the decency and openness of the land to which they fled.  All the same, Sanders is advocating a revolution.  He wants to change the U.S. into something it has never been.

In the movie, the beau of the second daughter is a revolutionary. He advocates the overthrow of the tsar and the establishment of a socialist utopia.  For his troubles, he is arrested by the police and exiled to Siberia.  Like many Jews, he assumed that socialism would bring freedom and fairness.

History has shown, however that the opposite is true.  Wherever it has been tried, including Russia, it brought poverty and tyranny.  It did not release the victims of despotism from their predicament so much as swap one form of repression with another.

Tevye (the movie’s hero) dealt with a son-in-law to be did not realize this.  Having never been fully implemented, the downside of socialism was not yet visible. Sanders has no such excuse.  The viciousness of total state control has now been demonstrated countless times. (see Venezuela.)

It is for this reason that I no longer find Sanders amusing.  Hitherto I considered him a charming anachronism. He was someone caught in a political time warp.  Whereas I managed to extricate myself from the delusions of my forebears, he had not.

No longer am I so generous.  Today I perceive this presidential wannabe as a threat to our freedom.  By making socialism sound as if were a variant of democracy, he is making it seem harmless.  This is not the case—and never has been.

Democratic socialism is a contradiction in terms.  Socialism is never democratic.  In its quest for total social control, it has to resort to coercion. Sanders claims socialism is about freedom.  This is a lie.  Concentrating power in a central government is always a formula for robbing citizens of self-direction.

The truth is that whenever anyone—and that includes the ordinary citizen—gets in the way of the socialist agenda, he has to be neutralized.  He cannot be allowed to interfere with the plans of government experts.  Democracy is consequently impossible.

A case in point is Sanders promise of guaranteed work at a living wage. What he doesn’t say is that this has been tried in Russia and Eastern Europe.  Indeed, I have seen it in action in Rumania and it was a disaster.

People did, in fact, get guaranteed work—but not of their choosing. They could not follow their dreams because the government had other dreams for them.  As a result, they put in very little effort, which depressed the level of production.  This decreed that they be paid less; hence they had the worst of both worlds—less freedom and less prosperity.

Is this what we want?  My grandparents came to a country that had genuine freedom.  They were able to earn a decent living, as well as to prepare for their children and grandchildren to do better.  Capitalism might not have been what they sought, but it was part of what liberated them.

America is not perfect.  We all know that.  But replacing it with something that has an inferior track record does not make sense. Our freedom has been hard won. Why would we want to throw it away because we like the personality of the person who is advocating its demise?

Because we live in a free country, it is easy to take its benefits for granted.  Unfortunately our liberties also enable us to imprison ourselves.  So why would we voluntarily adopt a system like that of the USSR? Just for a few goodies we will never receive?  

Bernie Sanders should be ashamed of himself!

Melvyn L. Fein, Ph.D.

Professor Emeritus

Kennesaw State University

It's a No Brainer

George Stephanopoulos got quite a scoop.  In addition to getting unusual access to the White House and the president, he got to ask a question the answer to which set the political world a twittering.  For days on end, the outrage kept escalating.

What was it that got so many people so upset?  Trump was essentially asked if he would listen if a foreign government offered him negative information about an opposition candidate.  When he answered in the affirmative, alarm bells when off all across the capital.

Both the media and the politicians acted as if our president had made a huge blunder.  He was accused of being a felon, a traitor and a person who could not tell right from wrong.  This was indeed evidence that he needed to be impeached.  The harm he caused was incalculable. 

This was not surprising given the left’s state of high dudgeon. They hate Trump and look for any excuse to damage his reputation.  But many Republicans joined the chorus.  They were not so scathing in their denunciations, yet some opined that the president should not have said what he did.

For me, this was evidence that the political classes have lost their collective minds.  The president was right.  What he said was not only true, but common sense.  That he was on the correct side, whereas his opponents were not was a no-brainer.  Even a surface analysis demonstrated as much.

Trump did not reveal that he had sold Hawaii to the Chinese without consulting congress.  Nor did admit that he was secretly having a sexual affair with the Russian ambassador. All he said was that he would listen to someone who claimed to have important materials.

Why wouldn’t he?  He might discover that an influential American was in the pay of the Kremlin. Wouldn’t that be worth knowing?  How could he tell ahead of time that this data was politically influenced?  Only listening would enable him to determine if it were an immoral initiative.

Thus, what if the Norwegians said they had something of which we should be aware?  Automatically rebuffing their assertion might be detrimental to the nation’s security. A president who refused to listen just because it was foreigners calling would be derelict in his duty.

Consider if this censorship were made national policy.  The president could never talk to anyone who was not an American.  Because he couldn’t be sure of what would be revealed, the only way to prevent him from being corrupted by disinformation would be to keep all foreigners at arms length.

If so, it would be impossible to conduct foreign policy.  Wouldn’t this be isolationism on steroids?  Perhaps Trump would require filters.  Maybe if other countries went to his subordinates first and then they told him only what was permissible, he could be protected from impropriety.

One of Hillary’s defenders said as much.  He argued that she was not guilty of getting political dirt from abroad because an American company had handled her outreach for the Russian Dossier. Because she had not personally been in contact with the Russians, this was okay.

Besides, as Trump said on more than one occasion, he would alert the FBI or the Attorney General if this were appropriate.   Isn’t a president allowed to exercise judgment about these matters?  Isn’t that what we elected him for?

The liberals are sure to disagree because they do not believe that Trump has the good sense to make any such determinations.  In fact, they don’t believe he has the wisdom to be president—period.  They never wanted him in office—and still don’t.

So what was the scandal mongering about?  Plainly, it had nothing to do with the content of Trump’s response. Politicians, including Democrats, have always had communications with foreigners.  The only way that this indignation makes sense is that the president’s words were being twisted to make him look bad.

Anyone who doesn’t realize this fact is operating on low candlepower. One of the reasons that the national scene is so flummoxed is that millions of people simply follow the crowd. They don’t even consider the implications of what they endorse.

This latest brouhaha has got to be one of the most ridiculous we have ever experienced.  I am not sure how we can get much lower.  Donald Trump was candid and expressed a simple truth in straightforward language and he became a villain.  If this nonsense continues, we may no longer be able to govern ourselves.

Melvyn L. Fein, Ph.D.

Professor Emeritus

Kennesaw State University

Refusing to Learn from History

Not long ago I wrote about the lessons to be learned from the demise of the Roman Republic.  I don’t really blame Americans for being unfamiliar with this tragedy.  It happened a very long time ago.  Moreover, few of us were taught about it in school.

Recent events, however, are another matter.  We should be able to recall episodes that occurred mere decades ago. Young people have an excuse.  They were not around when they took place.  But older folks—the generation now making important decisions—have no such alibi.

Refusing to learn from history is a fool’s errand.  It is a prescription for making the same mistakes three, four, or twenty-seven times in a row.  If we are to use our brains, we must begin by understanding incidents that happened within our lifetimes.

I am talking about the Reagan presidency and the light it shines on the Trump administration.  By most accounts, Reagan had a successful presidency.  He tamed inflation, ignited the economy, and brought the Soviet Union to its knees.  What most “experts” said couldn’t be done, he did.

What we forget was the constant sniping he was under.  Reagan was considered an empty-headed clown by most of the people who criticized his policies.  They regarded him as an actor who had no business being in the oval office. Since they knew better than he did, it was his responsibility to listen to them.

This included his condemnation of the Soviet Union as an evil empire. Didn’t he understand that pulling the bears tail was a formula for war?  In an era of atomic weapons, only a madman or ignoramus would make such a mistake. The appropriate course was to placate the commissars.

Similar logic applied to star wars.  Proposing to build a rocket-operated shield against Russian missiles was equally unwise.  Because this project was technically unfeasible, it wasted money that could better be spent elsewhere.  The president clearly needed an education in reality.

Except that the Soviets took Reagan seriously.  They feared they could not keep up with America’s technological advances and therefore sought an accommodation.  This, as later events revealed, laid the foundation for the collapse of the Soviet Union.

Fast forward to today.  Donald Trump is even more disrespected.  His policy of using targeted tariffs against nations that flout our interests is also dismissed as a fool’s errand.  Trump obviously doesn’t understand the virtues of free trade or he would never behave so recklessly.

As his detractors see it, Trump is either crazy or dumb.  His economic insights are so lacking in depth that he doesn’t realize that a tariff is a tax.  Were he a tad more sophisticated, he would appreciate that tariff wars hurt American’s more than those at whom they are aimed.  In short, they do not work.

Only in the case of Mexico, they just did.  Even many Republicans were saying that threatening our southern neighbor was imprudent.  While its leaders would never comply with demands to slow the illegal immigrant traffic, in the meantime American consumers would get hurt.

Nevertheless, Trump was right and they were wrong.  But don’t hold your breath waiting for an apology. There will be none—anymore than there was one with Reagan.  The know-it-alls, who are among the most vocal critics, learn the least from history. They are ideologues as opposed to genuine experts.

Here is a secret that Trump’s detractors don’t understand.  If you want to win a fight, you must be aggressive.  You have to take calculated risks or you are facilitating the victory of your opponent. Once the other side realizes that you are playing for a draw, they know they have an opportunity to win.

Winners realize that they can get hurt in an all-out brawl.  They are also aware that they have limitations. Happily, they are likewise mindful that their adversaries have limitations.  Hence instead of concentrating on their own weaknesses, they seek out the weaknesses of their opponents and exploit these.

Reagan understood this, and so does Trump.  If those who hate these men had more awareness of history, they would realize that this is a nearly universal truism.  Cortez would never have conquered the Aztecs had he not grasped this fact.  The same was the case when Genghis Khan attacked China.

History can be fascinating—and surprising.  Far from being the irrelevancy many contemporaries make it out to be, it can help us avoid a slew of errors.  Trump may not be a student of history, but the choices he makes often align with it.

Melvyn L. Fein, Ph.D.

Professor Emeritus

Kennesaw State University

Dreams from Monaco

My wife and I recently returned from a Mediterranean cruise.  It was a lot of fun.  One of our scheduled stops was Monaco.  I must admit that I was not looking forward to it.  The idea of rubbing shoulders with the pampered rich did not bring tears of joy.

Furthermore I hate gambling.  The mere thought of entering the casino at Monte Carlo left me cold. I like to control my destiny. Leaving it to chance strikes me as dangerous.   Even being around people who get their thrills from gambling sends chills down my spine.

So what would be the delight in visiting a place that specializes in wealth and gaming?  True, it is on the Riviera.  Actually, I have a confession to make.  Ever since I saw the movie To Catch a Thief I have regarded this stretch of the Mediterranean coast as one of the most beautiful places on earth.

So, okay, Monaco might be picturesque, but would this be enough to justify a stopover.  After all, there are other places on the Riviera that are equally attractive.  Why not go to one of them rather than the playground of the jet set?

Call it envy if you will, but I have never dreamed about being rich. My goal was always to be comfortable. Excess wealth, for the sake of showing it off has struck me as a waste of time.  I would rather be the professor I am than a billionaire.

Anyway, we went to Monaco and it was beautiful.  But it was also crowded.  The whole place is about the size of New York’s Central Park.  This means that nearly every building is multi-multi-story.  The rich who can afford these places are therefore squeezed together like so many sardines.  

Let me be specific.  The tallest building in town is a condo.  We were told that its upper three floors are now being sold as a single unit.  The asking price is—please hold your breath—three hundred million euros.  That is a lot of change in any language.

To put this into perspective, let us assume that my Canton house of roughly three thousand square feet has a market value of three hundred thousand dollars.  If the Monacan condo is ten times the square footage, then its asking price is more than one hundred times the value of my place.

Now I ask you, what would justify that disparity?  I have no doubt that the interior appointments are more lavish than mine.  The view is also unquestionably better.  Furthermore, the neighbors are apt to be more interesting.  But a hundred times the value?

I suppose if I were a billionaire, money would not matter.  It would not do me much good sitting in my pocket or a bank.  Then again, I might be exercising what Thorsten Veblen called conspicuous consumption. My goal could be to signal that I was so wealthy everyone should admire me.

Me, however, I don’t care.  Sure, I like to be admired—but for who I am, not what I own.  If the truth be told, I care more about my opinion of myself than that of anyone else.  Don’t I know more about me than they do?

But back to Monaco.  How could I leave out the tragic ending of the American Princess Grace Kelly?  She was so gorgeous.  Although she appeared to be made of ice, and was not a very accomplished actress, her face was so attractive that it took one’s breath away.

As if this were not enough, she married a prince.  He was not nearly as good-looking—but he was a prince.  And if he did not live in a fairytale castle, he lived in a fairytale principality.  This should all have led to a happy-ever-after finale, but then the princess had a fatal automobile accident at the age of 52.

So here was one of the high points of our stay in Monaco.  As we were standing on a balcony looking west, our guide pointed to a highway clinging to the mountainside.  There, he told us, was where princess Grace died.  This was, he said, from an aneurism, not reckless driving, but she was equally dead.

The kicker was that this was the same highway she drove down in the movie To Catch a Thief.  Along side her then was Cary Grant, not her daughter. Moreover, with Grant there was a happy ending.  

Yet life is not like that.  Monaco is a dream factory.  The rich go there so that they can pretend to be happy even if they are not.  The less rich go there so that they can associate with the truly wealthy.  Although this may bring moments of pleasure, fantasies of this sort usually evaporate.

Life has its pleasures—which include our dreams.  Nonetheless, reality is more substantial than Monaco.  Fond memories may last, yet my real home is here in Canton.

Melvyn L. Fein, Ph.D.

Professor Emeritus

Kennesaw State University

A Quasi-Academic for President?

We have had many academics in congress.  The House and the Senate have seen any number of former professors rise to power.  New Gingrich is only one of them.  It is a different story, when it comes to the presidency.  The only one I can think of was Woodrow Wilson.

With respect to the chief executive, academic credentials are suspect. Most people believe that professional intellectuals do not possess the qualities needed to wield power.  They fear that professors are thinkers not doers.

My father certainly believed this.  He always argued that those who live in ivory towers are out of touch with reality.  They might be smart, but their theories seldom worked as advertised. 

This was largely true for Wilson.  We forget about the draconian rules he placed on society during World War I. We are also unaware of the mischief he perpetrated in championing the cause of nationalism.

In any event, as a former professor, I can testify that most of my colleagues were remarkably naïve.  They were seldom practical when it came to governing their own institution.  Much worse were their suggestions for social reform.  For the most part, these neglected simple verities about humanity and human societies.

A modest example was their inability to grasp the realities of human hierarchies.  Instead of exploring how people fight over higher status, they postulate utopias in which everyone is completely equal.

As a consequence, I am skeptical when academics throw their hats into the presidential ring.  This is true for Elizabeth Warren.  It is equally true for Peter Buttigeig.

What, you say.  Buttigieg is not an academic.  He is the mayor of a city and therefore has a significant amount of practical experience. Although he is very smart and unusually articulate, he is not—and never has been—a professor.

This, however, is misleading.  While Buttigieg is very personable and has served in the military, his outlook on life is essentially academic.   At the tender age of thirty-seven, he has had little opportunity to extract himself from the lifestyle into which he was born.

Both of Buttigieg’s parents are professors at Notre Dame.  From the beginning, he was encouraged to follow in their footsteps.  This he did by winning a slew of academic awards.  It is not an accident that he speaks multiple languages.

But, you reply, he is the mayor of an American city.  Hasn’t this introduced him to the practicalities of being a chief executive?  South Bend may be small, but the issues he successfully managed were the same as any mayor encounters.

Well, not exactly.  South Bend is not so much a city as a college town.  Buttigieg had to accommodate the desires and attitudes of a professor dominated community.  This was scarcely a replica of America in miniature.

We see the effects of this on the policies Buttigieg promotes.  Take the idea of packing the Supreme Court. Going from nine to fifteen justices is presumably an easy way of getting around the inconvenience of a conservative court.

This has at least two significant downsides that an academic might miss.  The first is that if we tamper with the court for political reasons, this sets the precedent for tampering with it again—perhaps under very different circumstances.

The second reason is that asking ten sitting judges to unanimously appoint the other five is a recipe for indecision and inaction.  Only an academic-minded person (or FDR) might imagine it would be otherwise.

The same sort of impracticality is evident in Buttigieg’s attacks on the Electoral College.  As a person from Indiana, he should be aware that this setup protects the interests of his state.  It prevents New York and California from running roughshod over smaller states.

Buttigieg misses all this because he is not an independent thinker. He has learned all of the liberal shibboleths and can recite them with verve.  There is no doubting his charm.  Yet this does not ensure that he has the wisdom or experience to recognize when a program has failed.

No one should be elected president because he or she has an attractive persona.  There must be substance behind an appealing façade.  Buttigieg does not have it.  While he is more presentable than many of his competitors, he is less than he seems.

Isn’t it time that we ask our presidents to be competent at their job? Shouldn’t we peek behind the curtain to figure out the motives and abilities of those who would lead our nation?

Melvyn L. Fein, Ph.D.

Professor Emeritus

Kennesaw State University

The Real Aspirations of Liberals

Ever since the rollout of the Green New Deal, liberals have been touting their aspirations.  When it turned out that their environmental package would cost about a hundred trillion dollars and entirely remake our nation, they backed off of specifics.  

So what are their aspirations?  What are the ideals they would like to put in operation?  These turn out to be just as fuzzy and unattainable as their policy proposals.  They too are filled with social changes that if implemented would have disastrous consequences.  These may sound good if unexamined, but they fall apart if closely inspected.

Consider the aspirations of Plato.  Over two millennia ago, this Greek philosopher promoted the idea of a philosopher king.  He argued that someone smarter and nicer than ordinary people should make the important collective decisions.  Only then would the welfare of society be protected.

Nowadays it is liberals and socialists who intend to be philosopher kings. As they inform us many, many times, they are smarter and nicer than the rest of us.  If we listen to them and follow their advice we will therefore have better results than if we rely upon ourselves.

But how has that worked out?  Has there ever been a real philosopher king?  Mind you, this ideal has been around for a long time.  Somewhere, it must have come to fruition.  Except, of course, that it never did.  Real leaders are always imperfect.  Furthermore, because they are human, they always will be.

Not long ago, leftists behaved as if Barack Obama would be our philosopher king.  He would bring hope and change to a nation that had been betrayed by capitalism, nationalism, and hate.  Unfortunately, he delivered something else.  What we got was a weak economy, increased social divisiveness, and a crippled foreign policy.

Nevertheless, we shouldn’t blame Obama too much, because no human could supply what he promised or what his sycophants expected.  So what did they expect?  What were their aspirations?  In other words, what did they hope for and what did they want changed?

To keep it simple, their primary objectives were social justice and interpersonal cooperation.  Capitalism, in contrast, was condemned as fostering inequality and competition.  It thus led to people being mean, as opposed to loving.

So let us ask another question.  When have people ever been completely equal and totally cooperative? If this has never occurred at any point in human history, could there be a reason?  And could that reason be that we humans are inherently unequal and universally competitive?

The writers of the United States constitution thought so.  James Madison and Alexander Hamilton were convinced that the human tendencies to be competitive and unfair had to be controlled by pitting the selfishness of some against the selfishness of others.  This way they would balance each other out such that no one could rise to become an absolute monarch.

Again, if we look at history, these folks turned out to be correct. Our nation has prospered as no other. It increased in wealth and remained a representative republic despite a host of pressures—both internal and external. Although its aspirations were modest, they were fulfilled.

Meanwhile collectivist societies have been brutal.  Mao Tse-tung, for instance, promised Chinese peasants that he would provide them complete equality.  Once his followers got to Yunnan, however, they discovered that the communist elite lived much better than they did.

Moreover, if they complained, they were shot.  They were not even allowed to leave.  In the end, Mao probably murdered over a hundred million souls.  Need I remind you, these were real people, not statistics.  Collectivists like Stalin and Pol Pot did not reach these figures, but it was not for want of trying.

Aspirations are fine, but they have to be attached to reality. They are not automatically worthy of deference.  This isn’t something the current crop of Democratic presidential aspirants understands. They assume that if they can dream something, they can make it happen.

The rest of us must be more careful.  Words are only words.  If they cannot be converted into beneficial realities, they may be entertaining, but they should not be taken seriously.  To do so is dangerously juvenile.

So when candidates get on the hustings and laud their aspirations, these ambitions need to be examined.  To uncritically assume they will make our lives better is to place our fate in the hands of folks who care more about obtaining power than helping us.

Melvyn L. Fein, Ph.D.

Professor Emeritus

Kennesaw State University

Liberty Is Not Enough

I love liberty.  I hate being pushed around by anyone and that includes the government.  Whenever possible, I like to participate in making the decisions that affect my life.

As a result, I applaud Donald Trump’s efforts to reduce the federal footprint.  Eliminating unnecessary regulations was a step in the right direction.  So is, defending the constitution.  Its checks and balances are essential for keeping tyranny at bay.

Nonetheless, these are negative accomplishments.  They help keep would-be dictators from stealing our freedom. But let’s say that this defense of liberty succeeds. What then?  Will this alone fulfill our desires?  Will it automatically make us happier?

Readers of my columns know that I include liberty as one of the five principles necessary to maintain the integrity of a mass techno-commercial society. Freedom is essential if people are to make important decisions for themselves and others.

Nevertheless these decisions need to be good ones.  Liberty provides opportunities.  It does not ensure that people will exploit these prudently.  In fact, the opposite is currently happening.  Many millions of Americans expect to be saved by ceding their choices to others.  They fear they might make mistakes.

The problem is that there are some kinds of selections only individuals can make.  We must therefore use our freedom to take these upon ourselves.  I am thinking of Freud’s criteria for mental health. These were workand love. Unless people are capable of both, they will not be content.

A corollary of this is that the government cannot provide satisfactory work or genuine love.  We must achieve these objectives for ourselves.  To begin with, nowadays with socialists rising in prominence, they demand that the state provide us with jobs.  They shun the free market as too risky.

Apparently these folks have never spent time in communist nations. These places guaranteed full employment. The difficulty with this is at least twofold.  First, when bureaucrats decide where you should work, the odds are you will be trapped in labors you do not like.

Second, if you will have a job no matter what, you will not have an incentive to apply yourself.  Instead you will just get by.  In the end, there will be no sense of achievement and consequently little gratification.

Although it can be anxiety producing to choose one’s own occupation, taking the time to select wisely is essential.  So is developing the skills to perform one’s tasks well.  This is not trivial in that a sense of accomplishment is critical to our wellbeing.  Personal achievements make us feel good about ourselves.

Of course, if we apply liberty to become our best selves, we could fail.  Maybe we won’t fulfill our dreams.  The other side of the coin, however, is that if we cede our independence to faceless administrators, the resulting dependence is sure to leave us feeling empty.

The same applies to seeking love.  If we decide that there is too much pain involved in finding Mr. or Ms. Right, we will have to settle for being unloved.  Others cannot furnish the perfect match because only we can identify what meets our needs.

Nor can others do the work of establishing a secure marriage.  Only we can make a genuine commitment.  Only we are equipped to negotiate our differences fairly with a partner who does likewise.  Nowadays, with personal intimacy voluntary, if we do not put in the effort to make our relationships work, they will not.

Again, because too many Americans demand success in activities that are inherently insecure, they eschew liberty.  They instead withdraw into an electronic universe where loneliness is the norm.  Unfortunately computers and iPhones are not a viable substitute for flesh and blood interactions.

Love can go wrong.  It often does.  Marriages fall apart.  They frequently do.  But abstaining from the game is worse.  The answer is that intimacy has to be worked at by us.  Unless we use our liberty to discover how to love, there is nothing the government can do to fill this void.

With so many Americans looking to politicians for answers, it is no wonder discontent is rampant.  Elected officials will promise us anything, but that does not mean they can deliver. It is therefore time that we looked to ourselves for salvation.

Yes, let’s pursue liberty.  But let us also grow up so that we can take advantage of its benefits. As long as we continue to worship at the altar of big government, we will find it is nothing but a golden calf.

Melvyn L. Fein, Ph.D.

Professor Emeritus

Kennesaw State University

Lessons from the Roman Republic

Almost from the moment the United States became the world’s lone superpower, people began to speculate about whether we would suffer the fate of the Roman Empire.  Would we too decline and fall into an abyss the way Europe’s greatest empire did.

This hypothesis was reasonable, but the better parallel is between the Roman Republic and us.  It too unraveled when its wealth and power exceeded the unifying ability of the institutions that allowed it to dominate the Mediterranean littoral.

Rome had been a small city-state composed mostly of impendent farmers.  They were proud citizens who energetically participated in the legions that destroyed Carthage.  Theirs was a republic in which they voted for their leaders and expected these men to protect their interests.

Capturing all the lands from Spain to Turkey changed this.  Now Rome was extremely rich, with most of the spoils concentrated in the hands of the Patricians.  This destabilized the class structure and removed the incentive for farmers who lost their land to participate in the system.

Attempts to rectify this situation made things worse.  Strongmen arose who promised to bring back the glories of the past, whereas in the process they undermined the political traditions that enabled the republic to prosper.  These leaders said that they cared about the little people, while in fact they lusted after power.

Most Americans have never heard of the Gracchi, or Marius, or Sulla. Nonetheless, these men and their competitors were the ones who rent the system apart.  In flouting centuries of time-honored practices, they demolished the foundation of their civilization.

Before them, no one brought weapons into the forum.  Before them, the sanctity of the consuls and tribunes was inviolate.  After them, nothing was off limits if this allowed those who sought power to obtain it.

This development should resonate with the situation of contemporary America.  We too grew from humble beginnings to superpower status.  Moreover, in the process our social class system was transformed. The difference, of course, was that instead of poverty becoming more prevalent, we became a middle class society.

In any event, the rules that we live by became outmoded.  The more diverse our society became and the more responsibility individuals assumed, the less historic standards seemed relevant. A sense of entitlement encouraged people to demand what they wanted, when they wanted it.

Our governmental traditions have gradually given way to political innovations that are said to be beneficial, but that actually eat away at the stability we have come to expect. A host of unprecedented actions jeopardize the restraints that enable a mass society to maintain its balance.

A good example is the drive to impeach president Trump.  Even his detractors know that he has not engaged in “high crimes and misdemeanors” while in office.  They don’t care.  They instead tell us that impeachment is a political process and therefore they don’t require legally provable allegations.

Indeed, they were demanding that Trump be impeached even before he took the oath of office.  Their goal was thus never to protect the nation, but to rid themselves of a detested foe.

All of this flies in the face of American traditions.  Until now, have held that impeachment should be a last resort.  We have understood that if a chief executive can be toppled anytime a hostile congress desires, it is impossible for him or her to govern.

As recently as a half century ago, President John Kennedy recognized this fact.  In his book Profiles in Courage, he lauded the senator who refused to vote for the impeachment of Andrew Johnson. Instead of giving in to political pressure, Edmund Ross stood by his principles.  He would not allow partisan fervor make a mockery of the constitution.

So why are the Democrats so hot to impose a penalty that would obliterate our democratic heritage?  The answer is simple.  The more their policies for saving our nation fail, the more dedicated they become to obtaining power for its own sake.  They cannot admit their errors; hence they project them on others.

These politicians are playing a dangerous game.  They will say anything and do anything they believe will enable them to call the shots.  What works is irrelevant.  As a result, we may all suffer.

Traditions develop for a reason.  When they change—as they must—this should be done with care. Nowadays this truism is utterly neglected.  We should all tremble at the potential consequences.

Melvyn L. Fein, Ph.D.

Professor Emeritus

Kennesaw State University

What Is Wrong with Merit?

Lots of things come out of Nancy Pelosi’s mouth.  Many of them are downright silly; others are revealing. If we listen carefully, we can discover facts about contemporary liberalism that Democrats would prefer to hide.

Do you remember when the Speaker of the House, told us that we would have to pass the Affordable Care Act in order to understand what was in it. This implied that legislation should occur in the dark of night rather than where the public can see what is going on. It was the opposite of transparency.

Nancy got a free pass because anything associated with Barack Obama was then interpreted as an instance of “hope and change.”  While Pelosi has not changed, her erstwhile protector is no longer on the scene.

So what gaff has she perpetrated lately?  Furthermore, will Americans who hate Donald Trump discern its implications? I am not talking about Pelosi’s description of the chaos on our southern border a manufactured crisis.  Nor am I citing to her dismissal of Attorney General William Barr as Trump’s lapdog.

No.  I am referring to her response to Trump’s proposals for reforming immigration policies. Our president argued that migrants be allowed into our country primarily on the basis of merit.  Instead of family connections being the main consideration, skills and abilities should count for more.

Trump explained that we ought bring in people who will add to our prosperity.  Instead of being dependent on the public trough for their upkeep, they should be independent—perhaps even starting new businesses.  Other countries, such as Canada and Australia, do this.  Why shouldn’t we?

Pelosi immediately objected.  This was a condescending way to treat migrants.  Didn’t Trump realize that many of the ancestors of contemporary Americans arrived here dirt poor?  He was merely exposing his disdain for those who are not rich.

But notice that Pelosi protested against the word “merit.”  This was extraordinarily informative.  Merit was an elitist term.  Years ago, I read a sociology paper that described merit as an anti-minority plot.  Using it as a criterion for selecting people for jobs was disparaged as a euphemism for keeping blacks out.

So what does this indicate?  Do I want my physician to be without merit?  Do I expect airport flight controllers to be without merit?  In fact, the latter are currently being selected on the basis of having no previous experience with airplanes.  In this case, merit is decried as discriminatory.

But let us focus in on the Democrats.  Do we want our political leaders to be without merit?  Is Pelosi telling us that she deserves to be Speaker of the House because she is mediocre?   As importantly, will the Democrats running for president follow her lead?  Will they argue that they are better than the next guy because they not as good.

If this sounds silly, it actually alarming.  Democrats have made a living out of promising voters that they would rescue the downtrodden.  Regrettably, this requires trainloads of mediocre souls who cannot take care of themselves.  Without them, there would not be enough human material to release from bondage.

As a consequence, liberals have discovered that they have to import people who do not have substantial merit.  They require them by the millions if they are to retain a hold on power.  Dependency and mediocrity go together.  The worse off people are, the more prepared they are to cede their independence to others.

So let us reconsider merit.  It is not synonymous with wealth.  Nor is it the same as being well educated.  Lots of poor people qualify as meritorious, that is, if they are motivated to help themselves.  Thus, my ancestors came to this country dirt poor, but within a decade owned their own businesses.

The difference between then and now is that we have become a mass techno-commercial society.  This requires different abilities and dispositions than were needed then. Ought not this be taken into account when we decide how to distribute the limited number of green cards at our disposal?

Merit should not be lightly dismissed in order to obtain a temporary political advantage.  I am sure that Nancy did not mean to suggest that she is without intelligence or moral virtues.  Indeed, don’t most liberals believe that they are special human beings?

Merit should be celebrated.  It should be encouraged in almost every aspect of life.  If it is not; if we embrace mediocrity, it will not be long before others are surpassing us.  Joe Biden aside; the Chinese are on our heels and will catch up if we decide that average is good enough.

 Melvyn L. Fein, Ph.D.

Professor Emeritus

Kennesaw State University

A Tribute to Doris Day

Several weeks ago, the actress/singer Doris Day passed away. She was ninety-seven years old. Much to my surprise, very little was made of her death.  Perhaps this should be attributed to the fact that she has been out of the public limelight for many years.  But I think something else was involved.

For me, Ms. Day was an icon.  When I was growing up, she was the epitome of what I thought a woman should be. Pretty, sweet and perky, she represented my ideal of femininity.  Indeed, I took my cues as to what heterosexual relationships should be from what I saw of her on the silver screen.

When she and Gordon McCrae hooked up in movies such as On Moonlight Bay, we in the audience knew they were made for each other.  Both were physically attractive and morally commendable.  They did not lie, or cheat, or ever behave in a mean manner.

These folks were intended to be role models—and they were.  While their characters were amazingly naïve, they were meant to serve as paradigms.  Often harking back to an earlier era, they told us that we should strive for the personal purity of a bygone age.  In short, they brought romanticism into our lives.

In the wake of World War II, many of us wanted romanticism.  We hungered for love and security in the world that had just escaped the horrors of Hitler and Tojo.  I certainly wanted these things in my private life and regarded Doris as providing a roadmap to them.

But then the world became more complicated.  Women started going to college and getting responsible jobs. Doris Day followed suit.  By the nineteen-sixties, she was a career woman and a liberated female.  In films such as Pillow Talkshe was even beginning to have sex without being married.  

Although no longer virginal, Ms. Day’s characters remained extremely moral. Libidinous males such as Rock Hudson might pursue her, but she was anything but promiscuous.  She still retained an admirable puritanical streak.

Even when she became pregnant out of wedlock, we knew that in the end she would marry the father of her child.  The only question was whether this would be before or after the baby was born.  Most of us were rooting for before.

My wife, who is a decade and a half younger than I am, had a very different reaction to Ms. Day’s career.  She regarded her as old fashioned and prissy.  Whereas I was slightly scandalized by extramarital dalliances, my wife found qualms about sex to be rigid and anti-woman.

If we step back and look at Doris’ career in context, it is clear that she was a transitional figure.  Her period of fame coincided with the sexual revolution.  Whereas she became a star while neo-Victorian attitudes were prevalent, she ended it when free-sex was becoming the ideal.

Despite that, Doris Day never fully represented sexual liberation. Her characters always had too many scruples to fully embrace the emerging feminist standards.  They were never, “I’ll do whatever I want” sorts of women.

But herein lies the rub.  The sexual revolution did not work out as planned.  Free love was never free.  It took its toll on the individual psyche and devastated the stability of marriage.  As a result, we are still struggling with figuring out the role of sex in a society where women have more rights.

Doris Day, in other words, did not represent a seamless transition. It is not as if we went smoothly from a form of life that worked for our ancestors to a different style the works for us.  The ride has been too bumpy.  In fact, were we comfortable with where we are, we would be more comfortable with where she was.

Nonetheless, I loved Doris Day.  While the archetype she epitomized was hopelessly unsophisticated, so is the ideal epitomized by Beyoncé.  Even so, hers provided hope at a time when I desperately needed hope.  The kind of love she promised may never have existed, but dreaming about it transported me away from a harsh reality.

So I say, let us remember Doris Day fondly.  She was a real star and a very talented performer.  True, her beauty—of face, figure and disposition—were a figment of Hollywood’s imagination.  Nevertheless, we shouldn’t blame her if social change occurs more slowly and less completely than we would like.

Doris Day is a reminder that the ideals of one generation might not be those of another.  We may not like to be reintroduced of this mutability—but there it is.

Melvyn L. Fein, Ph.D.

Professor Emeritus

Kennesaw State University

Liberty Is Not Enough

I love liberty.  I hate being pushed around by anyone and that includes the government.  Whenever possible, I like to participate in making the decisions that affect my life.

As a result, I applaud Donald Trump’s efforts to reduce the federal footprint.  Eliminating unnecessary regulations was a step in the right direction.  So is, defending the constitution.  Its checks and balances are essential for keeping tyranny at bay.

Nonetheless, these are negative accomplishments.  They help keep would-be dictators from stealing our freedom. But let’s say that this defense of liberty succeeds. What then?  Will this alone fulfill our desires?  Will it automatically make us happier?

Readers of my columns know that I include liberty as one of the five principles necessary to maintain the integrity of a mass techno-commercial society. Freedom is essential if people are to make important decisions for themselves and others.

Nevertheless these decisions need to be good ones.  Liberty provides opportunities.  It does not ensure that people will exploit these prudently.  In fact, the opposite is currently happening.  Many millions of Americans expect to be saved by ceding their choices to others.  They fear they might make mistakes.

The problem is that there are some kinds of selections only individuals can make.  We must therefore use our freedom to take these upon ourselves.  I am thinking of Freud’s criteria for mental health. These were workand love. Unless people are capable of both, they will not be content.

A corollary of this is that the government cannot provide satisfactory work or genuine love.  We must achieve these objectives for ourselves.  To begin with, nowadays with socialists rising in prominence, they demand that the state provide us with jobs.  They shun the free market as too risky.

Apparently these folks have never spent time in communist nations. These places guaranteed full employment. The difficulty with this is at least twofold.  First, when bureaucrats decide where you should work, the odds are you will be trapped in labors you do not like.

Second, if you will have a job no matter what, you will not have an incentive to apply yourself.  Instead you will just get by.  In the end, there will be no sense of achievement and consequently little gratification.

Although it can be anxiety producing to choose one’s own occupation, taking the time to select wisely is essential.  So is developing the skills to perform one’s tasks well.  This is not trivial in that a sense of accomplishment is critical to our wellbeing.  Personal achievements make us feel good about ourselves.

Of course, if we apply liberty to become our best selves, we could fail.  Maybe we won’t fulfill our dreams.  The other side of the coin, however, is that if we cede our independence to faceless administrators, the resulting dependence is sure to leave us feeling empty.

The same applies to seeking love.  If we decide that there is too much pain involved in finding Mr. or Ms. Right, we will have to settle for being unloved.  Others cannot furnish the perfect match because only we can identify what meets our needs.

Nor can others do the work of establishing a secure marriage.  Only we can make a genuine commitment.  Only we are equipped to negotiate our differences fairly with a partner who does likewise.  Nowadays, with personal intimacy voluntary, if we do not put in the effort to make our relationships work, they will not.

Again, because too many Americans demand success in activities that are inherently insecure, they eschew liberty.  They instead withdraw into an electronic universe where loneliness is the norm.  Unfortunately computers and iPhones are not a viable substitute for flesh and blood interactions.

Love can go wrong.  It often does.  Marriages fall apart.  They frequently do.  But abstaining from the game is worse.  The answer is that intimacy has to be worked at by us.  Unless we use our liberty to discover how to love, there is nothing the government can do to fill this void.

With so many Americans looking to politicians for answers, it is no wonder discontent is rampant.  Elected officials will promise us anything, but that does not mean they can deliver. It is therefore time that we looked to ourselves for salvation.

Yes, let’s pursue liberty.  But let us also grow up so that we can take advantage of its benefits. As long as we continue to worship at the altar of big government, we will find it is nothing but a golden calf.

Melvyn L. Fein, Ph.D.

Professor Emeritus

Kennesaw State University

Personal Responsibility: A Lesson from the Past

Virtually all of my colleagues at Kennesaw State University—at least the folks I talk to—are agreed on one thing.  No matter what our political convictions, we are impressed by the degree of entitlement demonstrated by our students.  Most believe a college degree is a right.  

Furthermore, these learners are convinced that they deserve one without having to work hard.  The goal is to get through with as little reading and writing as possible.  Then, if something goes wrong, they blame others. The professor demanded too much. There was not enough time.  The subject matter was too difficult.  

It is plain that personal responsibility has gone out of fashion. This is a nationwide phenomenon. Thanks to the liberal ascendency, millions of Americans are certain they merit success without earning it.  Others have an obligation to take care of them, whereas they need only sit back and enjoy the ride.

Barack Obama contributed massively to this attitude.  His message that we must be each other’s keepers implied that the government should be everyone’s keeper.  When he told business owners that they did not create their companies, he was saying that only the government creates anything.  

If this idea is combined with encouraging people to sign up for food stamps or social security, the meaning is clear.  We Americans need no longer do for ourselves.  Personal responsibility is outdated.  Our job is to be consumers, not doers.

Nonetheless, I remember the incident that taught me the importance of responsibility.  I was working as a counselor at a New York City Methadone Clinic.  My job was to help addicts get off of heroin.  Still in my twenties, I was to supply them with encouragement and advice.

In any event, I was earning enough to afford my first car.  It was a little red VW bug.  At the time, I was living on the upper West Side of Manhattan. As a result, each day I drove down town and paid to park at a lot not far from work.

Then one day a colleague suggested that we drive to a fish place across the Hudson River.  It had a great reputation and so several of us crammed into my vehicle to make the journey. The meal was delicious. 

Once back in the city, the question was where to park.  I had only about an hour and a half left on my shift; hence it did not make sense to pay for another full day of parking.  There were empty spaces in front of our clinic, but signs indicated that leaving an auto there was illegal.

My friends said not to worry.  It was unlikely that I would get a ticket for such a short period of noncompliance.  As luck would have it, however, I did.  This was my first parking offense and I was mortified.  What would I do?

Since our excursion had been a joint venture, I expected my coworkers to chip in.  They did not. Instead I encountered a studious silence when I informed them of my dilemma.  This was not what I expected.  The disappointment was painful.

But then I reflected upon my situation.  This was my car.  I had decided to park it where I did.  While it was true that I was influenced by my friend’s advice, I was at the controls. In short, this was my responsibility. I was to blame and therefore had to pay.

This was a seminal moment in my life.  All of a sudden I realized that I was an adult.  No one had a duty to bail me out.  It would have been nice if they had, but I was not a child.  Mommy and Daddy were not going to rescue me from every mistake.

That’s the way it is when you are an adult.  You make decisions and live with the consequences.   If you break something, you have a duty to fix it.  You accept the blame when you are at fault.

Doesn’t this apply to society at large?  Can a nation survive if too many of its citizens behave as if they were eternal children?  Where is the courage to stand up and deal with life’s difficulties?  We reside in a complicated world.  If we don’t dedicate ourselves to doing our best, who will? 

Big Daddy Obama is gone.  He never was the only adult in the room.  Isn’t it time for people to stop whining about what they don’t have?  Shouldn’t we pull up our socks and get on with business?

Melvyn L. Fein, Ph.D.

Professor of Sociology

Kennesaw State University