The Deer and I

Way back in 1945, a book came out that was called “The Egg and I.”  It was a humorous memoir of a young wife’s experience at having been transported from an urban existence to life on a Washington state chicken farm.

The recollection of this put me in mine of my own situation living in Cherokee county.  I am a transplanted city boy.  My formative years were spent in the wilds of Brooklyn, New York and my young adult years found me residing in Manhattan.

When I first moved out of New York City to upstate New York, I fell in love with the suburban neighborhood in which I bought a house.  It felt like living in a park, as opposed to a concrete jungle.  The greenery was both beautiful and comforting.

Now I reside in Cherokee county in a home that is even less urban.  Surrounded on three sides by woodlands, everyday when I look out a window I see trees.  I also see squirrels and rabbits and flowers.  But it is the deer that command my attention.

You must understand that the only deer found in Brooklyn were confined to the zoo.  To have real live creatures—that are bigger than a breadbasket—just outside my door was a first thrilling.  I could almost touch them without some zookeeper objecting.

Not only were the deer close by, but they sometimes bedded down in my side yard.  It was also fun to watch them munching on the wild raspberries that grew there in profusion.  That this thicket could provide them with nourishment seemed almost miraculous.

Then something unexpected happened.  My wife and I had long taken note of the deer tracks in our vegetable garden.  They indicated that the deer were there even when we were not.  This was perfectly okay with us.

But eventually the deer started chomping on our tomatoes.  For years, they had left our vegetables alone.  Now they apparently grew so comfortable in our presence that they had no qualms about approaching our house or vandalizing our plants.

At first only a few leaves and tomatoes appeared to be missing.  But then entire bushes were reduced to bare stalks.  There was no hope for these plants to grown back because there was not enough left to regenerate.  This hurt.  It felt like a betrayal.

My wife and I wondered what to do.  The best we could come up with was to install some fencing.  Yet this proved inadequate.  Although we contemplated more robust measures, in the end we decided that we would share some of our bounty.

Nonetheless, the worst blow was yet to come.  My wife especially loves flowers.  She has been experimenting with different varieties and resolved to try tulips.  We consequently purchased a bag full of bulbs, which she planted in the fall.  Came the spring and we eagerly awaited signs of their emergence.

It was therefore with some pleasure that we witnessed the first shoots breaking through the soil.  It was with even greater delight that we welcomed the first flowers.  Alas, then disaster struck.  The deer ate every one of the tulips down to the nub.

Our despair was beyond measure.  Still there was a ray of hope.  The tulips might revive.  After all, the bulbs remained in the ground.  And sure enough, there were new shoots—and even a few flowers.

Except that those predatory deer were ever on the alert.  They had merely been biding their time.  As soon as there was enough to furnish another meal, they had their way with our poor tulips.  They even came back for a third helping.

Who knew that deer love tulips?  This had not happened in Brooklyn. Fortunately, they apparently do not like daffodils, so these survived.  The lesson learned?  Forget tulips and stick with daffodils.  If we cannot beat the deer, perhaps we can learn to co-exist.

Melvyn L. Fein, Ph.D.

Professor of Sociology

Kennesaw State University Melvyn L. Fein, Ph.D.

Professor of Sociology

Kennesaw State University

Why We Lost Our Way

 

In Through the Looking Glass, Alice says “Why, sometimes I believe as many as six impossible things before breakfast.”  Yet American voters have made her look like a piker.  They are determined to believe in hundreds of impossible things before they head to the polls to choose a president.

It is not as if most of them do not know that the candidates are over-promising.  They have been along this path before.  They have witnessed countless grandiose pledges crumble to dust once their favorites got into office.

But still they believe.  How can this be?  Why do so many otherwise intelligent people remain willfully ignorant?  Can’t they see that in deciding to bust the budget, or gut the military, or start a trade war, we will all ultimately suffer?  The idea that the politicians can rescue us from our current anxieties may sound plausible, but it is a myth.

And yet millions believe.  The reason is that the world is so complicated that we require a roadmap in order to find our way around.  In order to be useful, however, this map must simplify the terrain.  If it corresponded one-to-one with reality, it would be just as confusing as reality.

Nonetheless, in simplifying, these maps distort.  They leave out important factors, while over-emphasizing others.  This can prompt us to take the wrong turns in moments of doubt.  That, in fact, is where we today find ourselves.

What are these roadmaps?  They are our ideologies.  These idea systems tell us how the world is constructed and therefore what we should do in order to get where we want to go.  They help us make sense of facts that are, in their absence, too complex to grasp.

The problem is that our current ideologies are out of whack.  They have deviated so far from reality that they often encourage us to go astray.  It is as if we were trying to circumnavigate the planet by consulting a chart that was drawn up when people believed the earth was flat.

What are these out-of-date ideologies?  They are none other than the current liberal and conservative catechisms.  The ideals these espouse may seem beyond question—at least to their adherents—and yet the policies they promote are frequently defective.

Take liberalism.  It is often conflated with being “progressive.”  Liberals believe they are on the cutting edge of a brave new world.  As they see it, they are rationally seeking to reconstruct the world along egalitarian lines.  In other words, they are for social justice, whereas their foes are not.

But liberalism is not progressive.  Its central ideas are at least two centuries old.  They go back to Jean-Jacques Rousseau and Karl Marx.  Ideas, such as the “general will” and a proletarian revolution, color their vision of ideal social arrangements.

But in truth, there is no general will and the proletarian revolution fizzled.  The notion that we will all eventually be equal is likewise fanciful.  It is a pipe dream that is in the process of being converted into a nightmare.  Robbing the rich to give to the poor is a recipe for reducing everyone to poverty and oppression.

Unfortunately some conservative visions are little better.  They too were formulated hundreds, if not thousands, of years ago.  Consider the libertarian utopia.  It is derived from the Enlightenment observations of Adam Smith.  He noted, with some justification, that an invisible hand regulates the economy.

And yet the libertarians have turned this into a call for dismantling the government.  While it is certainly true that liberals promote too much government, too little is also dangerous.  Nor are we solely economic animals.  Our family life, for instance, cannot prosper in a totally laissez-faire environment.

Ours is a new world that confronts us with challenges our ancestors could have not imagined.  Doubtless, they were smart people.  There is unquestionably much we can learn from them.  Nonetheless, if we bind ourselves too tightly to their beliefs, we are bound to stumble.

Melvyn L. Fein, Ph.D.

Professor of Sociology

Kennesaw State University

What Has Gone Wrong?

Over the course of the last three weeks I have written about a variety of problems that currently beset our country.  I have complained about our lost moral compass, shared ignorance, and descent into a decadence akin to ancient Rome.

The question that must now be asked is why has this happened?  Why have we, still the wealthiest and most powerful nation on the planet, sunk into a trough of despair?  Why has the American Dream evaporated and been replaced by a miasma of doubt and confusion?

Think about it.  Contemporary liberals are seriously flirting with a presidential candidate who is an avowed socialist.  Not many years ago, their parents swore up and down that this would never be the case.  Once upon a time, they too insisted upon protecting our capitalistic values.

And what about those Christian evangelicals who are voting for Donald Trump?  Aren’t they aware that his lifestyle is the antithesis of that recommended by their faith?  Have they too embraced a “non-judgmental” philosophy that regards every sort of behavior as equally valid?

Instead of a defense of democracy and freedom, we find a nihilism that is more against who we are than for anything definitive.  Trump tells us he wants to make America great again, but does not say how.  His rants are mostly about insulting those he regards as enemies.

Meanwhile Hillary asserts that we are still great.  Although she is aware of how angry voters are with Obama’s legacy, she promises us a continuation of his policies—only more so.  She too struggles to be inspirational, but what is it to which she aspires?

So tell me: What has the American Dream been transformed into?  Is it about everyone having the opportunity to get rich?  How can this be true when the rich have become everyone’s favorite whipping boy?   Nowadays even proclaimed conservatives want to impose higher taxes on them.

Or is it the freedom to speak our minds without being cast into a dungeon?  This too no longer makes sense.  In today’s political climate, college students can’t even support their favorite candidate with chalk slogans lest they be threatened with sensitivity training.

Indeed, is it freedom at all when Republicans promise to punch Democrats in the nose, while Democrats disinvite Republicans from graduation ceremonies?  The tolerance implied by liberty has clearly fallen upon hard times.  It has apparently come to mean allowing people to be themselves—as long as we approve.

A new tribalism evidently pervades our nation.   Blacks hate whites and whites fear blacks.  Women accuse men of brutality, while men cower when blamed for selfishness.  Gays take offense at the slightest indication they might be disliked, while straights apologize for their sexual orientation.

What has this come down to?  Is there nothing that we truly believe in?  Has our goal been reduced to hiding behind a wall of impenetrable music or pretending to be who we are not on the Internet?  Are these worthy ambitions?

I believe we are in an ideological crisis.  The ideals that we use to guide our personal and collective decisions have lost their appeal.  We no longer know where we are going because our world is not the one in which these standards arose.  Having achieved prosperity and power, we are not sure what we want.

Classical liberalism has not fulfilled our desires.  But neither has classical conservatism.  For that matter, neither have religion or science.  We may still recite the catechisms attached to these idea systems, yet they do not stimulate the loyalty they once did.

So what will be our fate?  The politicians certainly don’t have the answers.  But neither do the academics or prelates.  People may clamor for reform, nonetheless they have no conception of the shape it should take.  The best they manage are empty shibboleths. 

Over the next few weeks I will try to provide some solutions to this conundrum.  Let’s see if I can do better.

Melvyn L. Fein, Ph.D.

Professor of Sociology

Kennesaw State University

American Decadence

During the heyday of the Roman Republic, ordinary citizens took up arms to protect it from invaders.  Heroes, such as Cincinnatus, left their farms to battle the foe and then returned to the plow once victory was achieved.  Their patriotism, their willingness to make personal sacrifices, eventuated in a great empire.

But once the empire was securely in place, once the riches of the orient and slaves from central Europe began pouring in, ordinary Romans lost interest in joining the legions.  They preferred to stay home and enjoy the bread and circuses that had been bought by the blood of their ancestors.

Instead they began to hire barbarians to stand guard on the borders.  German and Hunnish mercenaries now fought their battles.  That is, until these non-Romans decided to march on Rome.  It was then that this great empire fell.

For a while the Romans were able to buy off their enemies, but ultimately their reluctance to defend themselves spelled their doom.  Are we now witnessing the same decline of the American hegemony?  Have we too grown so decadent that we are unwilling to protect our interests?

Barack Obama tells us that he has no intension of putting boots on the ground in the Middle East.  He likewise sought to buy off the Iranians with a craven quasi-treaty.  As for the Russians and the Chinese, he merely tells them they are on the wrong side of history.  This magical incantation will no doubt bring them to their senses.

Meanwhile closer to home, rioters are calmed by allowing them free reign of our inner cities, while protesters are assured that their demands are in the vanguard of social justice.  All we need do to bring peace to our streets is to confiscate the resources of the wealthy and shovel them toward the poor.

The home of the brave and the land of the free are a distant memory.  Our forebears may have battled to protect their frontiers and establish great industries, but all we need to do is live off the affluence they created.

Politicians declare that we can become great again, but how is that possible when so many of us are unwilling to exert ourselves?  How is it feasible when we embrace the fictions we hear in school and the media?  Can a people intoxicated by entitlements ever stand up for themselves?

Nowadays we tell children that if they are bullied, they must immediately appeal to an adult for relief.  They are advised not to stand up for themselves.  How is this supposed to instill courage or personal resolve?

Schools are likewise swept up in a vortex of grade inflation.  Students expect to be at the top of their class even if they learn nothing.  They also expect trophies merely for participating in little leagues games.

Americans may be awash with self-esteem, but they are living in a fool’s paradise.  As the clichéd observation has it, they were born on third base, yet are convinced that they hit a triple.

Nor are we alone in our decadence.  The people of Western Europe are also so self-satisfied that they too have forgotten how to protect themselves.  Somehow they cannot say no to importing millions of foreigners who are intent on destroying their civilization.

Wealth and power are apparently enervating.  They draw the courage and motivation out of people.  So intent are these folks on dining on peacock’s tongues and playing their lyres that they do not notice when they are in danger.

The national debt may be unsustainable, but the economy has not yet collapsed.  Our military is in decline, but it remains strong.   American families are disintegrating as we speak, but children are not starving in back alleys.  Thus, why should we worry when the temple still stands?

Decadence is a fatal condition.  If it is not recognized; if it is not stemmed, it is lethal.  Will this be our fate?  Will we passively allow it?

Melvyn L. Fein, Ph. D.

Professor of Sociology

Kennesaw State University