Despite the evident distinction in purpose, form, and dynamics between a literary book comment and the stereotypical blog, for present, contextual purposes, we would briefly refer to a modern resonant novel by John Steinbeck, “The Winter of Our Discontent.” Such a reference also confirms the universal observation that good literature reveals mankind’s universally timeless issues.
For those who have yet to read it, the novel, in essence, criticizes the corruption and materialism of modern American society, contrasting it with our traditional American values, and examines the conflict between privately held morality and the desire for profit or position.
The contextual utility of the book’s universal theme is observably realized in the dynamic assessment of the high degree of dismay of mainstream America, relative to the extant state of our traditionally venerated Democratic Republic, under Trump-MAGA rule. The empirical understanding of this dissonant condition would seem to be essential to efforts at its beneficial amelioration.
In a Nation “governed by and for the People,” it is fundamental that the people, in terms of education and informed awareness, are inclined to inspire a suitable choice of leadership.. As Thomas Jefferson admonished, the success of a Democratic Republic requires a literate and informed public. We heartily agree, but where, lately, did we go wrong? Can we return to the American traditional way of life? Our answers are in the affirmative if we, as a Nation, notably desire to do so.
History recalls to us that the radically free and democratic polity created by our Founders employed a governmental architecture and design meant to last as long as its citizenry philosophically and empirically warranted. It is our sad observation that such an intention has, (hopefully, only temporarily) taken a back seat to a ubiquitously singular citizen preoccupation with purported convenience. The latter condition has empirically proven to be hazardous to democracy.
In earlier writings, we observed the jejune error in the optimistic predictions of the Founders. Their assumption that informed citizens would amicably and dutifully debate the contested issues of the day, and that the results would be a useful and relevant guide to a Nation, dedicated to governance by and for the People. As unfortunately experienced, citizens with disparate opinions on issues such as abortion rights, guns, immigration, gender rights, and the environment developed groups of like opinion, engaged in a “cold war” style enmity with other like groups of divergent political and social opinion. The salubrious benefits of debate or political conversation on controverted issues were conveniently eschewed in favor of peaceable, but useless, competing “groupthink,” or facile accommodation.
The widespread metastasis of such pernicious social disease, invasive of the body politic, was discernibly enhanced by the unhealthy depersonalization of communication by the use of digital, rather than salubrious, affirming, personal interaction. The many vital emotional and psychological benefits derived from the practice of natural, emotionally satisfying human interaction were sadly surrendered in favor of facile, albeit emotionally and socially unsatisfactory, impersonal digital contact. The consequence was the societally atavistic return to singular loneliness; the general perception of a healthy communal life morphed into a lonely mission for personal success and ephemeral pleasure.
As we perceive it, the resultant perception of insecure, solitary, and vulnerable existence was ripe for demagogic influence and exploitation. Absent some useful understanding of the eternal human condition, the individual is left feeling rootless and vulnerableto the cruel vagaries of chance. Without the philosophical assurance of classic experiential reality, man’s aspirations are haplessly constrained to survival and the achievement of material success. Man becomes a vulnerable “Lone Ranger rather than an assured, shared, societal participant.
Attracted by this modern, superficial morass, like a bumblebee to a yellow daisy, appears the demagogic snake oil salesman and accomplished grifter, Donald J. Trump, hungry for power and perceived adoration, proposing an American Valhalla to the vulnerable and grievance-ridden populist voters. Tragically, and by reason of the lack of contemplative mitigation by the learned classic and timeless human perspective is bizarrely, elected. The sad results, ubiquitously observed in prior writings, are only too well known.
Analogous to the thematic “Winter of Our Discontent,” the American society, under Trump, has, in large part, descended to the contextual level of competition between avowed morality and humanism and individual material benefit and desired status.
What is clinically needed are programs of societal (as opposed to solitary) activity, a renaissance in personal advancement by reading enjoyable and experientially enlightening literature, joint social activities like picnics, publicly attended events, public and private, respectful discussion of current events, and a shared faith in the traditional benefits of education, tolerance, and human empathy.
Voters with such, beneficial traits would bring a desirable,” seasonal” improvement to our present “Winter of Discontent,” and a salubrious renewal of the traditional American seasonal calendar of individual liberty and universal brotherhood.
-p.
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