How Fascism Works

I just finished a book.  Or maybe it was a puzzle?  Or maybe I finally saw the hidden image in one of those "magic eye" posters.  However you want to describe it, the pattern or image or political strategy revealed in Jason Stanley's book "How Fascism Works" is a reality that, once seen, cannot be unseen.  I'd picked up on some patterns and similarities in strategy and rhetoric over the years, having become more concerned when it all intensified with our current Presidential Administration but this brought home a clarity to the far-right movements gaining popularity in both our country and other countries across the world.  The ideas in the book are important enough that I took the time to type out some quotes.

Introduction
Multiple countries, across the world, have been overtaken by a certain kind of far-right nationalism.  The list includes Russia, Hungary, Poland, India, Turkey and the United States.  The task of generalizing about such phenomena is always vexing, as the context of each country is always unique but such generalization is necessary in the current moment.  I have chosen the label “fascism” for ultra-nationalism of some variety, ethnic, religious, cultural, with the nation represented in the person of an authoritarian leader who speaks on its behalf. 

My particular interest in this book is in fascist politics.  Particularly, my interest is in fascist tactics as a mechanism to achieve power.  Once those who employ such tactics come to power, the regimes they enact are, in large part, determined by particular historical conditions.  What occurred in Germany is different from what occurred in Italy.  Fascists politics does not necessarily lead to an explicitly fascist state but it is dangerous, nonetheless. 
Fascist politics includes many distinct strategies.  The mythic past, propaganda, anti-intellectualism, unreality (i.e. conspiracy theories), hierarchy, victimhood, law-and-order, sexual anxiety, appeals to the heartland and a dismantling of public welfare and unity.  Though a defense of certain elements is legitimate and sometimes warranted, there are times in history in which they come together in one party of political movement.  These are dangerous moments.  In the US today, Republican politicians employ these strategies with more and more frequency.  Their increasing tendency to engage in this politics should give honest conservatives pause. 
The dangers  of fascist politics comes in the particular way it dehumanizes segments of the population.  By excluding these groups, it limits the capacity for empathy among other citizens, leading to the justification of inhuman treatment; from the repression of freedom, mass imprisonment and expulsion to, in extreme cases, mass extermination.
Fascist politics can dehumanize a minority group even when an explicitly fascist state does not arrive. 

The most telling symptom of fascist politics is division.  It aims to separate a population into an “us” and a “them.”  Many kinds of political movements involved such a division.  For example, Communist politics weaponizes class divisions.  Giving a description of fascist politics involves describing the very specific way that fascist politics distinguishes “us” from “them.”  Appealing to ethnic, religious or racial distinctions and using this division to shape ideology and, ultimately, policy.

Fascist politicians justify their ideas by breaking down a common sense of history, in creating a mythic past to support their vision for the present.  To support their vision for the present, they rewrite the population’s shared understanding of reality by twisting the language of ideals through propaganda and promoting anti-intellectualism, attacking universities and educational systems which might challenge their ideas.  Eventually, with these techniques, fascist politics creates a state of unreality in which conspiracy theories and fake news replace reasoned debate.  As the common understanding of reality crumbles, fascist politics makes rooms for dangerous and false beliefs to take root.
First, fascist ideology seeks to naturalize group difference, thereby giving the appearance of natural, scientific support for a hierarchy of human worth. When social rankings and divisions solidify, fear fills in for understanding between groups.  Any progress for a minority groups stokes feelings of victimhood among the dominant population. 
Law-and-order politics has mass appeal, casting “us” as “lawful citizens” and “them,” by contrast, as “lawless criminals” whose behavior poses an existential threat to the manhood of the nation.
Sexual anxiety is also typical of fascist politics as the patriarchal hierarchy is threatened by growing gender equity.
As the fear of “them” grows, “we” come to represent everything virtuous.  “We” live in the rural heartland where the pure values and traditions of the nation still, miraculously, exist, despite the threat of the cosmopolitanism of the nation’s cities alongside the hordes of minorities who live there, emboldened by liberal tolerance.  “We” are hardworking and have earned our pride of place by struggle and merit.  “They” are lazy, surviving off the goods we produce by exploiting the generosity of our welfare systems or by employing corrupt institutions such as labor unions, meant to separate honest, hardworking citizens from their pay. 
“We” are makers.  “They” are takers. 

In its own history, the US can find a legacy of the best of liberal democracy as well as the roots of fascist thought.  Indeed, Hitler was inspired by the Confederacy and Jim Crow laws.  Following the horrors of WWII, which sent millions of refugees fleeing across the world, the 1948 Declaration of Human Rights affirmed the dignity of every human being.  The drafting and adoption of the document were spearheaded by former first lady, Eleanor Roosevelt.  And after the war, it stood for the US’ ideals as much as those of the new United Nations.  It was a bold statement, a powerful iteration and expansion of liberal democratic understanding of personhood to include literally the entire world community.  It bound all nations and cultures to a shared commitment to valuing the equality of every person.  And it rang with the aspirations of millions in a shattered world confronting the devastation of colonialism, genocide, racism, global war and, yes, fascism. 
After the war, Article 14 was particularly poignant, solemnly affirming the right of every person to seek asylum.  Even as the declaration attempted to prevent a repetition of the suffering experienced during WWII, it acknowledged that certain categories of people might, once again, have to flee the nation-states under whose flag they once lived. 

Fascism today might not look exactly like it did in the 1930s, but refugees are once again on the road everywhere.  In multiple countries, their plight reinforces fascist propaganda that the nation is under siege that aliens are a threat and danger, both within and outside their borders.  The suffering of strangers can solidify the structure of fascism but it can also trigger empathy once another lenses is clicked into place. 

Chapter 1   Mythic Past
This imagined history provides proof to support the imposition of hierarchy in the present and it dictates how contemporary society should look and behave.  In a 1922 speech at the fascist conference in Naples, Benito Mussolini declared, “We have created our myth.  The myth is a faith, a passion.  It is not necessary for it to be a reality.  Our Myth is the nation.  Our Myth is the greatness of the nation.  And to this Myth, this greatness, which we want to translate into a total reality, we subordinate everything.”
Here, Mussolini makes clear that the fascist mythic past is intentionally mythical.  The function of the Mythic Past in fascist politics is to harness the emotion of nostalgia to the central tenants of fascist ideology; Authoritarianism, Hierarchy, Purity and Struggle.  With the creation of a mythic past, fascism creates a link between nostalgia and the realization of fascist ideals.

Chapter 2 Propaganda
In book 8 of Plato’s The Republic, Socrates argues that people are not naturally lead to self-governance but rather seek a strong leader to follow.  Democracy, by permitting freedom of speech, opens the door for a demagogue to exploit the people’s need for a strongman.  The strongman will use this freedom to prey upon the people’s resentments and fears.  Once the strongman seizes power, he will end democracy, replacing it with tyranny.  In short, book 8 of The Republic argues that democracy is a self-undermining system whose very ideals lead to its own demise. 

Fascists have always been well-acquainted with this recipe for using democracy’s liberties against itself. 

It's hard to advance a policy that will harm a large group of people in straight-forward terms.  The role of political propaganda is to conceal politicians or political movements’ clearly problematic goals by masking them with ideals that are widely accepted. 

Chapter 3 Anti-intellectual
Fascist politics seeks to undermine public discourse by attacking and devaluing education, expertise and language.  Intelligent debate is impossible without an education, with access to different perspectives, a respect for expertise when one’s own knowledge gives out and a rich enough language to precisely describe reality.  When education, expertise and linguistic distinctions are undermined, there remains only power and tribal identity.  This does not mean there are no roles for universities in fascist politics.  In fascists ideology, there is only one legitimate viewpoint, that of the dominant nation.  Schools introduce students to the dominant culture and it’s mythical past.  Education therefore either poses a grave threat to fascism or becomes a pillar of support for the mythical nation. 

Chapter 4 Unreality
When propaganda succeeds at twisting ideals against themselves and universities are undermined and condemned as sources of bias, reality itself is cast into doubt.  We can’t agree on truth.  Fascist politics replaces reasoned debate with fear and anger.  When it is successful, it’s audiences are left with the destabilized sense of loss and a well of mistrust and anger against those whom it has been told are responsible for this loss. 

Hannah Arent, perhaps the 20^th century’s greatest theorist for Totalitarianism, gave clear warning of the importance of conspiracy theories in anti-democratic politics.  In “The Origins of Totalitarianism” she writes, “Mysteriousness, as such, became the first criterion for the choice of topics.  The effectiveness of this kind of propaganda demonstrates one of the chief characteristics of modern masses; they do not believe in anything visible, in the reality of their own experience, they do not trust their eyes and ears but only their imaginations which may be caught be anything that is at once universal and consistent in itself.  What convinces masses are not facts and not even invented facts but only the consistency of the system of which they are presumable a part.  Repetition is only important because it convinces them of consistency, in time.  Because the audience for conspiracy theories regularly discount their own experience, it is often unimportant that the conspiracy theories are demonstrably false. 

Texas House Bill 45, the “American laws for American courts” bill signed into law by the Texas Governor in 2017, is intended to block Muslims from bringing Sharia law into the state.  That Muslims are trying to sneakily transform Texas into an Islamic Republic is deeply improbable.  As is the hypothesis that President Obama is a secret Muslim pretending to be a Christian in order to overthrown the US government.  These conspiracy theories are effective, never-the-less, because they provide simple explanations for otherwise irrational emotions, such as resentment or xenophobic fear in the face of perceived threats.  The idea that President Obama is secretly a Muslim, pretending to be a Christian, in order to overthrow the US government makes rational sense of the irrational feelings of threat many white people had upon his ascension to the Presidency.  That Muslims are trying to sneak Sharia law into Texas makes rationale sense of the feeling of fear caused by a combination of religious nationalists spreading anti-muslim xenophobia and ISIS propaganda videos of terrorists acts committed on far-off shores.  Once a public accepts the comfort of conspiracy thinking for an explanation of irrational fears and resentments, its members will cease to be guided by reason in political deliberation. 

How can conspiracy theories spread if reason always wins out in the square of public date in a liberal democracy?  Shouldn’t liberal democracy promote a full airing of all possibilities, even false and bizarre ones, because the truth will eventually prevail in the marketplace of ideas? 

Perhaps philosophies most famous defense of the freedom of speech was articulated by John Stuart Mill, who defended the ideal in his 1859 work “On Liberty.”  Mills sets out to establish that silencing any opinion is wrong, even if the opinion is false.  To silence a false opinion is wrong because knowledge arises only from the collision of truth with error.  In other words, true belief becomes knowledge only in emerging victorious from the den of argument and disagreement and discussion. According to Mill, knowledge emerges only as the result of deliberation with opposing positions, which must occur either with actual opponents or through internal dialogue.  Without this process, even true belief remains mere prejudice.  “We must allow all speech, even defense of false claims and conspiracy theories because it is only then that we have the chance of achieving knowledge.”  Whether rightly or wrongly, many associate Mills with the motif of a “market place of ideas.”  A realm which, if left to operate on its own, will drive out prejudice and falsehood and produce knowledge. 

But the notion of a “marketplace of ideas” like that of a free-market generally is predicated upon a utopian conception of consumers.  In the case of the metaphor of the marketplace of ideals, the utopian assumptions is that conversation works by exchange of reasons, with one party offering its reasons which are then countered by the reasons of an opponent until the truth ultimately emerges.  But conversation is not just used to communicate information.  Conversation is also used to shut out perspectives, raise fears and heighten prejudice. 

The argument for the “marketplace of ideas” presupposes that words are used only in their descriptive, logical or semantic sense.  But in politics, and most vividly in fascist politics, language is not used simply or even chiefly, to convey information but to illicit emotion.  The argument from the “marketplace of ideas” model for free speech works only if the underlying disposition of the society is to accept the force of reason over the power of irrational resentments and prejudice.  If the society is divided, however then a demagogique politician can exploit the division by using language to sow fear, accentuate prejudice and call for revenge against members of hated groups.  Attempting to counter such rhetoric with reason is akin to using a pamphlet against a pistol.   

[Marketplace of ideas] assumes that knowledge, and only knowledge, emerges from arguments between dedicated opponents.  Such a process, according to that theory, destroys prejudice.
But in reality, objective truth gets drowned out in the cacophony of dissenting voices.  The effect of the myriad of conspiracy theory producing websites across the world, including in the US, has been to destabilize the shared reality that is, in fact, required for shared democratic contestation. 
Disagreement requires a shared set of presuppositions about the world… You and I might disagree over whether President Obama’s health care policy was a good idea.  But if you believe President Obama was a secret Muslim seeking to destroy the US and I do not, our discussion will not be productive.  We will not be talking about the cost and benefits of Obama’s health policy but rather whether or not any of his policies mask a devious, anti-democratic agenda.  Russian propagandists or “political technologists” realized that, with a cacophony of opinions and outlandish opinions, one could undermine the basic background set of presuppositions about the world which allows for productive inquiry.  One can hardly have reasoned discussion about climate policy when one suspects that the scientists who tell us about climate change have a secret “pro-homosexual agenda” as, for example the evangelical media member Tony Perkins suggested on an October 29^th, 2014 edition of his radio program, “Washington Watch.” 

Allowing every opinion into the public sphere and giving it serious time for consideration, far from resulting in a process that is conducive to knowledge formation via deliberation, destroys its very possibility.  Responsible media, in a liberal democracy, must, in the face of this threat, try to report the truth and resist the temptation to report on every possible theory, no matter how fantastical, as long as someone advances it. 
What happens when conspiracy theories become the coin of politics and mainstream media and education institutions are discredited is that citizens no longer have a common reality that can serve as background for democratic deliberation.  In such a situation, citizens have no choice but to look for markers to follow other than truth or reliability.  What happens, in such cases, as we see across the world, is that citizens look to politics for tribal identifications, for addressing personal grievances and for entertainment.
Fascist politics exchanges reality for the remarks of a single individual or, perhaps, a political party.  Regular, repeated and obvious lying is part of the process by which fascists politics destroys the information space.  A fascist leader can replace truth with power. Ultimately lying without consequence.  By replacing the world with a person, fascist politics makes us unable to assess arguments by a common standard.  The fascist politician possess specific techniques to destroy information spaces and break down reality.  

The University of Connecticut philosopher Michal Lynch has used the example of “Pizza-gate” as evidence for the thesis that conspiracy theories are not intended to be treated as ordinary information.  Lynch points out that if one were actually to believe that there was a pizzeria in Washington DC that was trafficking in child sex slaves for Democratic congressmen, it would be entirely rationale to act as Edgar Madison Welch acted.  And yet, Welch was roundly condemned who promulgated the “Pizza-gate” conspiracy for his actions.  Lynch’s point is that the “Pizza-gate” conspiracy was not intended to be treated as ordinary information.  The function of conspiracy theories is to impugn and malign their targets but not necessarily be convincing their audience that they are true.  In the case of “Pizza-gate”, the conspiracy was mean to remain at the level of innuendo and slander. 

Donald Trump came to mainstream political attention by attacking the press for their supposed censorship of the conspiracy called “Birtherism.”  In an interview with CNN on May 29^th, 2012, Trump railed at Wolf Blitzer and CNN for not covering the topic because, according to Trump, they were working for Obama.  Fox News, in contrast, provided a ready platform to promote his conspiracy theories. 
President Trump is not an outlier here.  Conspiracy theories are the calling cards of fascist politics.  Conspiracy theories are tools to attack those who would ignore their existence.  By not covering them, the media is made to appear biases and, ultimately, part of the very conspiracy they refuse to cover. 

Fascist politicians discredit the “liberal media” for censoring discussion of outlandish, right-wing conspiracy theories which suggest mendacious behavior covered up by the veneer of liberal, democratic institutions.  Conspiracy theories play to the most paranoid elements of society.  In the case of the US, fear of foreigner elements and Islam, as in the “Birther theory” that President Obama was born a Muslim in Kenya… the goal of the conspiracies is to cause widespread mistrust and paranoia, justifying drastic measures such as censuring or shutting down the “liberal media” and imprisoning enemies of the state. 

It is not without justification that Plato saw, in Democracy’s freedoms, an allowance for the rise of a skilled demagogue who would take advantage of these freedoms to tear reality asunder, offering himself or herself as a substitute…. Democracy cannot flourish on soil poisoned by inequality.  It is not merely that the resentments bred by such divisions are tempting targets for a demagogue, the more important point is that dramatic inequality poses a mortal danger to the shared reality required for a healthy, liberal democracy.  Those who benefit from inequalities are often burdened by certain illusions that prevent them from recognizing the contingency of their privilege.  When inequalities grow particularly stark, these illusions tend to metastasize  What dictator, king or emperor has not suspected that he was chosen by the gods for his role.  What colonial power has not entertained delusions of its ethnic superiority or the superiority of its religion, culture or way of life. A superiority that supposedly justifies its imperial expansions and conquests. 

Inequality is toxic to liberal democracy because it breeds delusions that mask reality, undermining the possibility of joint deliberation to solve society’s divisions (example given in book – the plantation class pitting poor black against poor white in antebellum south).  Those who benefit from large inequalities are inclined to believe they have earned their privilege, an illusion that prevents them from seeing reality as it is.  Even those who demonstrably do not benefit from hierarchies can be made to believe they do.  Hence, the use of racism to ensnare poor white citizens in the US into supporting tax cuts for extravagantly wealthy whites who happen to share their skin color.  Equality means that those with different levels of power and wealth, nevertheless, are regarded as having equal worth.  Liberal equality is, by definition, meant to be compatible with economic inequality.  And yet, when economic inequality is sufficiently extreme, myths that are required to sustain it are bound to threaten liberal equality as well.  The myths that arise under conditions of dramatic material inequality legitimize ignoring the proper common referee for public discourse, which is the world.  To completely destroy reality, fascist politics replaces the liberal ideal of equality, with its opposite – hierarchy. 

Chapter 5
Empires in decline are particular susceptible to fascist politics because of this sense of loss.  It is in the very nature of Empire to create a hierarchy.  Empires legitimize their colonial enterprises by a myth of their own exceptionalism.  In the course of decline, the population is easily lead to sense of national humiliation that can be mobilized in fascists politics to serve various purposes.

Chapter 6
45% of President Trump’s supporters believe that whites are the most discriminated against racial group in America.  54% of Trump supporters believe that Christians are the most persecuted religious group in America.  There is a crucial distinction, of course, between feelings of resentment and depression [as a result of the loss of majority status] and genuine inequality and discrimination.  There is a long history of social, psychological research about the fact that increased representation of members of traditional minority groups is experienced by dominant groups as threatening in various ways.  More recently, a growing body of social/psychological evidence substantiates the phenomenon of dominant group feelings of victimization at the prospect of sharing power equally with members of minority groups.

A great deal of attention has been paid in the US to the fact that by around 2050, the US will be a “majority-minority” country, meaning that whites will no longer be the majority of Americans.  Taking advantage of the salience of this information, some social psychologists have tested what happens when white Americans are primed with it.  In a 2014 study, the psychologists Maureen Craig and Jennifer Richardson found that simply making salient the impending national shift to a “majority-minority” country significantly increased politically unaffiliated white American’s support for right-wing policies. 

At the core of fascism is loyalty to tribe, ethnic identity, religion, tradition or, in a word, “nation.”  But, in stark contrast to a version of nationalism with equality as its goal, fascist nationalism is a repudiation of the liberal-democratic ideal.  It is nationalism in the service of domination, with the goal of preserving, maintaining or gaining a position at the top of a hierarchy of power and status.
Rectifying unjust inequalities will always bring pain to those who benefitted from such injustices.  This pain will inevitably be experienced by some as “oppression.” 

Equality-driven nationalism can rapidly turn oppressive itself if one is not paying enough attention to shifts in power.

When groups in power use the mask of nationalism of the oppressed or genuine oppression in the past to advance their own hegemony, they are using it to undermine equality.

Chapter 7
It turns out we tend to describe the actions of those we regard as “one of us” quite differently then we describe the actions of those we regard as “one of them.” 

These [Civil rights] protests were regularly described in the media as “riots.”
As James Baldwin wrote, at the time, about the media description of these protests, “when white men rise up against oppression, they are heroes.  When black men rise, they have reverted to their native savagery.”

Chapter 8 
The rhetoric on immigration that surrounded the Trump campaign, and continues to surround his administration, parallels the tactics of Russian propaganda outlets, which spread fake news stories, as well as grossly exaggerating facts, about middle eastern immigrants raping white women in Europe.

Chapter 9
During the 2016 Presidential election, Donald Trump’s harsh, anti-immigration rhetoric was particularly effective in rural areas with very few immigrants.  Fascists politics aims it message at the populace outside large cities, to whom it is most flattering.  It is especially resistant during times of globalization, when economic power swings toward the large urban areas as locations of the merging global economy, as during the 30’s in Europe.  Fascist politics highlights the wrongs a globalized economy does to rural areas.  Adding to it a focus upon traditional rural values of self-sufficiency supposedly put at risk by the success of liberal cities, culturally and economically.

Fascist politics characteristically represents the minority populations living in cites as “rodents” or “parasites,” “living off the honest hard work of rural populations.”  [Author gives example from “Mein Kompf.” 

Chapter 10
But what is most terrifying about these rhetorical divides is that it is typical of fascist movements to attempt to transform myths about “them” into reality through social policy. 

In an ideology that measures worth by productivity, propaganda that represents members of an out group as “lazy” is a way to justify placing them lower on a hierarchy of worth.   [i.e. “makers and takers” rhetoric]

The basis of a commitment to a generous, universal welfare system is an expression of the belief in the fundamental value of each citizen.  The liberal-democrat does not pit “makers” verses “takers” in a competition for value.  A generous social welfare system unites a community in mutual bonds of care rather than dividing it into factions which demagogues can exploit. 

The pull of fascist politics is powerful.  It simplifies human existence.  Gives us an object, a “them” whose supposed laziness highlights our own virtue and discipline.  Encourages us to identify with a forceful leader who helps us make sense of the world, whose bluntness regarding the “undeserving people in the world” is refreshing.  If Democracy looks like a successful business, if the CEO is “tough-talking” and cares little for democratic institutions, even denigrates them, so much the better.  Fascist politics preys upon the human frailty which makes our own suffering seem bearable if we know those we look down upon are being made to suffer more. 

Democratic citizenship requires a degree of empathy, insight and kindness that demands a great deal of all of us.  There are easier ways to live.  For example, we can reduce our public engagement to consumption, viewing our labor as whatever we need do to enter the consumer marketplace with money in our pockets, free to choose our widgets to shape an identity based upon consumption.  Or we can go global and expand our understanding of “us” by wandering the world and appreciating its cultures and wonders, considering both the people living in the refugee camps in the world and the residents of small towns in Iowa to be our neighbors while maintaining a connection with our own local traditions and beauties. 

But this engaging vision of the self, moving through time and cultures, is deeply problematic under conditions of stark economic inequality.  It requires profound experiences with differences of all sorts.  It may require an education that is generous, wise, committed to secular science and poetic truth.  When, in the US, it can take an entire family income to pay for a year at a good university for one child, we must ask “who of us ends up becoming members of such a successful and broad-minded citizenry?”  When universities are as expensive as they are in the US, their generous, liberal visions are easy targets for fascist demagoguery.  Under conditions of stark, economic inequality benefits of liberal education and the exposure to diverse cultures and norms are available only to the wealthy few, liberal tolerance can be smoothly represented as “elite privilege.”  Stark economic inequality creates conditions which are richly conducive to fascist demagoguery.  It is a fantasy to think that liberal democratic norms can flourish under such conditions. 

Chapter 11
In the US, as Donald Trump’s campaign against immigration intensifies, it is sweeping untold numbers of undocumented workers of all backgrounds into anonymous, privately run detention centers where they are concealed from view and public concern. 

What normalization does is transform the morally extraordinary into the ordinary, makes us able to tolerate what was once intolerable by making it seem as if this is the way things have always been.  By contrast, the word “fascist” has acquired a feeling of extreme, like crying wolf.  Normalization of fascist ideology, by definition, would make charges of fascism seem like an overreaction, even in societies whose norms are transforming along these worrisome lines.

That our sense of the normal and our ability to judge it is shifting does not mean that fascism is now upon us.  What it means is that the intuitive sense that charges of “fascism” is exaggerated is not a good enough argument against the word’s use.  Rather, arguments about the encroachment of fascist politics need a specific understanding of its meaning and the tactics that fall under its umbrella.

Those who employ fascist tactics for political gain have varying goals.  Now, at least, it does not appear that they seek to mobilize populations for world domination as, for example, Hitler intended.  Instead, though the goals are varied, there are common aspects of fascist thought and politics working in synergy.  Since I am an American, I must note that one goal appears to be to use fascist tactics, hypocritically, waving the banner of nationalism, in front of middle and working class white people, in order to funnel the state’s spoils into the hands of oligarchs.  At the same time, as during the Jim Crow era, politicians continue to assure their supporters that national identity, variously defined, provides status and dignity that are priceless. 

Fascist politics lures its audiences with the temptation of freedom from democratic norms while masking the fact that the alternative proposed is not a form of freedom that can sustain a stable nation state and can scarcely guarantee liberty.  A state-based ethnic, religious, racial or national conflict between “us” and “them” can hardly remain stable for long.  And yes, even if fascism could sustain a stable state, would it be a good political community?  A decent country within which children can be socialized to become empathetic human beings?  Children can certainly be taught to hate.  But to affirm hatred as a form of socialization has unintended consequences.  Does anyone really want their children’s sense of identity to be based upon a legacy of marginalization of others? 

Under a fascist agenda, the refugee narrative (life in refugee camps, the journey from fear and conflict to such camps, the hopelessness which accompanies extended time in these places) rather than engendering empathy is cast as the origin story of terrorism and danger.  These populations struggle through unspeakable horrors to reach safer shores.  That even such people could be painted as fundamental threats is a testament to the illusory power of fascist myth. 

In the direct targets of fascist politics: refugees, feminism, labor unions, racial and religious and sexual minorities, we can see the methods used to divide us.  But we must never forget that the chief target of fascist politics is its intended audience; those it seeks to ensnare in its loosery grip, to enroll in a state where everyone deemed “worthy of human status” is increasingly subjugated by mass illusion.  Those not included in that audience and status wait in the camps of the world, straw men and women ready to be cast into the roles of rapists, murderers, terrorists.  By refusing to be bewitched by fascist myths, we remain free to engage one another, all of us flawed, all of us partial in our thinking, experience and understanding, but none of us demons.

Back to School

As tends to be the case on this blog, by the time I get around to writing a post, I feel obliged to preface it with “this post has been a long time coming.”

The Olathe North Eagle

[Picks up pencil, prepares paper, clears throat] “This post has been a long time coming.  So long, in fact, I’m not exactly sure which past even should serve as the starting point.”

Maybe I start in the fall of 2018, when, as a French II teacher at Olathe North High School, I reassumed the role of classroom teacher for the first time since I fled George Melcher elementary 8 years prior, with my tail between my legs, my head down and in the midst of the first and only nervous breakdown of my life.  As that fall semester and that long-term substitute position both came to an end, my supervising principal gave the direct advice to “finish your teaching certification as quickly as possible because a high school classroom is where you’re meant to be, you clearly have the teaching and relational skill set to thrive in that setting.”

Maybe I start in May of 2018, on a drive up north to visit my parents for the weekend, when my then girlfriend advised, “you’ve been talking about wanting to finish this French degree since we met.  I think you need to go ahead and finish it because, if you don’t, you’ll likely regret it the rest of your life.” Insightful woman, that wife of mine.

Maybe I start in the fall of 2017, when a friend of mine who is two years older than me started his Masters of Education program at Rockhurst University.  He started the program at 40 and by age 42 had secured a teaching position.  Two years later, I enrolled in evening classes in the same program, knowing that I was young enough to still put in a solid career as a teacher but old enough that my window for doing so was rapidly closing.

Tailgating before a Blazer football game
fall of 2006

Maybe I start in October of 2011, when I walked away from the Kansas City Missouri School District and Teach For America, regretting every having fallen for the recruiting propaganda of TFA, thus bypassing the traditional teacher-training program at Rockhurst (the same program from which I’m set to graduate in about six weeks) and wondering whether I’d ever again have the opportunity to teach.

Maybe I start in the fall of 2010, when I’m living across the street from Gardner-Edgerton High School, taking French classes in the evening, pushing my son in a stroller across the GEHS parking lot during afternoon walks, tailgating before Friday night Blazer football games and wondering whether dreaming about having the opportunity to one day coach football and teach French at GEHS.

2007 season

Maybe I start in the fall of 2008, when I took my first French class with Lorie Beckum at MNU.  At the time, I just wanted a new hobby and learning a new language seemed as good of a hobby as anything, especially after experiencing the disappointment of not getting to coach again that fall.  I do however, remember telling a person in our church who asked why I’d take the time to learn a new language, “I’m not quite sure why but it seems like the right thing to do.” 

Maybe I start in the fall of 2007, when I had the incredible opportunity to coach the Wheatridge Middle School 7^th grade JV football team.  Watching those kids progress from barely being able to line up correctly to winning their last few games was an experience to which I’ve kept hoping to be able to return, though many times over the past decade it hasn’t seemed very likely. 

Maybe I start over 20 years ago, when I’m a college student at MidAmerica Nazarene University, taking classes to prepare me to be a pastor while telling anyone who’d listen, “if I wasn’t going to be a pastor, I’d be a high school history teacher and football coach.”

All of the above options are great possibilities.  They have all been steps in the journey leading me to a brand-new (while surprisingly familiar) starting point.  After giving it some thought though, I think I’ll start my story just a few weeks in the past.  It was the Tuesday before Spring Break.  Just a regular day in my semester long-assignment as a Student Teacher in a French classroom at Olathe East High School.  Little did I, or anyone else, realize that would actually be the last Tuesday of the school year as, just one week later, the Governor of Kansas would issue a decree closing all Kansas schools for the remainder of the year.  

In the midst of that school day, I interviewed at a nearby middle school for a Social Studies position.  It was a great opportunity. I’d be working with some friends, for one of the best administrators in the district, with the opportunity to coach football again, as well as the stated hope that I’d also consider coaching track and helping sponsor the theatre department.  I came away from that interview excited about the possibility of teaching in that school.

After school was out that day, I had another interview.  This interview was at Gardner-Edgerton High School for a French position.  As I was driving from Olathe to Gardner, I couldn’t help but think to myself, “this was my dream job.  Yeah, it was about nine years ago but there was a time in my life in which I believed the chance to teach French at GEHS a possibility too good to even hope for.”  I found out during the interview that while coaching would be a possibility with this position, it wasn’t an expectation, which would certainly render my first year of teaching much more manageable. 

Later that night, per the advice given during one of the interviews, Sarah and I discussed which option would be the best one to take should I be offered both positions.  Actually, a better description of what happened would be to state that I talked out all the positives and negative while Sarah listened, giving advice or providing affirmations when she deemed it prudent.  It was really a matter of choosing between two great options.  It was a matter of finding out where my “true self” (to quote the book I’ll reference below) was leading. 

On one side stood my love of history, desire to coach football again, the chance to teach in the district where my son attends school and idealism regarding the chance to help middle schoolers successfully navigate that identity-forming period of their lives.  Not only is history such a natural subject for me that, despite not having taken upper-level history classes in college, I was able to ace the National Praxis Content exam, middle school social studies was the bait which Teach For America used to hook me into their program before switching my placement to elementary school when it was already too late for me to back out. 

Proud to be a Blazer... again

On the other side stood my love of all things French, the chance to lead student tours of France, my natural ease at relating to high school students, the professional challenge of continuing to improve my French proficiency, the opportunity to teach alongside friends I’d made from Gardner Community Theatre and the chance to fulfill what just a few years ago I’d considered to be my dream job. 

By the time I talked myself into making the following announcement, the lovely and intelligent ginger with whom I have the amazing privilege of sharing my life simply gave a knowing smile.  “I could always choose to teach history in the future, should I later decide that’s what I want to do.  This might, however be my one opportunity to teach High School French.  I’m fairly certain that if I pass up this opportunity, I’m likely to regret it for the rest of my teaching career (due to a limited number of teaching positions, “losing” my French, etc.)”.   The fact that Sarah’s knowing smile seemed to radiate less from her lips and more from her eyes revealed she’d been patiently waiting for me to come to the conclusion which she’d reached long before me.  Looking back, I realize she’d been discreetly clearing the way for my head to agree with what my heart had long ago decided.  I couldn’t NOT teach French. 

Two nights later, at the Lenexa Rec Center (a place I greatly miss during the Coronavirus lockdown) I was watching a French TV show on the history of Paris while striding in place on the elliptical when I was struck by a profound gratitude over the upcoming opportunity to teach French language and history.  While thinking of how I could possibly use this video for an upper level French class I was simultaneously relishing the assurance that I’d made the right decision.  In just a few months, I’ll be back in yet another French classroom.  This time however, I’ll be facing in the opposite direction.  

KU, fall of 2019

One final thought, let’s just state the unstated obvious; I wouldn’t be standing at the starting line of this mid-life career move had I not experienced some unexpected turns and face-planting failures along the way.  At the advice of a friend who has talked me through many of those turns and failures, I’ve just finished “Falling Upward” A Spirituality for the Two Halvesof Life.”  I’m actually a bit embarrassed to admit this is the first of Richard Rohr’s books which I’ve ever read.  

A cold January 2019 day on the
campus of the University of Kansas.
I took this pic thinking I'd be
writing the "Back to
School" blog post soon.

“That is why I’ve called [the second half of life and this book] ‘falling upward.’  Those who are ready will see that this message is self-evident: those who have gone ‘down’ are the only ones who understand ‘up.’  Those who have somehow fallen and fallen well are the only ones who can go up and not misuse ‘up.’”

“Sooner or later, if you are on any classic ‘spiritual schedule,’ some event, person, death, idea or relationship will enter your life that you simply cannot deal with,  using your present skill set, your acquired knowledge, or your strong willpower.  Spiritually speaking, you will be, you must be, lead to the edge of your own private resources… and you must ‘lose’ at something… let go of your egocentric preoccupations, and go on the further and larger journey. 
In the end, we do not so much reclaim what we have lost as discover a significantly new self in and through the process.  Until we are lead to the limits of our present game plan, and find it to be insufficient, we will not search out or find the real source, the deep well, or the constantly flowing stream.” 

As I enter the second half of life, I’m awe-struck by the positive turn my life has taken.  My marriage is far surpassing my wildest hopes for a primary relationship  My relationship with my son is the best it’s ever been and is getting better.  My relationship with my two step-children has developed into a place of comfort and familiarity.  I’ve made a peace with my past which now serves as a foundation for the future.  Finally, in a few short months I’ll be starting my “dream job.”  I’m giddy with anticipation over the second half of life.  Of course, that’s assuming COVID19 doesn’t erase humanity from the face of the earth…

We Missed our Train

As we sprinted up the last of several consecutive escalators moving travelers from the subterranean interchange between the Gare Montparnasse Train Station and the Paris Metro system to the elevated train platforms serving all points west of Paris, I quickly scanned the large digital schedule boards.  My rapid glance had the goal of, at best, discovering at which track our Rennes-bound high-speed train was waiting or, at a minimum, gaining an update on the time.  Upon acquiring the bare minimum of knowledge sought, 7:55, my heart rate slowed a little and we were able to downshift from a sprint to a run.  “We are not going to miss our train,” I confidently announced. 

The first time the remote possibility that we might miss our train began gnawing at the back of my mind was as we were pleasantly strolling along Rue Mouffetard, vainly trying to take in all that the oldest and most sumptuous street in Paris was offering up that sun-soaked July morning.  As the search for our metro station become more prolonged than expected, I realized I wasn’t exactly sure how long the trip from Place Monge to Montparnasse-Bienvenue, with its corresponding line changes, would actually take.  I started to wonder whether we might actually begin the first day of our honeymoon in Paris by missing the train to Mont Saint-Michel, the one part of our trip which my Bachelor of Science in Marine Biology-holding wife was in the highest anticipation. 

After switching from line 7 to the touristy line 6, my panic become both visible and urgent enough that I informed my wife I was worried we might miss our train, a train for which I’d bought non-transferable tickets months in advance, so as to save a couple hundred euro.  The bewildering disappointment which immediately crossed her face was painful to observe, knowing it was my nonchalant approach to our morning commute which had placed us in this stressful situation.  The nonchalance transformed into desperate intensity as we exited the subway and began pushing, spinning and dodging our way through what felt like a mile’s length of crowded, twisting underground corridors which would eventually spill out at the above mentioned escalators. 

It’s important to note that I’d never missed a train.  Not during the year of living in Paris nor the semester of taking college students all around Europe.  I’d been close, for sure, often too close for comfort.  The closest was that day in Budapest in which our group was scheduled to end the day of sightseeing by sleeping on an overnight train to Sighisoara, Romania.  For some reason, likely because we’d caught a different train at a similar time, I’d had it in my mind we were supposed to board that train at 9 PM.  As we were casually riding on the metro to another site, all of our luggage safely stored at our hostel, my conscious thought drug from my memory the realization that our overnight train was actually scheduled to leave not at 9 PM but rather 7 PM..  Fortunately, we still had plenty of time to board that train.  Unfortunately, the two of our group members who weren’t with us were still operating under the 9 PM time schedule and were unreachable due to our spotty cell service.  Fortunately, we never had to implement the plan in which the rest of the group went ahead as scheduled while I stayed behind with remaining two students, taking the next day’s night train, because they had both randomly checked messages in a wifi-equiped café, prompting them to return to the hostel with enough time to board the train with the rest of the group.  Other than Dawson throwing up on our luggage in the middle of the night, the rest of our train ride to Romania was uneventful.  Now the bedbugs we picked up while in Romania certainly created some uncomfortable complications.  That’s, however, a whole different story…

While you could argue I lucked out that day in Budapest, as we were sprinting up the Gare Montparnasse escalator, I was still the owner of an unblemished train-catching record.  Upon seeing we still had five minutes before our train left the station, I breathed a sigh of relief and wondered whether this story would top the Budapest story in the list of train near-misses.  As the title of this blog entry foreshadows, this day would end by topping the short-list of train actual-misses. 

Those five minutes remaining before our train’s scheduled departure were sufficient for locating and arriving at the correct track.  The surprise kick-in-the-gut, however occurred when the SNCF employee stationed at the track’s entrance explained to us, while simultaneously closing the gate, that the high-speed TGV trains close their doors to passengers two minutes before their scheduled departure.  She then directed us toward the ticketing office where we could, at a premium price, purchase tickets for the next TGV train which would take us to Rennes, where we could hop on a shuttle to Mont Saint-Michel.   

We bought the tickets.  We arrived only an hour later than the original plan.  We had a great day walking around the beach and the medieval abbey.  My wife didn’t hold my lack of thoughtful preparation against me.  Sarah also experienced her first encounter with the reason one always leaves margin for the unexpected in their schedule and budget when travelling internationally; the unexpected is guaranteed to occur in one form or another.  Missing a train scheduled three months in advance, though is something I never thought would actually happen to me.  I had worked too long to organize our trip and I am too savvy of an international traveler to make such an obvious mistake.

I’ve been mulling over this blog entry for months, stuck on how to seamlessly morph the above story into the larger point of this post.  Since I still haven’t been able to land the transition I’m going to have to make do with [insert choppy transition here].

As is quite well documented on this blog, several years ago I experienced something I never thought would happen to me, a divorce resulting from the death of a marriage.  Sarah has experienced the same thing as well.  Though this likely doesn’t make us unique among those who have gone through a divorce, neither of us had any thought that our first marriages would end by any means other than death.  That is, after all, the vow we both made and the commitment which our families have modeled for us.  I’m not completely sure how much of a role the mindset of “this could never happen to us” actually played in our respective divorces but I’m confident it was a contributing factor.  Similar to how the first tiny and almost insignificant moment of pre-panic, “we might not make our train” entered my mind while walking along Rue Mouffetard that first morning of our honeymoon, there was a similar moment during my previous marriage in which the wildly fearful thought of “we might not make it” first burrowed into the back of my mind.  I’m not sure whether the eventually divorce could’ve been avoided by that point but I’m confident I should’ve given stronger consideration to the fear which was likely trying to prevent shipwreck of a marriage which had entered some dangerous waters. 

As is also quite well documented on this blog, I’ve survived that unexpected life event and have come out much stronger on the other side.  I’m finally a few months away from fulfilling a goal I’ve had for the better part of a decade (more on that in a different post).  A little over a year after abruptly mashing them together into a new blended family, our kids are demonstrating the comfort, acceptance and significance that comes from the (relatively) healthy family unit Sarah and I have worked incredibly hard to foster.  Last, and possibly the opposite of least, Sarah and I are experiencing a unity and satisfaction in our marriage that neither of us dared  dream was even a possibility just a few years ago.  It’s in no way an oversell to share that I’ve never been in as good of a place in my life as I am right now.  Neither is it an overstatement to claim that I’ve done a LOT of work to get to this place.  On the flip side, admitting that I might have lucked into snagging an incredible life partner who is a tad bit out of my league could surely be deemed an understatement.

For this reason, it’s easy to understand why I’m committed to never again missing the train.  The false confidence of “it could never happen to us” will be thoroughly unwelcome in our marriage.  Experience has provided some painful lessons regarding what’s worth fighting about having fair but passionate debates about and what needs to be immediately dropped.  Our previous marriages have revealed the heart-wrenching reality of where a relationship could find itself if foundational aspects of what makes a marriage work are ignored or taken for granted.  We are currently experiencing the relational ride of our lives but we are painfully aware of the need to diligently stay on schedule because we’ve missed the train in the past.

In order to ride this metaphor to the end of the line, I’ll wrap up this post by reluctantly detailing how the day-trip to Mont Saint Michel which kicked off our honeymoon ended.  Due to my misreading of the shuttle schedule, we missed our return train to Paris.  So yeah, I was two for two in missing trains that day.  While the second mistake didn’t cost us as much money as the morning’s mishap, thanks in part to a friendly family from Minnesota who gave us two unused shuttle tickets, we did end up returning to Paris a couple hours later than planned, causing us to postpone the planned boat ride on the Seine to a different evening.  Apparently, it’s just as dangerous to assume it could never happen in the first place as to assume it could never happen a second time.  By now, I think those of you following along at home can make your own metaphorical connection.  I think you can also understand why, for the rest of the trip, my wife had me double-check and, occasionally triple-check, our remaining train schedule and flight schedule and cabaret show time and photo-shoot schedule and….  Fortunately, we were on time for everything else during the remainder of our honeymoon.  Hopefully, the rest of our honeymoon established a life-long trend.

The Fairy Tale that didn't get rained out

When I woke up at 3:58 in the morning last Saturday, I knew there was no way I was getting back to sleep.  I was confident of this unfortunate reality not only because the nervous energy resulting from the realization that I’d be getting married in just over 12 hours had already started coursing through my body but also because I couldn’t stop watching the periodic lighting strikes which, though a long way away, were already lighting up the early morning darkness.  

Our ceremony took place in a ravine (aka “the clearing”) at the far end of my parents’ farm.  Sarah chose that place not only for the natural beauty but also because it was there, on the back of a four-wheeler, that I first told Sarah I loved her.  As we watched the photographer posing Sarah on a bridge over ravine’s creek, my sister turned to me and stated, “she looks like a fairy and I mean that in a good way.”  It was at that moment that Sarah’s “vision” (as she kept referring to it) for our wedding ceremony finally made sense in my mind.  The arch, decorations, dress and even the wreath crown she was wearing all worked in unison to create a fairy-tale like aura to our ceremony.  The vision came together despite the fact that just a few hours earlier, we were quite concerned it was never going to happen.

In order to get back to “the clearing”, one must drive across a freshly plowed field.  After just a bit of rain, this field becomes impassable to anything heavier than a four-wheeler.  Eventually, the lightning which I had been watching at four in the morning brought along a downpour lasting almost an hour.  At 6:07 AM, my dad declared “the clearing” dead.  It appeared we’d be relocating the ceremony to the back-up spot, a shaded area on the bank of our farm pond.  While the back-up spot was an idyllic farm setting, it didn’t quite have the ambiance Sarah was going for.  By 6:08 AM, it seemed the only question we had left was whether the four-wheeler would be able to get through the mud and back to “the clearing” so we could pick up the arch frame we’d left there the night before.  

As my dad was driving back to “the clearing” to answer that question, he noticed the ground becoming less muddy, even turning to dust, as he drove further from the house and closer to “the clearing”.  In a surprising turn of events, “the clearing” had been resuscitated.  While we’d received over half an inch of rain at the house, “the clearing” (about a half mile away) had gotten just enough rain to settle the dust, which is the exact amount my dad had been hoping for (despite that “just enough to settle the dust” was usually a derogatory description of a rain shower when used by a famer).  As the ceremony began at about 4:45 PM, with the line of cars that had driven through the field parked along the top of the ravine, the weather was a perfect 82 degrees, partly sunny and with a gentle breeze.  While that breeze would eventually blow in a near tornado just as we were wrapping up the post-ceremony meal we’d shared back up at the house, at the moment our ceremony began, I was giddy with how we’d managed to pull off the perfect weather for an outdoor wedding.  

After a processional consisting of our elder niece carrying our younger niece, our daughter as a flower girl and our oldest son picking up and carrying our youngest son after he couldn’t convince him to walk, Sarah hugged her dad just as the medley playing in the background changed to “Bless the Broken Road.”  At that moment, my giddiness was overcome by tears of joy.  The real-time image of this beautiful woman, reddish-brown hair falling down onto a stunning white dress while flashing a smile lighting up everything in its sight, walking down the aisle with the intent of becoming my bride was, in my mind, juxtaposed along with the images of the “broken road” that had brought us to this point.  For a few minutes, the emotion was a bit too intense to keep inside, so it found an escape route through my tear ducts.  

Really, that “broken road” has been a large theme of my writing on this blog over the past couple of years.  Similarly, the theme of the homily given by my friend who officiated the wedding was “beauty from ashes.”  The time I spent in Breakthrough, four years ago this month as well as the therapist sessions before and after that intense month of counseling were, in a large part, focused on helping me acquire what I found formalized on my wedding day, a primary relationship that is healthy, fulfilling and mutually complimentary.   When I started that journey toward a healthy relationship, I had no idea what was coming at me.  On the other side of that journey, though I’m so thankful for how the pain of the past has contributed to the joy of the present.  Of course, now real life with Sarah (kids, bills, careers, annoying each other) begins continues.  I know enough about myself and my wife to know that this new journey, while not always easy, is going to be successful and fun and maybe even provide a few more moments which bring tears to my eyes.

In one of those weird twists to a story, two of my best friends who were both supposed to be groomsmen in my first wedding 19 years ago but, for various reasons, were unable to be in attendance, ended up being a part of this wedding celebration.  Michael, mentioned above, drove from California to Iowa to officiate the ceremony.  While I can’t state how grateful I am that he made it a priority to be a part of the wedding, I’m not quite convinced that his long drive gave him the right to declare “that’s enough” as I was enjoying kissing my new bride.  My other friend, Jason, came down from Omaha for the “before they say I do” party Sarah’s parents threw for us back in May.  Now that I’ve ensured that all my long-time friends have been able to participate in either my first or second wedding, I’m officially retiring from the wedding business… and continuing my life with one of the most beautiful and intelligent women this world has ever seen.