Remember "Cultural Literacy"? It was a trend in the 1980s. A guy named E. D. Hirsch gathered a whole bunch of facts--recall "Trivial Pursuit" was also a hit in that time--and said that to be culturally relevant and to be considered "knowledgeable," you needed to know these things: Kind of a "fill in the blank and be prepared to use it in a functional sentence" kind of thing. Its subheading was "What Every American Needs to Know."
Of course, you had to look them up. It wasn't done for you, you silly. You may have learned, or were supposed to have learned, them in school, but in the rush and clamor of daily life as a real adult, probably forgot them because they didn't appear in something you need to read for your job, if you needed to read anything at all. Hirsch was trying to tweak the public into re-examining the meaning of learning, which isn't a bad thing.
Billy Joel did something of the same in a song, "We Didn't Start the Fire," in which he traced events and names connected with them, some of which people knew automatically and some didn't, from World War II to the 1990s. I once had some of my students look those items up. Some actually did, some copied from each other. I would like to think that some of them thought about it.
It sparked many conversations, all by itself, never mind the items listed. And in the educational realm, its knowledge--or, in fact, the quest to know the list--partly defined what was known as being "gifted," especially if you were under 16 years old and knew a considerable number of them. Being interested in it at all meant that you were young but liked to talk about adult stuff, in which case you could see beyond the edge of your nose and perhaps had some intellectual maturity.
The trend eventually burned itself out, for no other reason than needing to be conversant in some topics faded and others emerged. Today, it all happens so fast that trying to keep track of it all makes you a horrible nerd, which is the curse of the gifted.
Was that conservative or liberal? Good question. I suppose if you insisted that people know it to be considered smart, you were conservative because you figure that no matter how old, there are some things worth knowing and keeping in the back of your head, like the meaning of July 4, 1776 (and Pearl Harbor, which our president didn't seem to know about when taken there). If you already knew them, you were liberal because you were already too sophisticated for most of us and probably claimed to know more details about it, such that July 2, 1776 is technically the real date of American independence (and that Pearl Harbor was actually a missed opportunity for the Japanese). But who's to quibble?
I have a book called "The Intellectual Devotional". Printed in the 1990s, it has one topic described per page, per day, through the entire year. The premise is that if you are conversant on such topics, you will be a hit at parties and considered an intellectual--hey, I'd like to actually go to a party without fear of getting sick enough to die right now; I'll just stand and listen, thank you very much--even though what you know about the topic may be confined to that page.
But at least you know something about 365 things that most others don't, or forgot, which beats most people who know nothing. Not only that, but it's divided categorically, so you can look like an expert about different kinds of stuff. It kind of extended the Cultural Literacy list and allowed you one source to look these things up, taking away that necessity, too.
It made you smart on some things but lazy in the desire to truly know it. But in a sense, don't we all do that since it's impossible to know everything about everything?
So I decided, with the pandemic as a backdrop and plenty of time, to reread these items one day at a time. This morning it came up with the word "modality." Okay, it's not a word most people discuss at cocktail parties, at least not the ones I've attended.
Modality means the determination of whether or not something that happened was necessary or contingent. If it was contingent, it could have been stopped by someone, at some time, somewhere, if someone had gone to the trouble.
Modality, to be sure, isn't a black-and-white thing. Some of climate change really is inevitable. We are part of a universe that chooses on its own. But some of it, a considerable part of it, is man-made. That much we can address, divert, and get a handle on.
So? Was the pandemic contingent? Was the degree to which it has been a scourge in this country necessary? Or was it inevitable?
45 doesn't think it matters. "We're learning to live with it," he said the other night at the debate. That summarizes his attitude: It doesn't matter anyhow, because it's here. He, of course, wants you to disregard how it actually got here, because he'll be the first to tell you that it was China's fault, as if it plotted the pandemic to kill so many of us.
That's ridiculous, of course, since it killed a whole bunch of them before it got here. What he wants you to do is say, well, a number of us would have died anyhow, so after a while, the numbers are just numbers, and don't need to be considered in any other way.
That would leave him off the hook, because he did try, you know. Nobody can say he didn't.
But he did such a token, horseshit job:
- He stopped the planes but made exceptions.
- He said really stupid things, like cutting back on the testing would reduce the numbers--a really anti-cultural literacy comment since it leads to the inevitability of ignorance being bliss.
- He suggested that injecting bleach would be a good idea, then tried to dismiss it as sarcasm, as if sarcasm in such a situation would be at all appropriate, or at least inappropriate.
- He insulted scientists who tried to help and muted them from coming forward.
- He held daily press briefings to spew generalities designed to mollify us into believing that we were getting close to a cure. That began in the spring, remember?
- Instead of making an effort for everyone to mask up, he left that to the states and suggested that those that vote blue had a bigger problem. If they once had, now they don't.
But this is the emperor of impropriety, and he wants you to accept that without accountability. His response still is: It would have come here anyhow. Besides, as he also tried to say, we're turning the corner.
Yes, we are: Straight into hell. Cases are higher now than they've been since July. He's been in charge since the first minute we knew. He doesn't know anything more than he did back then.
No, said Joe Biden, we're learning to die with it. Heading toward a quarter-million, a total we'll get to by just after the election. It was 45's responsibility to limit the numbers of the sick and the dead. By all measurements, he hasn't done that nearly as well as he could have.
He's a loser in the game that everyone else is playing. He got sick himself, and because he was privileged, got the very best care at the quickest possible time--unlike so many who are sick, got sick, and died.
At no time do I want anyone like this in a leadership position of any kind, not to mention the most important in the country. At no time do I want anyone this craven near me, speaking to me, assigned to pretend that he cares about me when he clearly doesn't. He makes me sick.
So no, the disease wasn't avoidable. It's absurd, too, to pretend that. Commerce allows what oceans can stop.
He didn't start that fire. But its resistance could have been organized and coordinated nationally, and it's now clear through journalism that he knew how serious it was far before he said so. He actually thought, hoped really, that it would go away on its own. He didn't think about its possibilities, didn't consider them, didn't plan for them. He is complicit in the deaths of tens of thousands.
It would have been so easy for him to be the whole country's hero. All he might have done was tell everyone to lock down for one month and just see what happens to the virus. It might have all but disappeared. But no, he probably figured that one of his investments had a chance of diminishing, so he tried to play both ends against the middle. He, and we, paid the price and are still paying.
For that reason alone--there are so many others; naked influence peddling is another--he should not be returned to office. He is a genuine menace to the nation. He has reduced the enjoyment of my life, for the time it will continue, and yours, too. I cannot go everywhere I want to go. I cannot do everything I want to do. The country cannot open back up until and unless this is dealt with successfully.
Go and please vote him out (and vote early to avoid potentially plague-ridden lines) if you haven't already done so. Do not pass this opportunity to express yourself.
Be well. Be careful. Wear a mask. With some luck, I'll see you down the road.
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