Oppose Harm

Oppose Harm, the fourth tenet of Distilled Harmony, is often the most difficult to consider, because to do so is to tacitly admit that the three preceding tenets, Foster Harmony. Enable Beauty and Distill Complexity, have failed to establish the desired state of harmonic tranquility. Yet as Edmund Burke put it, "The only thing necessary for the triumph of evil is for good men to do nothing.” It is in such times that it is necessary to oppose harm. This is one such time. Political primaries swirl across the country, and if we wish to remain the world’s flagship democracy, we must attend and participate.

I believe that all truly meaningful politics are local.  The mayor, the town council, the school board, these are the people whose decisions have an impact on our daily lives. At least that is the way it used to be.  An often hidden flaw of a two-party system is that when, for either party, party loyalty becomes more important than rational policy, the people suffer.  Donald Trump has taken that flaw of loyalty in politics a step beyond anything we have seen in the last century. Party loyalty has given way to his demands for personal loyalty. “My way or the highway” to put it mildly. Strangely, the Republican Party has pretty much caved on this issue, largely it would seem because the Trump wing of the party controls the money pots. If a Republican candidate wants access to the various deep pockets of the Republican right wing, they must toe the president’s line.

Unfortunately, that now makes most politics national, and makes all but the most independent-minded Republican candidates surrogates for the president.  Still it remains that all politics are personal. I alone remain responsible for my behavior in the voting booth. So before I could consider casting a ballot for one of his local surrogates, I must evaluate President Trump’s performance in office to date through the lens of my personal ethical guide: Distilled Harmony.  You need to do the same. Not necessarily through Distilled Harmony, but through whatever moral and ethical model guides your behavior. Here is how I see it:

Foster Harmony.

This is the first and dominant tenet of Distilled Harmony.  Put simply, we each need to seek, in our professional and personal lives, to create an environment that enables friendship and compassion. You cannot compartmentalize this tenet.  By that I mean you cannot say “I will foster harmony in my personal relationships, but my profession is really competitive, so I need to be thick-skinned and cut throat.”  Nor can you put on the garb of a “fair weather friend” who maintains harmonic relationships when things are going well but shows a very different attitude when times are tough. In reality it is during times of stress and hardship that we come to know, by their compassion and support, our true friends.

Unfortunately, President Trump has, since early in the Republican primaries back in 2015, proved himself the poster child for behavior that stands in direct opposition to Foster Harmony. In public forums, debates, and via his twitter storms, he proves himself time and time again a xenophobic, sexist, racist, abrasive bully. 

The examples are myriad, but perhaps nowhere is this more obvious than in his long-standing, mutually antagonistic, relationship with the late Republican Senator from Arizona, John McCain. During the primaries he called McCain war record into question by asserting: “He’s a war hero because he was captured. I like people who weren’t captured.” Then after McCain’s death he communicated to the family, “My deepest sympathies and respect go out to the family of Senator John McCain. Our hearts and prayers are with you!”  Still, it was not until public protests surfaced that the President ordered the flag at the White House to be returned to half-staff. It had been returned to full staff after the minimum day required after the death for all sitting members of Congress. 

You can’t have it both ways. While “politics as usual,” for this President, might say it is OK to send these conflicting messages, Foster Harmony mandates very different behavior. For each of us, and particularly for the President whose behavior serves as a tacit model for the country of what is acceptable, Foster Harmony is an “at all times and everywhere” mandate. You can’t be Dr. Jekyll one day and Mr. Hyde the next. That is, admittedly, a difficult assignment at which we often fail. Nonetheless, we need to give Harmony our best effort, and certainty, unlike President Trump, avoid serving as a model for the opposite - the sowing of distrust and discord.

Enable Beauty

For most of us this is a personal tenet that is manifested by our personal relationship with the arts. I encourage my students to go to art fairs. I urge them to collect the art they fall in love with even if it strains a young budget. Surrounding yourself with beautiful things creates an environment in which Distilled Harmony naturally thrives. The President of the United States, however has power far beyond our personal efforts. FDR used the office of the President to establish the Works Progress Administration, which provided jobs for hundreds of writers and artists and resulted in classic examples of American architecture, sculpture and painting. President Trump has used the office to propose drastic funding cuts to the National Endowment for the Humanities, the National Endowment for the Arts, and Public Broadcasting— three entities that most directly reflect anything resembling a national policy on art and beauty. So here again, President Trump stands in direct opposition to the tenets of Distilled Harmony.

Distill Complexity 

Some would argue that here, at least, the President lines up favorably with the tenets of Distilled Harmony. But they hang their hats on the President’s simplistic assertions on sweeping issues of public policy. Among those are the President’s assertions that polices that calls for environmental protection, both in the area of global warming and the endangered species act, are based on overly complex if not outright “fake” science. Unfortunately for the President, most reputable scientists disagree with these strange distillations.  Einstein once asserted that unless you could teach a concept to a six-year old, you didn’t really understand it yourself. In my 40-year teaching career, I often struggled with this charge. But I always attempted to overcome my uncertainty by seeking more information from the best, most respected researchers in the field. President Trump chooses instead to seek simplistic input from fringe researchers who already agree with his personal preconceptions. Since his election he has even gone so far to deny government funding to scientists who wish to pursue research that might yield results that would call those preconceptions into question, and actively opposes the publication of such results. 

Einstein asked for the simplification of complex issues that would yield statements of childlike simplicity, understandable to all. Trump has opted for the childish pique of “It is true because I say it is true. And if you disagree I will do everything in my power to keep you from being heard, or, should you be heard, I will disparage your results.”

So, in my analysis President Trump does not simply fail to manifest the tenets of Distilled Harmony, he stands in active opposition to them. He represents a figurehead for a broad position one might call Orchestrated Antagonistic Discord. For me the path to opposing harm at this point in time is to make sure that I take a firm stance against any candidate who presents as a Trump apologist. Then, after eliminating any such candidates, I will return to the notion that all politics are local, and see how the positions of the remaining candidates from either major party, minor parties, or independents measure up to the tenets of Distilled Harmony.

Now it is your turn.  Pull out your own moral and ethical guidelines and compare them to this President’s words and deeds. Consider your local candidates and their declarations to support or confront those words and deeds. Then mark your ballot.