Like many others, I was fascinated by the discovery of black
holes in space. Though they can
not be seen by the eye or directly measured with any known instruments,
scientists concluded that black holes exist simply because the behavior of
other stellar bodies told them that there had to be something there. Something that could not be seen was
influencing the behavior of everything that could be seen.
At almost the same time, physicists discovered a parallel
behavior in the smallest bits of matter.
Ernest Rutherford’s experiments found the atom was relatively
vacant. Instead of the basic
building blocks of matter anticipated by classical physics, Rutherford found
the atom consists of vast regions of space in which extremely small particles
move more or less at will.
Quantum physics extended these finding with experiments that
demonstrate that the particles within the atom are no more substantial than the
atom itself. There are no
“solid” objects at any level. Even
the smallest bits of matter turn out to be abstract entities with aspects that
change depending on why they are being examined and how we look at them. Rather than being the detached and
distant observers they were trained to be, scientists found themselves participating
in every experiment, influencing the results with their expectations.
In other words, everything in the universe is affected by the behavior of everything else. Everything that happens outside us happens inside us as well. We are at once a being composed of millions of life forms, a part of the total body called humanity, and a cell in the universe.
Experiment after experiment in the new physics has shown how one thing influences another across the boundaries of our seeming separateness. The movement of the stars in the sky is identical to the movement of the atoms in our bodies.
Everything is relative. Everything is related. In the words of Sir Arthur Eddington, “When the electron vibrates, the universe shakes.”
The dismantling of the classical vision of the separateness of things confirms the understanding theologians have long held about the unity of life. We have one relationship on earth. That relationship is repeated in endless variety with everyone we meet and everything we see.
God, man, and the universe are one
indissoluble whole.
They say you should only write about things you know. I grew up on Capitol Hill and spent half of my professional life there. Once I knew it like the back of my hand, but I don’t recognize it now.
When I came to Washington, giants walked the corridors of the Capitol. One of the largest was a small woman from Maine – Margaret Chase Smith. A moderate Republican, she was the first to call out Joe McCarthy for the liar and bully he was. She did it to his face on the floor of the Senate when most of her colleagues where sucking in their balls, ducking, and running for cover.
In a “Declaration of Conscience”, she denounced “the reckless abandon in which unproved charges have been hurled from this side of the aisle.” She said McCarthyism had “debased” the Senate to “the level of a forum of hate and character assassination.”
While acknowledging her desire for
Republicans’ political success, she said, “I don’t want to see the
Republican Party ride to political victory on the four horsemen of
calumny—fear, ignorance, bigotry, and smear.”
Paul Douglas of Illinois was another hero. Dr. Martin Luther King, Jr. called him “the greatest of all the Senators.”
There is plaque at Paris Island that pretty much says it all. It reads: “Graduating from Parris Island in 1942 as a 50-year-old Private, Mr. Douglas was an inspiration to all. He rose to the rank of Major while serving in the Pacific Theater where he was wounded at Peleliu and Okinawa. Retired as a Lieutenant Colonel. The former economics professor later served as a U.S. Senator from Illinois. By his personal courage, fortitude and leadership, the Honorable Paul H. Douglas demonstrated the personal traits characteristic of a Marine leader.”
Douglas received the bronze star and two purple hearts. The last injury cost him the use of his left arm and left him permantly disabled. In the Senate, he personally wrote the Senate’s first ethics manual and earned a reputation as a man of incorruptabilty.
Ted Moss was another pillar of integrity. Moss refused campaign contributions he sorely needed from the Senatorial campaign committee of his own party because they came with strings attached. When he squeaked out a victory, he took on the tobacco industry to inform the public of the danger of smoking at a time when their lobby supported half of Congress. The Surgeon General’s warning on a pack of cigarettes is one of his contributions. Then Moss took on the automobile industry, which, believe it or not, insisted it was too expensive to put seat belts in cars. Now you can’t drive without one.
I also fondly remember Jacob Javits, George Mitchell, Bobby Kennedy, Barry Goldwater and Hubert Humphrey. Goldwater and Humphrey come to mind a lot these easy because they were politically as far apart as you could be. They disagreed about everything but they were never disagreeable. They were both gentlemen. They respected each other, listened to each other, and would even take the time to answer the impertinent questions of an elevator boy.
That was the first of my many jobs on The Hill. Over some twenty-five years, I did just about everything you can do there. As a professional, I worked for four Senators – two Republicans and two Democrats. I did so without hesitation or compromise. While there were some differences between them, there were far more commonalities – most of all a commitment to “make things better.” Significantly, all four of them left Washington with less wealth than they had when they arrived. That doesn’t happen much these days.
These are the people I remember. These are the people I miss.
In A Man for All Seasons, Robert Bolt writes, “If we lived in a State where virtue was profitable, common sense would make us good, and greed would make us saintly. And we’d live like animals or angels in the happy land that needs no heroes. But since in fact we see that avarice, anger, envy, pride, sloth, lust and stupidity commonly profit far beyond humility, chastity, fortitude, justice and thought, and have to choose, to be human at all…why then perhaps we must stand fast a little –even at the risk of being heroes.”
The moment is upon us. Perhaps there will be those who will step forward and stand on principle. Perhaps a hero will emerge. There is always hope the better angels of our nature will prevail.
Alexis de Tocqueville provided the first – and perhaps best – analysis of American society.
The French philosopher and historian came to
this country in 1831 and spent three years in the United States. He timed his visit deliberately, in his
words, to be here “near enough to the time when the states of
America were founded to be accurately acquainted with their elements, and
sufficiently removed from that period to judge some of their results.”
Asked to sum up his observations when he
returned to France, de Tocqueville said, “America is great because
America is good. America will
cease to be great when it is no longer good.”
In Democracy
in America, published in 1835, de Tocqueville explained his
conclusion saying there is an “enlightened self-interest” that governs
nearly every public and private action in America.
“They show with complacency,” he wrote, “how an enlightened regard of themselves constantly prompts them to assist each other.”
De Tocqueville was talking about the core value
at the heart of America – Compassion. It’s a value as old as
civilization itself, adapted, perfected, and structured by the founding fathers
to fulfill the promise of a new land.
Five centuries before Christ, Sophocles observed, “kindness
begets kindness.” Later, in Rome,
Tertullian observed, “He who lives only to benefit himself confers on the world
a benefit when he dies.”
Our Judeo-Christian heritage emphasizes this value. The Torah reminds us “deeds of love are worth as much as all the commandments of the law,” while Christians are bound to “love one another as I have loved you.”
The founders of the American republic were animated by their
Christian faith. They established
compassion as the central value in our social, economic, and political
systems. Without it, our society
would self-destruct.
As I watch the daily news, I can’t help wondering if we have
reached the tipping point. Is de
Tocqueville’s prophecy coming true?
Compassion is the bridge between us. It connects our lives by a thousand
sympathetic threads. Daily it
seems that bridge is being destroyed.
The threads that connect us are being shredded. We have never been so divided and
alone.
I have drunk deeply from the well of goodness at the heart
of America. I have tried to
contribute to it in my personal life and with programs I helped create. It has enriched the quality of my life
more than I can say, but the tide seems to be turning.
The dogs of darkness have been unleashed. Fear is rising and the better angels of
our nature being oppressed. Nothing less than the future of our society is at stake.
A poem stands at the entrance of the United Nations, carved on buildings we helped erect to support the alliance we helped create at a time when we were the light of the world. The words were written by the Persian poet, Saadi Shiraz.
All the
sons of Adam are part of one single body,
They are
of the same essence.
When time
afflicts us with pain
In one
part of that body
All the
other parts feel it too.
If you fail
to feel the pain of others
You do not
deserve the name of man.
This is compassion distilled to its essence. It rests on the difference between
saying, “I am my brother’s keeper” and saying “I am my brother.”
That understanding is what has always made America great. That
fundamental goodness is what is now being challenged.
In the words of Pogo, “We have
met the enemy and he is us.” As
always, the question is how will we respond. America will be whatever we
choose to be.
In 1972, a deranged man, named Laszlo Toth,
dashed past the guards in St. Peter’s Basilica, vaulted a
marble balustrade and attacked Michelangelo’s Pieta. He struck the Madonna with a hammer
twelve times before he could be stopped. When he was done, over 100 fragments
of the Renaissance masterpiece littered the floor of the chapel.
That
happened a week before my twenty-seventh birthday. I will be 74 at the end of this month, but I still remember
it vividly.
I had traveled through Europe with friends the year before. We took turns prioritizing each day’s activities. Whenever possible my choices involved visiting Michelangelo, long near the top of my panoply of heroes. We saw his David, Moses, St. Peter’s Basilica, the Sistine Chapel, and, of course, The Pieta.
“It is a miracle that a rock, which before was without form,” Giorgio Vasari wrote, “can take on such perfection that even nature sometimes struggles to create in the flesh.”
Vasari was right. It was awesome.
Michelangelo carved the Pieta from a single
block of Carrara marble. Such was
his genius that he said he could see the sculpture imprisoned within the marble.
All he had to do was release it by
chipping away the unnecessary pieces.
I have remembered Toth’s attack through the years not only because I admire Michelangelo but also because it placed the cycle of creation and destruction in a context I had never considered before and have never since been able to forget.
It was shocking to realize that one of the great masterpieces of the world – two-year’s work for a once-in-forever genius – could be destroyed in matter of moments by any mindless cretin so inclined.
Through the years that thought has stayed
with me and morphed into a broader understanding of the nature of things. I have come to understand how much
easier it is to break than build, to take things apart than to put things
together, to divide than unite. As Toth first cemented into my
consciousness, it’s easier to destroy than create.
Worse. It is not only is it easier. It is inevitable.
As the poet, W. B. Yeats, wrote, “Things fall apart; the centre cannot hold.”
Physics calls it entropy – a decline into disorder. According to the second law of thermodynamics entropy always increases with time.
The implications for our lives and the future of our country are inescapable. Progress is not inevitable. The barbarians are always at the gate. What was dearly won can easily be lost.
The Renaissance of Michelangelo built
on the traditions of ancient Greece, but there were decades of darkness before
and after as the Renaissance devolved into the Age of the Inquisition.
The five hundreds years since the Renaissance
have not produced another Michelangelo or DaVinci, but they did produce a
Washington and a Jefferson. The
essential elements of Ancient Greece and the Renaissance found fertile ground
in this new land, fueling the thinking of our founding fathers – the closest
thing to Renaissance Men the world has seen since that time.
This cycle of rebirth and regeneration is known as Negentropy. Negentropy is the reverse entropy. It means bringing into order – organization, structure and function – the opposite of randomness or chaos.
One example of negentropy is the Solar System. Another example is life, which fundamentally is the ability to make something out of nothing.
As I consider what I can remember of my past, the world that was and the world that is, it’s hard not to believe that I have seen the best of America, a gift of our founding fathers fulfilled by the “greatest generation.”
I am profoundly grateful for the life I have been given, but I fear for the future. I can’t honestly say I believe my generation will be leaving the world a better place than we found it. Many of us have tried. Too many have not.
Too many have fallen to the temptations Ghandi identified as the seven deadly sins: Wealth without work, pleasure without conscience, knowledge without character, commerce without morality, science without humanity, worship without sacrifice, and politics without principle.
Selfishness has over-ruled selflessness. Indifference, ignorance and arrogance prevail. Authorities and institutions are broadly questioned – particularly when that suits our personal point of view or convenience – and we have produced a new breed of human beings – fact-resistant homo sapiens, locked in to the silos of their beliefs, impenetrable to reason.
The dissipation of our society is inescapable and it is likely to get worse before it gets better – if it ever does. Ultimately, and always, it is up to us. It’s our country. It’s our world. The future of our children is at stake.
As is so often the case, the answer is to respond with love. Where there is love, there is always hope, there will always be life.
