You sang the song in preschool, kindergarten, or first grade: “The wheels on the bus go round and round….” It’s, as I am wont to say, “a Heraclitean refrain.” I’ve mentioned him before because snippets of his writings have endured the centuries. Here’s one of those fragmentary thoughts, this one given to us by Marcus Aurelius, the Roman Emperor-Philosopher: “The death of earth is to become water, and the death of water is to become air, and the death of air is to become fire, and reversely.” Before you object, recall that for Heraclitus and Aurelius, there was no periodic table of elements; just earth, air, fire, and water. For Heraclitus, the chief among the four was fire, or as he thought of it, the Eternal Fire. It keeps, for him, manifesting itself. It’s that “reversely” in the fragment that is germane here: The current time is, I find, curiously like the 1930s. There’s a recurrence of incivility in every society, and we’re currently in that part of the cycle. Call it an eternal lack of manners and good will.
So, today, we have questions about civility, as though this is the first Age of Incivility or the first Age of the Uncivil. Has there been little history in the curricula of schools? Are we really in a period that has more incivility than past periods? Or, have the wheels on the bus always gone round and round… “All through the town”?
I mentioned the 1930s, that pre-WWII decade dominated by the Great Depression. It was the decade that saw the completion of the Empire State Building, but also saw the dissatisfied gathering in Union Square, often engaged in uncivil arguments over society and politics. For many, the times couldn’t have been worse; yet, for others, the times couldn’t have been much better. Not everyone was out of a job. Not everyone was without resources. There were those who recognized that economies are cyclic, and they just happened to be at the bottom of Fortune’s spin. The wheel would eventually go round to greater prosperity after the coming war.
Jobs weren’t the primary focus of many in Union Square though some who gathered there daily were among the unemployed. No, some of them had their focus on societal change, big societal change, truthfully, the change from capitalism to socialism or its extreme form, communism. They railed against the forces that they perceived had conspired against them. They sought “equality” while equally dreaming of their own rise above the ordinary, possibly even of playing golf five days a week and owning a yacht. You’ve seen such a wheel turn: In every “socialist” or “communist” society, there are those who occupy privileged positions with power and money, leisure and adoration, and clothes and houses to make every “jones” envy. To keep power, those in charge need angry masses, need to stir the kettle of disenchantment by mixing in promises based not on realities, but rather on theoretical ideals.
During the 1930s, some writers took to the streets to discover the tone of the times. One of those writers was Leonard Q. Ross, AKA Leo C. Rosten. Ross went to Union Square to mix with the locals, most of them Left-leaning.* Here’s a fragment:
“A young man, very thin and intense, ranted against ‘Hearst’s lies.’”
An older person in the crowd, observed Ross, told the young man to read another newspaper; in response the young guy said,
“What paper? The capitalistic Times ? The Fascist Herald Trib ? The Post, I suppose? That’s a hot one. The Post puts up a fake labor attitude because they’re tryin’ to get circulation from the masses, that’s all.” And then, as the conversations continued, he said, “You can’t change people!...What if everyone has a job? O.K. Next they wanna play golf five times a week, that’s what. So then everyone wants a yacht! That’s what they want next—a yacht.” That comment, reports Ross, stirred more argument about those who have and those who have not, with some arguing for the opportunities afforded by capitalism and against the oppression of the individual by communism.
Anyway, Ross continues, “I heard men referred to as ‘counter-revolutionists,’ ‘White Russians,’ ‘deviationists,’ ‘opportunists.’ A serious young man in glasses called someone a ‘confusionist.’ All these labels were uttered with contempt.”
“With contempt.” Yes, it was long ago, a different America you might think, one suffering from a great economic downturn while building skyscrapers and factories. Still, the tone was the same as it is in many places today, including Union Square. The wheels on the bus go round and round. As it was then, so it is now, with ad hominem and ad populum arguments and condemnatory and excessive labeling: Those are the wheels on the social bus filled with the irate and the uncivil. As it was then, it is now, incivility based on labels loosely pasted onto intellectual opponents: If you belong to the opposition, the thinking goes, you deserve labeling and expletives.
One might think that Heraclitus got it right when he said, “It is better to delight in the mire than in the clean river” (Frag. 13). But maybe he was incorrect when he said that one couldn’t put his foot in the same river twice (Frag. 12); apparently, we’ve been stepping in the River of Incivility over and over again. A turbulent cloudy river is the social and political norm. And, by the way, the mire of extreme positions sells papers and provides dramatic news coverage.
Is it the nature of many to complain regardless of their circumstances, to blame because scapegoating is easier than accepting personal responsibility that enables one to relish the good while attempting to correct the bad? When you hear the shouts and imagine the rage behind the people in black masks, you need to think, “Wait a minute. Haven’t we been through all this before? Haven’t the angry ones always made their voices heard in shouts, curses, accusations? Haven’t we had recurrent fights over capitalism and socialism and over Left and Right?’’
Ever notice how people tend to run to extremes, and that’s when civility falls into the abyss of prejudice and hate? Fifty shades of gray are not usually part of the political scene. It’s most often black and white, a deep chasm separating the two, and on either side, the black side or the white side, adherents can only shout across the divide.
It was also in the 1930s that one writer reports his cult-like adherence to the promises and ideals of communism before becoming disillusioned, particularly after Russia invaded its relatively peaceful and nonthreatening neighbor Finland. The communists of the time were a rowdy bunch, stirring up controversy wherever they could. Milton Hindus wrote about them from inside the movement he joined. But he was an independent thinker, and he realized that extremists don’t tolerate nuances and questions. He writes, “The quarrels between the party and me began about small things. I disagreed at first on matters just to see what would happen. The rudeness with which they slapped down these tentative efforts enraged me…They tried to silence me—first by persuasion and later by threats.” Ah! Milton Hindus could be writing that today in the context of mobs shutting down speeches by those with whom they disagree.
But the point here isn’t the history lesson as much as it a lesson in the general nature of societies. The dissatisfied will always be with us, always offering us some theoretical ideal as a model for the world, and always angrily shouting down those who oppose their views. The incivility that the media report is nothing new. The shouting on TV pundit programs or in gathering crowds is a recurrent phenomenon, and maybe not just recurrent, but permanent, only slightly abated by brief moments of civility in small segments of society.
One last passage from Ross. He stopped to talk to a policeman assigned to Union Square. “How long do these arguments go on?”
“Jeeze,” he said, “They start in the morning around ten, and they don’t even begin to break up until eleven at night. The last ones aren’t over until one or two in the morning. That’s when there’s an occasional cuttin’-up match. You know—arguments, fights, razors. Then we gotta run ‘em in….”
All those arguments, all that shouting, all the fights of the 1930s and yet, here we are in the second decade of the 2000s witnessing the same goings on. Can you see why Heraclitus said, “It is better to delight in the mire than in the clean river”? We seemingly find delight in incivility because we keep introducing it into every generation. Contrary to Heraclitus, we do seem to be able to put our foot in the same mire twice--actually, more than twice. The wheels on the bus…
*Leonard Q. Ross. “Union Square.” The Strangest Places. 1939. Copyright Leonard Q. Ross.
**Milton Hindus. “Politics.” Twice a Year. 1938. Copyright Dorothy S. Norman.
So, today, we have questions about civility, as though this is the first Age of Incivility or the first Age of the Uncivil. Has there been little history in the curricula of schools? Are we really in a period that has more incivility than past periods? Or, have the wheels on the bus always gone round and round… “All through the town”?
I mentioned the 1930s, that pre-WWII decade dominated by the Great Depression. It was the decade that saw the completion of the Empire State Building, but also saw the dissatisfied gathering in Union Square, often engaged in uncivil arguments over society and politics. For many, the times couldn’t have been worse; yet, for others, the times couldn’t have been much better. Not everyone was out of a job. Not everyone was without resources. There were those who recognized that economies are cyclic, and they just happened to be at the bottom of Fortune’s spin. The wheel would eventually go round to greater prosperity after the coming war.
Jobs weren’t the primary focus of many in Union Square though some who gathered there daily were among the unemployed. No, some of them had their focus on societal change, big societal change, truthfully, the change from capitalism to socialism or its extreme form, communism. They railed against the forces that they perceived had conspired against them. They sought “equality” while equally dreaming of their own rise above the ordinary, possibly even of playing golf five days a week and owning a yacht. You’ve seen such a wheel turn: In every “socialist” or “communist” society, there are those who occupy privileged positions with power and money, leisure and adoration, and clothes and houses to make every “jones” envy. To keep power, those in charge need angry masses, need to stir the kettle of disenchantment by mixing in promises based not on realities, but rather on theoretical ideals.
During the 1930s, some writers took to the streets to discover the tone of the times. One of those writers was Leonard Q. Ross, AKA Leo C. Rosten. Ross went to Union Square to mix with the locals, most of them Left-leaning.* Here’s a fragment:
“A young man, very thin and intense, ranted against ‘Hearst’s lies.’”
An older person in the crowd, observed Ross, told the young man to read another newspaper; in response the young guy said,
“What paper? The capitalistic Times ? The Fascist Herald Trib ? The Post, I suppose? That’s a hot one. The Post puts up a fake labor attitude because they’re tryin’ to get circulation from the masses, that’s all.” And then, as the conversations continued, he said, “You can’t change people!...What if everyone has a job? O.K. Next they wanna play golf five times a week, that’s what. So then everyone wants a yacht! That’s what they want next—a yacht.” That comment, reports Ross, stirred more argument about those who have and those who have not, with some arguing for the opportunities afforded by capitalism and against the oppression of the individual by communism.
Anyway, Ross continues, “I heard men referred to as ‘counter-revolutionists,’ ‘White Russians,’ ‘deviationists,’ ‘opportunists.’ A serious young man in glasses called someone a ‘confusionist.’ All these labels were uttered with contempt.”
“With contempt.” Yes, it was long ago, a different America you might think, one suffering from a great economic downturn while building skyscrapers and factories. Still, the tone was the same as it is in many places today, including Union Square. The wheels on the bus go round and round. As it was then, so it is now, with ad hominem and ad populum arguments and condemnatory and excessive labeling: Those are the wheels on the social bus filled with the irate and the uncivil. As it was then, it is now, incivility based on labels loosely pasted onto intellectual opponents: If you belong to the opposition, the thinking goes, you deserve labeling and expletives.
One might think that Heraclitus got it right when he said, “It is better to delight in the mire than in the clean river” (Frag. 13). But maybe he was incorrect when he said that one couldn’t put his foot in the same river twice (Frag. 12); apparently, we’ve been stepping in the River of Incivility over and over again. A turbulent cloudy river is the social and political norm. And, by the way, the mire of extreme positions sells papers and provides dramatic news coverage.
Is it the nature of many to complain regardless of their circumstances, to blame because scapegoating is easier than accepting personal responsibility that enables one to relish the good while attempting to correct the bad? When you hear the shouts and imagine the rage behind the people in black masks, you need to think, “Wait a minute. Haven’t we been through all this before? Haven’t the angry ones always made their voices heard in shouts, curses, accusations? Haven’t we had recurrent fights over capitalism and socialism and over Left and Right?’’
Ever notice how people tend to run to extremes, and that’s when civility falls into the abyss of prejudice and hate? Fifty shades of gray are not usually part of the political scene. It’s most often black and white, a deep chasm separating the two, and on either side, the black side or the white side, adherents can only shout across the divide.
It was also in the 1930s that one writer reports his cult-like adherence to the promises and ideals of communism before becoming disillusioned, particularly after Russia invaded its relatively peaceful and nonthreatening neighbor Finland. The communists of the time were a rowdy bunch, stirring up controversy wherever they could. Milton Hindus wrote about them from inside the movement he joined. But he was an independent thinker, and he realized that extremists don’t tolerate nuances and questions. He writes, “The quarrels between the party and me began about small things. I disagreed at first on matters just to see what would happen. The rudeness with which they slapped down these tentative efforts enraged me…They tried to silence me—first by persuasion and later by threats.” Ah! Milton Hindus could be writing that today in the context of mobs shutting down speeches by those with whom they disagree.
But the point here isn’t the history lesson as much as it a lesson in the general nature of societies. The dissatisfied will always be with us, always offering us some theoretical ideal as a model for the world, and always angrily shouting down those who oppose their views. The incivility that the media report is nothing new. The shouting on TV pundit programs or in gathering crowds is a recurrent phenomenon, and maybe not just recurrent, but permanent, only slightly abated by brief moments of civility in small segments of society.
One last passage from Ross. He stopped to talk to a policeman assigned to Union Square. “How long do these arguments go on?”
“Jeeze,” he said, “They start in the morning around ten, and they don’t even begin to break up until eleven at night. The last ones aren’t over until one or two in the morning. That’s when there’s an occasional cuttin’-up match. You know—arguments, fights, razors. Then we gotta run ‘em in….”
All those arguments, all that shouting, all the fights of the 1930s and yet, here we are in the second decade of the 2000s witnessing the same goings on. Can you see why Heraclitus said, “It is better to delight in the mire than in the clean river”? We seemingly find delight in incivility because we keep introducing it into every generation. Contrary to Heraclitus, we do seem to be able to put our foot in the same mire twice--actually, more than twice. The wheels on the bus…
*Leonard Q. Ross. “Union Square.” The Strangest Places. 1939. Copyright Leonard Q. Ross.
**Milton Hindus. “Politics.” Twice a Year. 1938. Copyright Dorothy S. Norman.
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