On Shiny Turd Selection: Implications of Electoral Politics and Total Disclosure

So that happened…

…The election came and went, and in keeping with the characteristic relevance of this little blog[1] I am finally ready to comment on it. 

Anyway, let me set up my thoughts with my two favorite comedy pieces on the election:

http://youtu.be/QlwilbVYvUg [2]

http://youtu.be/dX_1B0w7Hzc [3]

Lincon’s opening line in the last one says explicit what the other one and much of the comedy and rhetoric surrounding elections communicates:

“By the power vested in me by this giant bald bird
The president shall not be the shiniest of two turds.” -Nice Peter (as Lincon)

And the general frustration with the quality of candidates doesn’t just show up comedy or discourse.  It actually emerged in several polls.  Consider three:

1.       One district in Nevada returned 10% of the vote for “None of the Above”

2.       A district in North Carolina where a cat came in third

3.       And a surprising number of people voted for Rosanne Barr for PRESIDENT (who may be 3% more qualified for political office than a cat).

But why is it always like this?  Why do we get to the actual choice and always want to push the ‘restart’ button.

My father had a theory that has infused me with political cynicism for decades.  He argued that in order to rise to the level that one of the political machines would recognize you as a candidate, you have to be so morally compromised and bought and sold that it is impossible to vote for a good man for president.

This is an alternative to the standard us-them distinction that emerges from partisan politics.  Instead of the ‘us’ being ‘my party’ and the ‘them’ being ‘the other party’, it redefines ‘us’ as the reasonable electorate composed of decent people and ‘them’ as the political machine.

But I don’t think that is the whole story.  When I look at Governor Romney and President Obama, I don’t see wicked men who inhabit qualitatively different moral realities from each other or from ‘the rest of us’[4].  I see a couple of extraordinarily gifted, morally flexible, political pragmatists who genuinely want to lead our country into the most just and prosperous future (despite divergent beliefs on effective tactics) but who also love power and desperately want to wield it.

So how do we get to the point that we can’t stand these guys? 

I have a two word answer: Full Disclosure.

You see, the difference between them and me is not that I am good and they are bad.  The difference is that they have been subject to a process that no human can withstand: Full Disclosure. 

Normal people have the luxury of partial disclosure in our relationships, so people like us.  We get to selectively reveal our positions, ideas, history, prejudices, hurts, fill-in-the-blank-a-phobias, selfishness, addictions, and overall crazy, so people generally think we are good and kind and just.  And if we have been appropriately socialized with the standard set of cultural coping mechanisms, we can keep it up pretty effectively in all but our closest relationships.[5]  But it’s a ruse.  We maintain respectability through the filter of partial disclosure.

But human brokenness cannot withstand the near omniscience that a multi-billion dollar information-entertainment industry generates.  In the end, a person – even an incredibly impressive person - turns out to be…just a person.  And a person turns out to have inescapably turd-like qualities.

And I think that is one of the things John is getting in his gospel, when he says:

¹⁹The light has come into the world, and people loved the darkness rather than the light because their works were evil. ²⁰ For everyone who does wicked things hates the light and does not come to the light, lest his works should be exposed.

Full disclosure terrifies us.  Transparency is something we demand, until it is applied to us.  And one of the central insights of Christianity is that if we take a break from our self evaluation through the eyes of others…whose opinion we have manipulated through the process of selective disclosure…and if we ‘step into the light’ and allow the gaze of omniscience to fall on our behaviors and motivations, we emerge with a very different self evaluation.  We emerge with a self evaluation that requires someone or something to rescue us from ourselves.

And so, I reject the us-them of party rivalry, but I also reject the us-them of the ‘shiny turd syndrome’ in favor of an us-us. 

I am the turd…just not that shiny. 

I would wither under the gaze of full disclosure faster and more cataclysmically than these guys did.  And so would you.[6]  But the Christian narrative argues that full disclosure is something we all actually experience.  There is One who is not fooled by our ‘press releases’ and ’30 second spots’…who recognizes motivations that we have not only stopped advertising but have stopped noticing ourselves. 

But unlike the relentless harm and self promoting injury behind the quasi-omniscience of ‘the press’, actual omniscience is laced with love and compassion.  Divine judgment is not a snarky expose or petty entrapment.  It is an invitation to healing and relationship.  In Jesus, the one who knows is also the one who loves and the one who heals. 

This post was written while listening to Babel[7] by Mumford and Sons

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[1] I am still working on posts on the Battlestar Galactica and Lost Finales…and mewithoutYou’s third album that came out several years ago (which doesn’t seem that timely given their 4^th album came out a year ago).

[2] The hunger games version of “Bad Lip Reading” is the hardest I’ve laughed since the first season of Community.  http://youtu.be/QjGk_jU6t5A

[3] On a serious note, this essentially articulates my perspective on the debate.

[4] This is why, CS Lewis argues, there can never be a ‘Christian party’.  Besides the awkwardness of Christians wielding power, there is the issue that Christianity teaches things that both parties value, stuff like justice and freedom.  (And if you don’t believe that both parties actually want a just, free and prosperous society, you don’t know enough thoughtful people of the other party).  But it is entirely appropriate for Christians in good conscience to come to different conclusions on the tactics it takes to get there.  And tactics are a matter of individual conscience…and the Scriptures demand (for good reason) that matters of convince require loving diversity.  Therefore, Lewis asserts a Christian party can only ever be a ‘some of the Christians’ party.

[5] This is also why many people end up feeling the same way about their parents and spouses as we do about candidates.  Family is the ferment of full disclosure.  You cannot be good enough to be loved in that context.  Love has to be given.  It has to be a grace.  Love in the context of the disclosure of close quarters only works if it is a place of forgiveness and the active pursuit of being ‘for’ the other despite their failings.  This is also the stuff of platonic intimacy, and one of the reasons our culture has put so much weight on romantic relationships that should be carried by intimate friendships.  Our friendships are primarily value-added commodities rather than arenas of grace…and so they are fragile and ephemeral.

[6] If you read this with the hopes that I would disclose who I voted for, I apologize.  You might be able to find something in the archives that provides insight into that question.  But, frankly, I am much more interested in the humanness of the process than the agendas of the parties.  If we can’t talk about power in love, we are not qualified to wield it.  If we can’t assert a little self skepticism we are not qualified to exert political skepticism.  And while we are at it, if we do not shudder at the complexity of economics and the poverty of our tools to isolate sensitive variables we have not begun to select the right economic way forward for our country. 

[7] This post, and many, many others.  Just a great album. 

Fragments and Links 2

From time to time I like to post a series of thoughts and reflections without necessarily expanding them to a full essay. This is one of these times:

My friend Mark coined the term 'Sombrero trick' as a reference to for eating Mexican for all 3 meals in one day.[1] Done.

If I played baseball for Seattle I would definitely use a clip from The Decembrists' 'Mariner's Revenge Song' as my batting music. Now choosing a 5 second clip from the nearly nine minute vengeance epic would be a challenge.

Speaking of The Decembrists, they are probably the most original lyrical story tellers I have happened upon in some time.

On the topic of lyricists…It took me a while but I have finally made up my mind about Death Cab for Cutie. I do not generally resonate with their mildly mopey themes...but they sure can write poetry:

The glove compartment is inaccurately named
And everybody knows it.
So I'm proposing a swift orderly change.

Cause behind its door there's nothing to keep my fingers warm
And all I find are souvenirs from better times
Before the gleam of your taillights fading east
To find yourself a better life.
-"Title and Registration"

I have been listening to a lot of Evanescence lately. But I’m not sure I get the central metaphor in their most overtly spiritual song. Tourniquet uses two metaphors to describe God summarized in a late line: “Christ, tourniquet, my suicide .” I get the suicide image in a Galatians 2:20 sense, but just can’t make much out of the ubiquitous tourniquet reference. Here is what I’ve got so far. A tourniquet is a desperate and dangerous attempt to save your life at great risk. I could buy that as a picture of faith.

I thought about using a Nirvana clip the last time I preached. But then I wondered, is an Xer dropping a Nirvana reference on Millennials the equivalent of a Boomer dropping a Bob Dillon reference on Xers?

Christianity Today has a pretty good music page called “Glimpses of God” where they highlight music with redemptive themes.[2] But their review of Ohio[3], by Over the Rhine put me into angry e-mailer mode. The comment that set me off was “There's only one reason (one word really) why Ohio hasn't been featured in our regular review coverage.” They are referring to a singular F-bomb in one of my favorite songs Changes Come.[4]

Changes come
Turn my world around
Changes come
Bring the whole thing down

I wanna have our baby
Some days I think that maybe
This ol' world's too f@#$ed up
For any firstborn son

There is all this untouched beauty
The light the dark both running through me
Is there still redemption for anyone

Here is the e-mail I wrote: Perhaps you should stop promoting the Bible because Paul uses one profanity in describing the uselessness of religion, or tells the Judeizers to cut their balls off, or Isaiah's 'icky' menstrual imagery. If God isn't afraid of occasional strong language, why are you? This is just legalism. Let our best artists express what they need to express. To say the world is so f-ed up that I worry about bringing a child into it is just good exposition of the Christian doctrine of Human Depravity.

My brother Nic is the first person I know to publish a book that is available through Amazon. It is a partly practical partly theological survival guide he wrote for the kids in his youth group going to college. I recommend anything he has written.

My friend Tiffany posted this link to: “How Hemingway might see Palin”. It is perfect. I wanted Joe too.

Speaking of the election, I cried during both Obama’s acceptance speech and McCain’s concession.[5] During Obama’s speech I thought about Ian from my Buffalo youth group who told me that a young black man had 3 options: rap artist, basket ball player, crack dealer. I think Barak is the man for this moment.[6] I smiled while I marked Obama’s box. During McCain’s speech I said out loud, ‘Where the hell have you been?’ THIS was the man I had so much hope for. Where did he go for 6 months? The whole election could have had this tone (and he could have had a better chance at winning).

I happened on this great bit of comedy on the hyperbole that typifies our political discourse.

Regarding Propositions: If you can’t get spending though a very liberal CA legislature, I suspect we cannot afford it.

My friend Corrie suggested a facetious guide to deciding on propositions. Choose the side that uses the least ALL CAPS[7] and italics in the voter guide. They are probably protecting a weaker position with manipulative, emotive rhetoric. She was just kidding but there is a ring of truth to the idea.

Karl Rove said that Obama did 10 points better than Kerry among “frequent church goers.” That’s right Karl. I feel like the appropriate response is that of the Dread Pirate Roberts to Indigo Montoya during their classic duel…”Get used to disappointment”.

I miss Manny. I can’t believe that someone else gets to cheer for him. Bill Simmons captured my feelings about the Manny trade brilliantly: “I can't look at (Jason) Bay and not think of Manny. At least not yet. Bay is like the dutiful, pretty second wife who does everything right … and yet, I can't stop thinking about the soul-wrenching tramp who married me first and broke my heart. I wish it wasn't that way, but it's going to take some time.[8]”

A little scatological (not to be confused with eschatological) humor from Bill Simmons’ NFL preview "On the bright side, 'taking the Browns to the Super Bowl' remains my favorite euphemism for making a doody." With the Phillies winning the Series, is Cleveland sports the most jilted Sport’s city?[9] Sorry Astifans.

On the semi-topic of eschatologically, NT Wright’s Surprised by Hope has been a very good corrective to my theology of heaven: “Heaven, in the Bible, is not a future destiny but the other, hidden, dimension of ordinary life – God’s dimension, if you like. God made heaven and earth; at the last he will remake both and join them together forever.” Heaven, in this picture, is not a place somehow ‘up there[10],’ but a parallel, invisible, truer reality that we are working to come into line with and will someday be revealed. This does nothing to invalidate classic atonement theology, but it guts a flaccid dispensationalism.

Speaking of heaven: Nevaeh (Heaven spelled backwards) has zipped up to #31 on the Social Security Administration's list of popular names. I have no response.

I love Mars Hill. Driscoll and I have our differences[11], but no one (not even Keller) has had a bigger influence on my preaching mechanics over the last year than Mark. He is theologically sound, relevant, honest, transparent, hilarious and uses media like no one else. Check out their promotional video for his series on Song of Solomon. That is how it’s done.

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[1] If this seems far fetched, we had the discussion in Vicksburg after a travel day. Consider the following scenario. Grab a breakfast burrito from the McDonald’s drive through on the way to the airport. Eat lunch at Chili’s at DFW. Then eat Miss-mex in Vicksburg for dinner as the result of a group dining decision. And there it is, the sombrero trick.
[2] Some of the artists are Christians (like OTR) but most aren’t.
[3] Easily one of my 5 favorite albums of all time
[4] A song the say they wrote the evening our tanks rolled into Iraq…the second time.
[5] Though, to be fair, I cry really easily as the result of my hyperthyroid condition. The Prince Caspian film had me in tears at least four times. I even welled up during ‘My Name is Earl’ last night...which is just over the line.
[6] I suppose my emotions can be dismissed as liberal white guilt. But while I do not remotely understand the plight of urban, black youth, I am personally vested in it.
[7] I’m not sure the people who write the positions for the voting guides know that an internet generation considers ALL CAPS yelling and poor form.
[8] Note, my resonance with this illustration is in no way based on marital experience.
[9] This will not be disputed if LaBron flees for a big market contract.
[10] Wright says “there is very little in the Bible about ‘going to heaven when you die’”and that ‘the roots of the misunderstanding go deep into a residual Platonism.’
[11] Mainly his eisigesis regarding masculinity and gender roles.

Revenge of the Paste Eaters: The Anatomy of a Swing Voter

The Myth of Undecided Stupidity

I recently took my daughter out for lunch at a local restaurant. With the check they gave me some jelly beans to place in the two jars up front labeled ‘Obama’ and ‘McCain’. To force decisiveness upon me they gave me 5, an odd number, so I could not split my vote. I like John MaCain and Barak Obama each as much as I have cared about any politician. For me it is a dream election. It is the equivalent of the Packers-Broncos Super Bowl (two teams I love) after so many years of Cowboys/Giants/Reskins-Bills (teams I despise, not unlike the last election). I sat there staring at my little gobs of sugar facing a decision 3 months before I was expecting to. Fortunately, on of the beans was cherry, which was delicious, and the two jars then received two apiece.

Of all the labels one can claim there are few that will stimulate such simultaneous rage and fawning as that of ‘undecided voter.’ There are so few of us who are ‘as of yet unaffiliated’[1] that a disproportionate amount of personal and institutional effort is expended to prevail upon our wills. At the same time, party line voters on either side see us as flakey. ‘You already know the voting records’ the argument goes, ‘what helpful information could you possibly still be holding out for?’ The implication (see cartoon) is that serious voters make their decision early based on data and undecideds are swayed by contrived and extraneous considerations like character and charisma.
This was further illustrated by a recent piece on Jon Stewart’s show where John Oliver described the undecided demographic as follows:

John Oliver: As you can see (undecided voters) fall into a variety of categories: Attention Seekers, Racist Democrats, the Chronically Insecure, and right here the Stupid. That is 45% of uncedideds. They are the swingeyest of the swing voters. And they, as they always do, will decide this election.

Stewart: Well that is a fascinating thing. How do you break down the Stupids.

Jon Oliver: Well ironically, it is a rather complex demographic. You’ve got your paste eaters, your numb skulls, your nitwits, your f@#ktards, people’s who’s heads get stuck in jars when they eat pickles, that’s a surprisingly large component, people who loose arguments to babies, douchenozzels, tiger petters…people who jump up and down on frozen lakes when the ice is too thin, shaved gorillas that have somehow acquired driver’s licenses, the voulentarily lobotomized, and, finally, cubs fans.

But implicit in thes assertions, serious and comedic, is the tenuous assumption that the groupings of issues under the headings ‘democrat’ and ‘republican’ are logical outworkings of a pair of unified world views that, between them, describe most Americans. Ironically, it was Jon Stewart (another guy who, at one time, liked both of these candidates[2]) who, in his book, did the best job of deconstructing this myth:

"Together, the two parties function like giant down comforters, allowing the candidates to disappear into the enveloping softness, protecting them from exposure to the harsh weather of independent thought...Each party has a platform, a prix fixe menu of beliefs making up its worldview. The candidate can choos one of two platforms, but remember - no substitutions. For example, do you support universal health care? Then you must also want a ban on assult weapons. Pro-limited government? Congratulations, you are also anti-abortion. Luckily, all human opinion falls neatly nto one of the two clearly defined camps. Thus, the two-party system elegently relflects the bichromatic rainbow that is American political thought."

Conflicting Platforms

Back in primary season, I took one of those internet surveys that asks you a bunch of policy questions and then ranks the candidates based on their correspondence with your policy preferences. Here is how the rankings of the top four came out:

Huckabee
Kucinich
McCain
Obama

(with Guliani and Romeny at the back of the pack)

Like a surprising number of Xers (and even more millenials) I am a man without a party. Each reflects part of my worldview and values. Now let me be clear. I am NOT a moderate. I am a fanatical liberal…and an unapologetic conservative…just on different issues.

I am an environmentalist who thinks climate change is real and that we should spend gobs of money on alternative energy research.
But[3] I think any energy policy that does not prominently feature nuclear power is deeply flawed and based on fear rather than science.

I support a wide variety of government regulation to protect individuals from the profit motive[4] of corporations.
But I am wary of regulating to the point that innovation is smothered.

I am unapologetically pro-life
But my #1 issue is urban poverty (which indirectly affects the social conditions that make women feel the need to get abortions)

I am a huge supporter of affirmative action
But I think government needs to quantitatively evaluate its social spending and ruthlessly pull the plug on social programs that are not generating the results we expected

I’m a Fed who thinks my job (with many others) is worth tax payer money
But I think there is significant federal and state waste that needs to be cut

Why I like These Guys

In our sad era of cable news and talk radio we define ourselves morally by what we despise. Our fact entertainment industry needs antagonists and protagonists to sell their stories so events are only newsworthy if they highlight conflict. So I could pretty much get a free pass from everyone by claiming to hate both candidates. There is a much larger social penalty for liking a candidate someone hates than for hating a candidate someone likes. But I reject this and by claiming both Obama and McCain I open myself to charges of immorality by most of the country. I was much more popular last time around when I disliked both Bush and Kerry. But here is gist:

McCain

McCain was the only shot the republicans had at me. But I knew I’d vote for McCain against anyone but Obama. Only in the dream match up would I be an undecided again. John McCain has been my favorite politician since shortly after the 2000 election. He is a sane conservative who wasn’t beholden to the party and seemed to make decisions based on a healthy ratio of principal and pragmatism. I loved McCain-Feingold and was relieved by the game theory employed by the McCain 13. In fact, if I had to explain in one phrase why I liked John McCain it would have to be that he seems to be principled in precisely the right ways and pragmatic in precisely the right ways.

So I was devastated when he supported the surge. I thought the surge was a terrible idea.[5] I could not believe that McCain would stake his political career on such a desperate and dismal move. I was sad and I kind of made a deal with the ancient senator from Arizona. The surge became a test case. If he was right about this, then his cumalitve record, in my mind, justified his presidency. In my opinion, the surge was an unqualified success, and even as I cast my primary vote for Obama, I suspected McCain would be my November choice.

Obama

There are only two kinds of politicians I will consider for president at this point. Someone who supported the Iraq war from the start but clearly would have run it better or someone who opposed it from the start. [5.5]. I admire precisely the same quality in Barak’s opposition to the war as I did in McCain’s support of the surge. Political courage. Putting their political reputation on the line based on what they think is best for my daughter’s future. For me Barak’s opposition to the Iraq war would give him more freedom to manage it and this is his greatest policy advantage.

There are many other liberal issues that I agree with Obama on (see above). In the final count, I align with the left on more issues than the right. But, like McCain, Obama’s greatest assets are not his angles on the issues. I think the United States President’s role is a cultural role more than a political role. In the era of the 24 hour news cycle his rhetoric sets the cultural tone for our country. And Barak offers us a conciliatory oratory. A Kenedyesqe orator that can assuage our fears and reconcile some of our differences. He could be our generation’s Kenedy or Regan, the president that we compare all future presidents to. He could also find himself in way over his head, but if Regan and Schwarzenegger have taught us anything it is that experience is not what makes an executive successful, it is the people he or she surrounds him/herself with.

Post Script: The Choice

So with three weeks left, I am no longer undecided, which is too bad since I was having so much fun deciding if I was a paste eater or a tiger petter. Unfortunately, since the orriginal writing of this piece, my favorite politician, has made the dicision for me. For some reason which mystifies me, McCain has moved right, since he wraped up the primary. I could understand[6] moving right to win the base and then moving left for the general, but MaCain stuck to his unpopular views about drilling, taxes and immigration while he was taking hits from other conservatives and then abandoned these principaled, moderate positions when he was trying to win the middle. I will never understand this. And I’m afraid the selection of Palin (as arguably the most important VP selection in history given McCain's health and age) is just mystifying. She seems like a nice lady. I'd vote for her for mayor. But if the Bush presidency has taught us anything it is that confidence is not a substitute for competence. And, in the end, I just think Barak’s conciliatory rhetoric is what our country needs right now. So I am voting for Obama, but I understand and respect and refuse to demonize the McCain vote and proudly embrace my fellow undecideds. I’d gladly remove the pickle jars from your heads any day.

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[1] ref – ‘Brother Where Art Thou’
[2] This, for me, is actually the biggest disappointment of the election. McCain held the record for Daily Show appearances and he and Jon seemed to have a lot of mutual respect and affection. But as soon as McCain got the nomination then Jon turned against him (while basically giving Barak a comedic free pass) proving once and for all that he is not an equal opportunity mocker but a democrat shill.
[3] Or, rather, because of my environmentalism.
[4] Note: I am not using profit motive here as a pejorative. We often talk about the big bad corporations who make decisions soley on the citeria of profit maximization. The thing that bugs me is that most of the people whining about this have 401k’s which means THEY are the corporations. By law, publically held corporations HAVE TO maximize profit. A few companies have remained privately owned for just this reason (e.g. In-and-Out Burger, a faith based business that has a more holistic approach). Thus, non-profit societal values have to be implemented by government regulation.
[5] I know, I also thought Ladamin Tomlinson and Shaq would be flops at the professional level.

[5.5] I am unmoved by the Edwards/Hillary/Kerry argument that 'Bush is a moron but he outsmarted us.' They did not have the political courage to stand up to a the administration when the country was Hawkish. I was depending on them to make that decision on my behalf and they blew it.
[6] Though I loath it.