Gardening in the Apocalypse

The image above is just one of a few items I’d like to bring to your attention.

To begin, I’m headed to Tyler, Texas this month. Do y’all know Tyler? I’ve never been, but, from what I’ve sensed over the years, it’s a lovely situation involving a heady mix of spirits not all that different from some of what we have going on in Nashville. If you’re there or anywhere near it, please consider venturing out. Matt and Megan Magill are hosting me. “Gardening in the Apocalypse” emerged as a title after Matt and I discussed what we’d like to see happen during our time together. Details here.

And on the subject of Nashville and its environs, I want to call attention to the war on objective reality which isn’t unrelated to the soft civil war on constituents being waged from our governor’s mansion which isn’t unrelated to the targeting of our journalists which isn’t unrelated to our Nazis.

For a book-length account on why I say “our” three times in the preceding sentence, please consider placing an order (at a library or a bookstore) for this book. For a short and compelling account of where we’re at in the beautiful state of Tennessee, I ask you to contemplate the reporting of Betsy Phillips: “Middle Tennessee Has a Nazi Problem.” The photo below was made by Hamilton Matthew Masters.

We become what we give our energy to. I say that to say that Run-D.M.C. was correct when they told us “It’s tricky.” By “it,” I have many phenomena in mind. If I name the Franklin alderman in the photo above, I risk platforming—in one small way—an unsafe person who has—reminding myself—already sought and been accorded power over others in the beautiful state of Tennessee. “It” is happening. “It” has already happened. We get into “it” by talking about it, but if we don’t talk about “it” (with words and images and more words) the horrible thing that is “it” will keep right on happening and worse. So, with care and candor and occasional courage, we are sometimes compelled by conscience to make something of “it” in our context (even though it’s tricky). If we’re going to love our sweet old world enough to assume responsibility for it, there comes a time to get into it.

Betsy Phillips has a way of getting into it:

I’ve researched a lot about Tennessee racists and how Tennessee has handled them, and a big mistake we make and have made repeatedly is to assume that, if something makes us laugh, then it’s not dangerous. Couple that with the belief that finding a way to laugh at something gives it less power, and you can easily get into situations where very dangerous people can be openly and obviously plotting, but because they’re complete clowns about it, you may let your guard down, or never put it up to begin with…That's how Franklin has ended up being one election away from a mayor who is friends with one of Tennessee’s most famous current Nazis. Everyone thought she was a joke — and she is — so there wasn’t any reason to take her seriously as a threat. But there is a threat. I, myself, am not sure how to square this circle. I keep trying to figure out how to ask comedians about this, since they have experience in taking jokes seriously, but I haven’t even figured out exactly what my questions are. It just boils down to: Yes, it's funny, but it’s also alarming. One minute our politicians are rallying with Proud Boys, the next minute they can’t bring themselves to reject the appreciation of racists, and then the Nazi fight club is providing protection for a mayoral candidate.

If you haven’t already clicked the link to read Betsy’s entire piece, I hope the excerpt above compels you to. She goes on to thank God for the fact that Republican state Rep. Sam Whitson made time to publicly acknowledge (to a degree) what’s happening. I also thank God for this.

Let’s take a quick break from the horrors too many of us have normalized in the beautiful state of Tennessee to celebrate the Nashville Scene which, in addition to publishing Betsy’s story, has an annual Best Of thing going. The screen grabs above capture reports of our best barista who many allege is Mark Lemley. Coldplay was onto something. We do live in a beautiful world. Yeah we do. And artisans of moral seriousness like Mark keep me alive to this fact by laboring well the minute particulars of his existence and our spaces of overlap. Maybe you know Mark. Maybe you know people like Mark. Maybe you’re like Mark. *waves to Mark*

Like Betsy, I behold circles I don’t always know how to square. I keep at it anyway with images and and sayings and sayings and questions. Stand where you must stand. Be human there. That’s Daniel Berrigan’s line.

The revolt against brutality begins with a revolt against the language that hides that brutality. That’s Rebecca Solnit’s.

I have more from Solnit on addressing language with language (and research):

It is the truest, highest purpose of language to make things clear and help us see; when words are used to do the opposite you know you’re in trouble and that maybe there’s a coverup…Detective work and the habits of perception it generates can save us from believing lies and sometimes show us who’s being protected when a lie is also an alibi…We are all language detectives, and if we pay enough attention we can figure out what things mean even when they don’t mean to tell us, and we can even tell when stories are lying to us. So many of them do.

Isn’t that lovely? We can hold our words and the words of other up their highest purpose: Clarity and insight.

And when words are used to dehumanize our fellow creatures or to block, obscure, or disrupt our capacity for seeing and thinking clearly—for perceiving what’s true—we have some detective work to get up to. Work that involves feeling and imagining our way toward toward deeper receptivity concerning incoming data and then….standing where we must stand and playing human there. I understand this to be an everyday do-over kind of task. Maybe it’s a many-times-a-day kind of task.

In my case, it involves a lot of borrowing. I borrow language. I tend to think all eloquence is borrowed. Here’s some screen matter I borrowed recently.

This is Hannah Arendt elaborating on what she meant with her famous phrase concerning the “banality of evil.” One can hear her speaking the words (with a different translation) and the words preceding them here. I recommend taking the recording in while reading along as an exercise in the overcoming of protective stupidity (Orwell’s phrase) without and within.

We need moral witnesses like Arendt desperately when people in power speak of other people as “human animals” and “savages” and “subhuman.” We need it too when collective punishment is put forward as a morally defensible policy. We need it now.

I look for specificity and nuance in my reading and sharing of news. Generalization is, it seems to me, tyranny’s oxygen supply. I believe specificity can cut it off. We remain alarmingly free to make distinctions between persons and positions and between people and governments. We can slow the tape and see. I find a lot of the language ventured here and here and here and here and here and here helpful.

A big question that surfaces in my teaching and which runs like a thread through my work is this: Are we responsible for the lies we let others voice in our presence unchallenged?

Here’s a poem that helps me think and feel and think more feelingly that one through.

This just about includes this latest installment of Dark Matter. But I need to issue a correction on one of the dates I previously announced for the We Become What We Normalize world tour. Please notice that the Two Dollar Radio event with Hanif in Columbus is now on the fourteenth of November and plan accordingly.

Thank you for your time and attention.