The Generosity of Abraham Lincoln

1. Hate calls to hate in American history.

Before the Civil War, abolitionists spoke hatefully about the South, and Southerners spoke hatefully about abolitionists. Even before the war-killing started, there was violence.

Senator Charles Sumner was a strong abolitionist, and Congressman Preston Brooks was a Southerner. Sumner insulted a kin of Brooks in an anti-slavery speech. The next day, on the floor of the Senate, Brooks ambushed Sumner and beat him with a cane. The beating was so savage that Senator Sumner never fully regained his health. Brooks survived a congressional censure vote, resigned from Congress, and was immediately re-elected by the elated voters of his district.

At Pottawatomie Creek, Kansas, abolitionist John Brown and his men hacked to death five pro-slavery supporters. John Brown was celebrated in song. (John Brown’s Body.)

2. The generosity of Abraham Lincoln.

Not everybody shared hatred. Abraham Lincoln did not. He gave a speech in Peoria, Illinois in 1854. He attacked the repeal of the Missouri Compromise. This repeal permitted slavery to spread. He did not attack his opponents. He showed that he did not judge them.


Before proceeding, let me say I think I have no prejudice against the Southern people. They are just what we would be in their situation. If slavery did not now exist amongst them, they would not introduce it. If it did now exist amongst us, we should not instantly give it up.

This I believe of the masses north and south. Doubtless, there are individuals, on both sides, who would not hold slaves under any circumstances; and others who would gladly introduce slavery anew, if it were out of existence. We know that some Southern men do free their slaves, go north, and become tiptop abolitionists; while some Northern ones go south, and become most cruel slavemasters.

When Southern people tell us they are no more responsible for the origin of slavery then we, I acknowledge the fact. When it is said that the institution exists, and that it is very difficult to get rid of it in any satisfactory way, I can understand and appreciate the saying. I surely will not blame them for not doing what I should not know how to do myself.
The insight "They are just what we would be in their situation " is brilliant, humble, and non-judgmental. And it is Biblical. It lives in "Do not judge, and you will not be judged. Do not condemn, and you will not be condemned. Forgive, and you will be forgiven." (Luke 6:37 (NIV).)

3. Lincoln’s understanding as a lamp to read the Bible by.

And Lincoln’s understanding, which is from the Bible, also reflects back on the Bible. It helps us to understand the importance today to us of some parts the Bible.

I’m reading the Old Testament prophetic book Ezekiel. I’m reading about the children of Israel, what they did before God crushed them and scattered them to the nations. They worshiped idols. They even sacrificed their own sons and daughters to these handmade gods. It’s easy to judge. It’s better to wonder: if I had lived in those times, would I have joined in these horrible practices?

Likewise, people often judge those who crucified Jesus. Instead of judging, the better response is to wonder whether we, if we had lived in those times, would have stood in the plaza in front of Pontius Pilate and shouted "Crucify!" Instead of assuming that we would have wept at the foot of the cross, it’s better to remember what Lincoln said: "They are just what we would be in their situation."

4. The good in us, the good in others.

If we have any good in us, we don’t have it because we are innately good. It’s the favor of Providence. It is the Holy Spirit working in us.

Hezekiah was a righteous king of Judah. The kings of Judah were good and bad. Sometimes they were very bad, like Hezekiah’s father, Ahaz, and Hezekiah’s son Manasseh. But Hezekiah was the best of kings. (2 Kings 18:5.)

And he was righteous because of God in him. Toward the end of his life, God withdrew from him, and Hezekiah blundered. The blunder is described in 2 Kings 20. The blunder is explained in 2 Chronicles 32: "God left him to test him and to know everything that was in his heart." (2 Chronicles 32:31 (NIV).)

The Holy Spirit is at work in the world and in the universe, in the believer and in the unbeliever. God can withdraw the Holy Spirit at any time. My faith in God is what it is, and I consider it to be a bedrock of my personality. But recently, I believe that God withdrew my faith, and for the first time in many decades my faith collapsed in weakness. This humbled me.

5. Lincoln’s generosity as a light in these dark times.

We can choose to judge those Muslims in Libya who killed our ambassador and three others. But it might be better to remember Lincoln: "They are just what we would be in their situation."

I tend to judge the makers of the crude and hateful film that insulted the Muslim prophet and may have provoked the deadly response in Libya. So I too need to remember "They are just what we would be in their situation."

I tend to judge Mitt Romney. Some of my friends fume against Barack Obama. But "They are just what we would be in their situation."

So that we don’t think of ourselves more highly than we ought, or think of others more harshly than we ought, we need to remember what Paul said: "God has bound everyone over to disobedience so that he may have mercy on them all." (Romans 11:32 (NIV).)

As for our conduct, I guess that the right thing to do is to struggle against disobedience, as strongly as God empowers us to do. And we should give glory to God for the good that he grows in ourselves and in others, Christian, Jew, Muslim, Buddhist, Hindu, unbeliever.

Unlike the makers of the crude film that provoked fury in Islam, we should not call hate to hate. We should not return evil for evil. God calls us to love our enemies. Sometimes this is considered naive. But it is generous, like Abraham Lincoln.

Humor Now

A writer on Facebook thinks that jokes about the abortion controversy are outside of good taste and untethered to reasonable restraint.

Maybe she should lighten up.

Yes, sometimes things happen that are too serious to joke about.  Even The Daily Show went on hiatus after 9/11.  There is a time for everything, and the time is not always for making jokes.

But censure of humor sometimes has nothing to do with time and taste.  Often, it has to do with hostility to the point of view expressed humorously.  A person who despises a joke about the abortion controversy might – might – think hilarious a photo-shopped picture of President Obama as a bone-in-the-nose witch doctor.  So when somebody criticizes something that I smiled at, I don’t necessarily put on my shame face.

Timing and taste are important.  They are also subjective.  One person might be ready to see humor in something earlier than another.

So a German tourist couple was strangled in Bolivia and their bodies were returned to Germany.  Before they left for their exotic vacation, they probably expected to return and be surrounded by friends eager to find out about their adventure in the Third World.  And, in fact, when they returned to Germany, their friends did gather around them.

That is an irony best unmentioned at grave-side.  But as a comment on the irony and unpredictability of life, ghoulish as it is, it might be worth mentioning at another occasion.  And, certainly, a hard knot of grief might be massaged after the funeral by mourners trading light-hearted stories about their dead friends.

Another example.  I am dismayed by Fox News.  I am dismayed by incidents like their coverage of a D.C. rally featuring Sarah Palin.  Fox News showed a teeming crowd on the Washington Mall.  But the teeming crowd was from a different, better-attended rally.  You could tell that by looking at the foliage on the trees in the background.  (As pointed out by The Daily Show.)  And Fox’s coverage of the public-worker protesters in Wisconsin featured an unruly man shoving another man – with palm trees in the background.

I find these examples emblematic of Fox News.

Now, when he was on the air, Keith Olbermann blasted Fox News with indignation.  That indignation made Fox News seem big and dangerous.  Which they are, because they effectively masquerade as a news organization, and they are zealously followed.  But they are really an American version of The People’s Daily, a Chinese newspaper that I read for lack of a better option while I lived China.  So good on Keith Olbermann.

But good on The Daily Show for cutting Fox down to size by showing how their slavishness to conservative ideology makes them ridiculously manipulate “news”.

Is it really necessary to defend humor?  It’s not hard to do.

Humor is inherently creative.  It can shake us out of customary mental paths.  That can lead to good approaches to problems.  I talked with my brother about a brief written by an opposing lawyer.  The judge had requested briefing on an issue.  The opposing lawyer made a weak attempt to address the issue, then wrote an attack on our motives and characters.  I remarked, “If the law and the facts are against you, change the subject.”  It was a little bit of humor in lieu of angst.  It’s going into my reply brief.

Humor diverts.  Unhappiness comes; humor can make it a little lighter.   In law school, I had a happy apartment-sharing arrangement with two women.  While one of them, a beautiful, charming woman, was on vacation, she sent me a letter.  The letter asked me to move out.  My sorrow at being asked to move out was leavened because I could see humor in the contrast between the message and my initial joy of getting the letter.  Later, I shared this with the letter-writer, and we laughed.

But is there a difference in stolen laughs over little things and humor about the wider, dangerous world?  There is no question that the world is a very serious place right now.  Ours is a world of threats and menace.  Our material comfort is at risk and, I believe, we cannot take for granted the continuation of democracy in America.  Just to say two things.

In serious times, humor is an act of courage.  Fritz Gerlich wrote a satiric article in a Munich newspaper about eugenics-crazed Adolph Hitler.  He asked, “Does Hitler have Mongolian blood?”  That was courageous.  Gerlich was murdered in Dachau.

Sometimes humor is optimism. Persian king Xerxes sent word to Spartan king Leonidas that Persia’s arrows unleashed against the Spartans would “blot out the sun”.   Leonidas replied, “So much the better, we will fight in the shade.”

Sometimes humor is resignation, or hoping for the best in a bad situation.  We can’t do anything about the evil in the world, so we might as well grin and bear it.  If humor helps us to grin and bear it, fine.  So, in “Fiddler on the Roof”, the rabbi says, “A blessing for the Tsar? Of course! May God bless and keep the Tsar... far away from us!”

But again, time and place are all-important.  Winston Churchill didn’t start his “blood, toil, tears, and sweat” speech by warming up Parliament with a humorous anecdote.  Nor did Abraham Lincoln crack wise in the Gettysburg Address.  But Winston Churchill had a keen wit, and Abraham Lincoln was a genius teller of humorous stories.  Time and place.

So, to the woman who tolerates no jokes about the abortion controversy: you’re entitled to your opinion.  Bless you.  Who knows, maybe you’re right.  If I do the Long Fall after Divine Judgment, maybe it will be because, in my time on Earth, I wasn't serious enough.  That might be.

But I think that the salient sins that will eject me from eternal joy will have a bigger bore than jokes I’ve told or secret smiles at shocking quips.  And if the world is a waiting room for eternal compression, I won’t change it into the backstage for eternal expansion by never cracking a smile.  Nor will anyone, I think.

And if there’s humor in Hell, I’m sure I won’t enjoy it.  So on Earth, let me laugh.

Not Enemies but Friends

1. Introduction: perspective.

A Holocaust survivor explains why he rejected God:

God had allowed SS troops to snatch a baby from his mother and then use it as a football. When it was a torn lump of flesh they tossed it to their dogs. The mother was forced to watch. Then they ripped off her blouse and made her use it to clean the blood off their boots.

http://www.economist.com/node/16886073?story_id=16886073

This paragraph makes my blood freeze and my mouth gape.  Such cruelty is unfathomable.

Of all the reactions this description evokes from me, the one I will write about is this: it puts our American era, troubled as it is, into perspective. In particular, the suffering of this unnamed woman, this tormented victim, rebukes a troubling political habit of our time (though one not unique to our time): namely, to harshly judge those on the far side of the political spectrum from us. There is a left/right divide; we are less willing to reach across its span as time goes by. We are becoming a nation of shouters. But harrowing manifestations of real evil like this forbid our overreaction to mere political disagreements.

I don’t say this to be trite. I say this because political disagreements grow into monsters of the mind -- in too many minds, at least.  And this harms democracy in America.


2. The infernal politics of division.

Some politicians and media (large and small) so focus Americans on our intramural divisions that we lose sight of our common ground and even of our mutual humanity. This explains today’s highly divisive tactics. Here are some of the tactics that political dividers employ.

a. Wedge issues.

Political dividers resort to wedge issues. The term explains itself.

A premier example of a wedge issue is the demonization of Muslim-Americans. Muslims are only a means to an end in this scheme; though it afflicts them, its objective lies elsewhere. The scheme is in part a high-stakes dare to democratic politicians to stand up for Muslims – and either they gamble their political fortunes for this good purpose (too few do this), or they cave in and look craven. The scheme behind the demonization of Muslims is also to ignite ignorance, fear, and hatred to multiply political followers – in a word, demagoguery. And it succeeds like a lit match put to tinder.

Political dividers accuse the proposed Manhattan mosque's backers, and American Muslims generally, of seeking to impose sharia as the law of the land. http://www.weeklystandard.com/blogs/lee-smith-sharia/ (Sharia is the code of law based upon the Qur'an.)  This is an utterly implausible objective, because it has no remote chance of success. Despite its implausibility, it provokes popular outrage.

Political dividers conflate moderate American Muslims with the murders of 9/11.

They assert, in defiance of fact, that the moderate Muslims behind the proposed Manhattan mosque plan it as a triumphal monument to the 9/11 attack.
http://boston.com/news/nation/articles/2010/05/25/nyc_community_board_oks_ground_zero_mosque_plans/ They portray these moderate Muslims as cartoonish villains sinisterly conniving to torment America in its midst.

They accuse the Muslims among us of plotting world hegemony. http://michellemalkin.com/2007/03/08/gingrichs-baggage-gotten-on-my-knees/ In fact, our Muslims neighbors mostly share more modest goals with the rest of us: to live in peace, to win such prosperity as we can, to raise and protect our families, and to worship the god of our forbears.

Making Muslims a wedge issue serves the politics of division.

Not only Muslims but any minority might be placed as a bet in the political game of wedge issues. Hispanic infants have become fabled “anchor babies” – not conceived for the usual reasons of love or family or slipshod birth control. According to this political urban legend, these babies are products of calculation, conduits when they achieve adulthood for their parents’ citizenship. This fable floats in an evidentiary vacuum. It inflames a certain kind of White voter.

And, of course, the joining in marriage of two persons of the same gender continues to sunder the nation.

b. Provocative language.

Political dividers deploy provocative language.

“Liberal” no longer evokes sufficient loathing. Now, they use “socialist”, evoking the Soviet Union’s Vladimir Lenin and Venezuela’s Hugo Chavez. Minimal familiarity with these tyrants illuminates these tyrants’ tactics, which go far beyond what any American politician could inflict upon an American public accustomed to freedom, due process, and electoral power. Anyone who knows of these tyrants cannot rationally equate them with any American political leader. But political dividers exploit an un-critical audience with their incendiary language.

“Tyranny” is a vogue word. In its current usage, it purports to describe the actions of the party in power, which exercises its prerogative after a majority of Americans democratically put them in the White House and in the majority in Congress. This definition of “tyranny” defies any dictionary. But it provokes loathing. It implies illegitimacy. It stokes a sense of grievance. So political dividers use it.

c. Lies.

Political dividers lie.

It is hard to argue against making health care universal, so that sick people don’t die because they are poor. So opponents of health-care reform invented “death panels”, because “death panels” sounds vile. Death panels were imagined, not legislated. The fabled “death panels” provision of the health-care-reform bill merely paid Medicare doctors when they performed an ordinary, otherwise-unpaid responsibility. That was to help seniors make advance end-of-life decisions, so not to burden their family with those decisions if they themselves became incapacitated. http://www.factcheck.org/2009/08/palin-vs-obama-death-panels/

d. Shouting down democracy.

The oracles of division disrupt democratic processes. Democracy can’t happen if its voices cannot be heard. So democracy suffered at open forums on health-care reform when speakers were shouted down. In miniature, the same thing happens when TV pundits loudly talk over each other to keep each other from expressing a point. This tactic divides us by ensuring that robust, open debate cannot anneal division. It insinuates that some opinions should not be heard.


3. De-legitimization.

One objective of these tactics is to de-legitimize the opposition.

People disagree. That is part of democracy. Though there is large consensus in our democracy – think about all the basic things we generally agree on – debates roll, and sometimes they rage. To say someone is wrong does no harm to democracy; debate nourishes democracy.

But de-legitimization repudiates nourishing democratic disagreement by repudiating those who disagree. It demonizes opponents. It divides and destroys.

De-legitimization lies beneath claims that the President is Kenyan by birth – even though his Honolulu-newspaper birth announcements can be examined by any blogger, citizen, news organization, or random rabble-rouser.

De-legitimization lies beneath claims of dreaded socialism.

De-legitimization lies beneath claims of tyranny.

Disagreement is an American tradition, as American as the Lincoln-Douglas debates. De-legitimization is the opposite of Lincoln-Douglas. It is House Committee on Un-American Activities territory – a territory to which political dividers would exile mainstream leaders, media, and innocent fellow-citizens.


4. A grassroots solution.

We must not tolerate these toxic practices in ourselves or in our own leaders. And we must take grassroots measures to moderate these practices.

a. Engaging.

We must engage our brother-and-sister Americans in non-judgmental civic discourse. We can do this in common areas of condominiums, over coffee in kitchens, in break areas at work, on social networks like Facebook, or in any other forum.

We must defy the temptation to mix only with the like-minded. That habit is reassuring, and it soothes the spirit, but ultimately it inhibits the grassroots free-flow of information and ideas. And that free-flow is oxygen to democracy.

When we participate in civic discourse, we necessarily imply that we are willing to be persuaded as well as to persuade.

And civic discourse serves a purpose beyond persuasion per se. Civil, respectful engagement interrupts the demagogues' claim that decency reposes in only one side. To civilly, respectfully engage undercuts demagogues and dividers.

b. De-legitimizing the de-legitimizers.

We must de-legitimize the de-legitimizers. We can do so in various ways.

I mentioned interrupting the claims of demagogues by practicing civil civic discourse. When we are reasonable and decent, we prove that we are not what the de-legitimizers say we are.

We also can de-legitimize the de-legitimizers by respectfully but firmly rejecting incendiary labels, for ourselves and for our leaders.

And we de-legitimize the de-ligitimizers by speaking the truth in the face of falsehoods. As Justice Louis Brandeis said: “Sunlight is said to be the best of disinfectants; electric light the most efficient policeman.”

c. Being informed.

We must be informed. Effective civic debate requires knowledge. We must be more than opinion.

This takes effort. Being an informed citizen requires more than listening to pundits opinionate. I don’t mean to hector. But sustained effort can convert a chore into a hobby. After a time, the pursuit of political knowledge begins to match the pleasure with which many of us hoard sports knowledge.

To stay informed, I like the New York Times: http://www.nytimes.com/. I subscribe to magazines such as The Atlantic Monthly, The New Republic, The New Yorker, The Economist, Rolling Stone, and Foreign Affairs. Some of these are surprisingly cheap.

There are also non-partisan fact-checking websites that scrutinize political claims and counter-claims. For example, http://www.factcheck.org/ is published by the Annenberg Public Policy Center. Also, http://www.politifact.com/ is published by the St. Petersburg Times. It won a Pulitzer Prize in 2009.

d. Minding the higher objective.

We must keep in mind our higher objective. When we debate, of course we want to persuade. But in divisive times, the higher object must be to cultivate goodwill among people we disagree with. Goodwill among adversaries fortifies democracy, and the importance of a robust democracy dwarfs the importance of success on any particular issue or issues

A conservative friend of mine once boasted that, in Supreme Court case conferences among his fellow justices, conservative justice Antonin Scalia wins every argument. The rejoinder is the question: but did he persuade? The two are not the same. Scalia might undermine his powers of persuasion by his highly readable but highly scathing dissents. Contrast Scalia with epochal chief justices like John Marshall and Earl Warren. Their greatness lay in their ability among politically-divergent colleagues to produce unanimous opinions on controversial issues.

Goodwill is our goal; but goodwill and persuasion go together.


5. Conclusion.

No President presided over a more divided time than Abraham Lincoln. Nor did any President speak greater words of reconciliation than he did. These words are from Lincoln’s First Inaugural Address, delivered when hatred and opposition rent the nation:

We are not enemies, but friends. We must not be enemies. Though passion may have strained, it must not break our bonds of affection. The mystic chords of memory, stre[t]ching from every battle-field, and patriot grave, to every living heart and hearthstone, all over this broad land, will yet swell the chorus of the Union, when again touched, as surely they will be, by the better angels of our nature.

 This must be our maxim.

We should also, of course, remember Abraham Lincoln’s resoluteness. Speaking reconciliation, he also waged war. Personal decency therefore does not imply weakness or tepid opinions.

We can have it both ways. We can dedicate ourselves to our principles, pursuing them relentlessly, modifying them only for good reason. But we can pursue our principles with decency, we can pursue our principles with civility, we can pursue our principles without breaking bonds of affection with our adversaries of good will. We can reforge broken bonds.