"What If I Don't?": Declaring a Major, Authority, and a Trumpian Turning Point

To paraphrase Hannah Arendt, you have one kind of 

authority, the sort relevant for politics, 

when you can tell or order people to do something 

and they do it, without your needing 

to persuade them or threaten them. — Rich Erlich

My first lesson in "Question Authority!" was asking a real question about changing a college major.

             I had entered the University of Illinois (Urbana-Champaign) in Specialized Chemistry, with the goal of becoming a biochemist, and one with a degree from a major institution in the field. The motivation for my decision on a major was in part my name: "Erlich" is the Yiddish variation on "Ehrlich," and I'd grown up on biopics about the famous chemists (in part) Paul Ehrlich, Marie Curie, and Louis Pasteur. 

It wasn't as bad as the lies the movies told about the Indian Wars — which I learned from the US Army had been a time of crime and disgrace for the US Army — but the movies had misled me about the life of a chemist. In the 20^thcentury, chemistry was largely physics and math, and although I did well in school in both, I really preferred words. 

In any event, I'd taken part in a quiet mini-revolt by Specialized Chemistry students who said we'd do like the Chemical Engineering students and take five years to graduate if we had to, but while we were at a major university, we'd try to pick up some more general liberal education, beyond the many required courses in Specialized Chem.

(Eat your hearts out young-folk: Tuition and fees were something like $300 a year or maybe a semester for us — a service charge, actually — with the rest of the cost paid by the generous People of the State of Illinois. [Trust me, I paid them back: with an MA from Cornell, I worked for five years for the U of IL as a teaching fellow, teaching assistant, and "merit instructor" — What did the "merit" mean? About six grand a year less than a real instructor — and made enough to live pretty well on, with some grey-market extra … "emoluments," but still bupkes.)

They later took a 180-degree turn on the matter, but in the early 1960s, the U of I Chem Department didn't want incipient bio-chemists taking biology courses, and my genius adviser — self-taught in literature even as he'd learned to play the cello — couldn't see why I'd need courses in English, my native language. Like, I'd eventually get some literature in my German courses, and I could read on my own … eventually. He well understood I'd have no free time as an undergrad in Specialized Chem.

Anyway, the next semester I took Microbiology 101, the most totally irrelevant history course I could find — "Well we have one that starts in the Neolithic — Paleolithic? — and gets up to Alexander the Great" — and a course known as just "Fiction." And I ended up with an English major and a split minor of Microbiology/History. (The "credentials analyst" said "We've never had one of thosebefore," and kind of assigned me my minor.)

The story here is how I got there.

I liked registering as a Chem major. Student folklore had it that Chem majors had our cards put through the computer right after varsity jocks, and I had pretty much always gotten the courses, sections, and times I wanted. I didn't intend to give that up. Soooo … so when I went into the office of the College of Liberal Arts and Sciences to find out about such things, they told me, "You have to file the paper-work to switch from Chemistry into English." And I asked a crucial question: "What if I don't?"

The answer was that they didn't know since no one hadn't before, or at least that they knew of. They told me to come back "later" and when I asked "When?" they told me just not near the beginning of the semester since they were always swamped with work for the first six weeks or so. So, a couple or three years later, when I was ready to graduate, I waited a while into the semester and went in and declared myself an English Major. And talked with the Credentials Analyst — one of the thousands of little old ladies who actually run many non-military offices — and she officially recognized me as an English Major, with a Microbiology/History minor.

And I learned a crucial lesson for moving farther into the 1960s and beyond, "When someone tells you you must do something, it's often a good idea to ask, "What [will you (try to) do to me] if I don't?"

I later learned from my reading Hannah Arendt and such that Authority is giving an order that people follow, without asking "And what if I don't" and without the authority-figure needing to make any threats. I was prepared for that idea a few years earlier when a couple new-initiate brothers in my fraternity asked me, "What would you have done if you gave us pledges an order and we hadn't obeyed?" And I paused and seemed to think for a moment and replied, "Why … why, that never occurred to me." And then I laughed and told them I was amazed when anyone did what I told them to. And I suggested that they go over to the ROTC unit and watch the regular Army officer and noncoms and (for what not to do) take a glance or two at the more asshole-ish cadet officers. The military pros never raised their voices, were always polite — and gave quiet orders at least giving the impression that it never occurred to them that they wouldn't be obeyed.

And after a couple of asshole moves of my own as a new initiate, I had taken care to keep my orders few and reasonable (with good projection but without "raising my voice") — and when I ordered something unusual and really unpleasant (bailing out our sunken patio and basement dining area during a cloud-burst in the middle of the night, say) I knew to lead the work.

Authority is better than tyranny — much better — and free people must often Question Authority (and listen to hear if there's an answer). Whenever there's a "you must," there must always be the potential for "And what if I don't?"

Which brings me to Donald Trump and these our unfortunate days of much misplaced mistrust of institutions and celebrations of "Bad Boys" and "Wild and Crazy" Gals, in which "macho" can be used as a compliment, where "to disrupt" as a generalized verb is used as a Good Thing, whatever disrupted, and a big part of popular culture teaches that following rules and conventions is for wimps. And where a fair number of Americans accept Donald Trump as a capital "L" Leader, opposed by a Deep State and media who are Enemies of the People, and whose main political opponent should be locked up.

            And who features in photo-ops a portrait behind him of Andrew Jackson. 

            Now I certainly prefer Andrew Jackson to Andrew Johnson (also relevant here) and a lot of politicians, but part of Jackson's legend is the attributed line, that Chief Justice "John Marshall has made his decision" and the U.S. Supreme Court along with him; "now let him enforce it!" And in the folklore that came down to me, though not in historical fact, the association of this line with Jackson as prime mover of "The Indian Removal Act" and "the Trail of Tears." That last part is highly historical and adds weight, in his legend, to Andy Jackson as good ol' populist, keeping his promises to his constituents, whatever the price and pain to other people: probably misapplying a phrase from Rudyard Kipling, the suffering of Other, "lesser breeds without the law."

            So, put the case that Robert Mueller has a Federal grand jury subpoena Trump to testify in a case of great importance to the Constitution and the Republic, and the subpoena controversy gets fought out in the courts pretty quickly up to the Supreme Court of the United States. And said Supreme Court tells Mr. Trump he must testify.

            And if his response is "What if I don't?"

            The first and obvious answer is "There will be a Constitutional Crisis." And if Trump responds that he was elected to shake things up, to by-pass the Deep State and its surface bureaucracy and the mare's nest of laws and regulations and customs that block the will of The People, his people? If he responds that he was elected precisely because he was a manly man like Old Hickory, who wins, in spite of the rules of a game rigged against him? That he is one warlock who will hunt the hunters (assuming that Trump knows what a warlock is and is capable of making a joke about a witch hunt).

            Or consider the possibility that Trump just fires Mueller and much of the Justice Department and pardons everyone in the Trumpian orbit charged with crime, including himself? Who will demand that the President respect the Rule of Law, and how many are willing — in Congress to start with — to offer a vigorous response to a Trumpian semi-rhetorical question, "And what if I just {say 'Screw You All!' and} don't?"

            One major reassurance that the American Republic isn't going the way of the Weimar has been that Trump et al. lack a private militia like Hitler's SA (or SS — though that gets complicated). The Tiki-Torch Trolls from Charlottesville and elsewhere don't seem like a major threat, and if they go up against some militarized police department or National Guard unit, they may find themselves bringing AR-15s to a drone fight. Okay, but the latest incarnation of Blackwater and other mercenary firms are around and ready for work, and in a USA that's well-stocked with firearms and smart phones, "flash mob" could take on dangerous meanings.

            As suggested by a caller to the NPR show 1A, it would be a good idea to gets statistics on support for Donald Trump in the various officer corps of the US military, and among our now all-volunteer rank-and-file. It's even more imperative, I think, to get statistics on the extent and depth of support for Mr. Trump among gun owners and, as a subset, gun owners who feel their primary loyalty is to Trump personally and the (White, Christian, straight, manly) American nation he is making great again, and not to some abstract American Republic and un-studied Constitution.

            The American Left and its allies talk a good game of questioning authority, intervening in discourses, disrupting business, and "Revolution Now!" If Trump asks, "What if I don't?" in obeying basic decencies and the rule of law, he may get strong enough support from the Right to get away with it — possibly through two terms or longer.

            Trump said, "I could stand in the middle of 5th Avenue and shoot somebody and I wouldn’t lose voters." And that may be the case, especially if the shooting victim is Black or Muslim or an Enemy of the People. Certainly, he might offer a whole series of "What if I don't?" responses to demands upon him to obey or enforce the law, or to fulfil a number of boring, wimpy, conventions of everyday decency. 
           And to that question, our Leader and President for Life — or until he gets thoroughly bored — may get get no effective answer.

Allowing Four Lawyers to Marry

         The truly serious issue on marriage in the US and elsewhere isn't on gay marriage as such but the issues implied in Justice Samuel Alioto's asking if four lawyers could marry. 

         The core system on marriage for the last few millennia centers on a sexually reproducing heterosexual couple. And this makes excellent sense if "The world must be peopled!" Over those millennia, society and then the State came to reward heterosexual marriage out of "pronatalist" policy: "People are the riches of a nation," and the idea was to increase the number of people.

         Okay, but what about nowadays, when the world's been peopled and then some, with seven billion of us and counting, and a strain on the environment and on resources? If we want to be less "natalist," we want to encourage arrangements that are not sexually reproductive at all, or less so, but which might allow raising adopted children — plus providing companionship and economic advantage.

         Soooo ... Mr. Alioto perhaps spoke better than he knew. We need to look at alternatives to reproducing couples and we need to rethink the incentives given to people to form reproducing couples and then reproduce. Such rethinking, and then acting, could include shifting tax burdens away from the childless and more toward those overly enthusiastic about reproduction, celebrating Childless People's Day once a year (or twice, to balance out Mothers' Day and Fathers' Day), toning down the praise of families and family values, noting that the nuclear family sucks for raising kids — putting too much burden upon one couple — and moving toward the old extended family.

         I'm not sure I'd like to see four lawyers raising a puppy, let alone children, but we do need to start talking about allowing such relationships the privileges and advantages of married folk.

         And with that we can start our serious arguments over marriage: the mostly economic ones that will seriously question who gets what, just how much, and for how long and for how many offspring.

SCOTUS on Christian Prayer at Town Meetings (6 May 2014)

This much on the early May 2014 ruling by the Supreme Court of the United States allowing specifically Christian prayers to open town meetings:

     First, I'd like to be the 215^th Bible-educated liberal to quote at the Supreme Court Jesus's injunction to pray in private, to wit: “And when you pray, do not be like the hypocrites, for they love to pray standing in the synagogues and on the street corners to be seen by others. [...] But when you pray, go into your room, close the door and pray to your Father, who is unseen. [...] And when you pray, do not keep on babbling like pagans, for they think they will be heard because of their many words" (Matthew 6.5-7).

     As an occasional and selectively-observant Reform Jew of Leftist and religion/State-separatist inclinations, I'll note this much positive in the decision: It should remind politically conservative Jews (and some non-SCOTUS Catholics) that their allies-of-convenience who talk of the USA as "a Christian nation" mean exactly what they say. In this theory — or doctrine — the USA is a nation and that nation is Christian; to be outside the true Church is to be outside of the nation and just a guest on that Christian nation's territory. (And as a nice young student once said to me in [mostly] innocence, "I used to be Catholic, but now I'm a Christian."). A bad possibility that's been brewing for a generation or so is that doctrinal tolerance among the various faithfuls will allow them to work together to impose a vague "nondenominational" religiosity on us all. This Supreme Court decision may help put that off.

     Meanwhile, I suggest that readers suggest to the City Parents of the Town of Greece and similar pious places this highly appropriate, and now perfectly legal, opening for their meetings: "Baruch Atah Adonai, Eloheinu Melech Ha-Olam, asher kid'shanu b'mitzvotav, v'tzivanu la-asok b'tsorchei ha-tzibur." Or, for those of us who don't do Hebrew, "Blessed are You, Eternal our God, Ruler of the Universe, Who has sanctified us with Your mitzvot and enjoined us to occupy ourselves with the needs of the community."

     The next week they might open with this poetic prayer of beginnings:

                     In the Name of God, the Merciful, the Compassionate.
                     Praise be to God, the Lord of the Worlds,                     The Merciful One, the Compassionate One,                     Master of the Day of Doom.
                     Thee alone we serve, to Thee alone we cry for help.                     Guide us in the straight path                     The path of them Thou hast blessed.                     Not of those with whom Thou art angry                     Nor of those who go astray. 

    If your town council aren't much into subtlety, use "Allah," the Arabic for "God."

    I'm dead serious here, people: If we're gonna play, let's play, and — to repeat an obvious suggestion — that means you, too, Scientologists and Satanists, laconic neo-Pagans (though Jesus may've been prejudiced there), and Awaiters of the AI Singularity. Let us make members of that Christian nation welcome as we begin some meetings our way (many of our various Ways).