com·i·ty /ˈkämədē/

1. Courtesy and considerate behavior toward others.

I was perusing a magazine the other day and one article’s headers popped: 1. There’s never an excuse for bad manners. 2. History smiles kindly on quiet resilience. 3. It also enjoys a good joke. 4. Know when to leave the party. I did laugh because the article turned out to be a history lesson and did reference the famously boorish orange citizen it implied. Now that the Twitter temperature has been turned down, can America step away from the screen to embrace our better natures?

Civility, deference, cordiality, honesty: when, exactly, did these traits we used to admire and embrace begin to be denigrated in the American culture as weaknesses? How do we adjust the narrative? How do we counteract the fear that led to tribalism and embrace the olive branch of normalcy that has been extended? How do we inspire the bravery in our leaders and each other to enforce the rebuilding of social infrastructure and “social commons: public libraries, public universities, public events, civic society, environmental consciousness (see ‘Comity Rising’)?”

We have come through a tremendously trying year. Even after losing so many and facing great economic and existential challenges, so many rose to support others with grace and goodwill. In this issue our authors address the reemergence of the idea of comity in both civil and governmental ways; the issues of inequity and social safety nets; human connection across barriers–generational, social, racial; the interconnectedness of species; the philosophy of America’s founders; and the need to name the ideologies that prevent comity from thriving. 

 

Non-violence leads to the highest ethics, which is the goal of all evolution. Until we stop harming all other living beings, we are still savages. -Thomas Edison, inventor (11 Feb 1847-1931)

This is a posthumous article from one of the leadership team of the organization On the Commons. “At On the Commons, we believe it is possible to remember, imagine, and create a society that goes beyond the constructs and confines of individual ownership. To work on the commons is to work to enliven the deep and ancient memory we all hold of egalitarian and reciprocal relationship, of belonging, of authentic community, and of love, wonder, and respect for the natural world.” This blog entry was posted November 5, 2009. Strange how little has changed. — Ed.

 

 

It was a lovely Indian summer afternoon in Minnesota and I enjoyed an invigorating bike ride from my home in Minneapolis to the public library in the nearby suburb of Edina where I talked about the commons to a group of senior citizens studying environmental sustainability as part of a lifelong learning program through the University of Minnesota. It struck me that this experience was a happy alignment of many examples of social commons: public libraries, public universities, public events, civic society, environmental consciousness, lifelong learning classes and even the brilliant reds and golds of the trees I pedaled past.

I speak frequently to groups large and small about the commons and must admit it that my reasons are partly selfish. I enjoy the applause, of course, but even more than that I relish the thoughtful questions from the audience. They challenge me to think deep and wide about how a commons-based would really look. And they almost always teach me new things on the subject.

Today, for instance, a woman inquired about the connection about the word commons and the word “comity.” I’ve come across that word a few times through the years but had to confess to the room that I did not know what it meant.

She explained, with help from others in the audience, that it meant civility, a sense of courteousness to others.

“That sounds like the commons to me,” I declared, and called upon the next questioner, who I hoped, would bring up a topic that I did know something about.

Upon arriving home, I decided to make use of that great commons, the internet, to further explore the word. I discovered that “comity” is a rich little piece of the English language. Wikipedia focuses on its legal meaning of reciprocity—“the principle that one jurisdiction will extend certain courtesies to other nations (or other jurisdictions within the same nations).”

But what really intrigued me was the definition at Merriam-Webster’s Online Dictionary: “a: friendly social atmosphere: social harmony b: a loose widespread community based on common social institutions.”

Now that sounds like what many of us are longing for in this era of isolation, fragmentation, and helter-skelter lives where nothing we do seems to fit together in any natural way. A “friendly social atmosphere” and “common social institutions” seem the recipe for happiness and belonging to something bigger than ourselves.

I especially love that Merriam-Webster traces “comity” back to a blending of the Old Latin word “comis” (courteous) and the Sanskrit word “smayate”(he smiles).

Another site suggested that it was a word once commonly known to well-read people, but it has gradually disappeared from use today. Well, that lets me off the hook for not knowing the meaning when a number of retired people in the audience did. But it makes me glumly wonder if we discarded the word because we have for gotten the idea itself.  In the mad rush toward privatized lives and the market as the main focus of our entire culture, we’ve lost our sense of “social harmony” and “loose widespread community.”

But a great thing about social commons—of which the English language is a vivid example—is that they are never completely lost. We can recover the word “comity” and proclaim it loud and proud in our efforts to rest or a sense of convivial cooperative to our lives.

Comity is rising again!

 

I learned about fascism at my father’s knee. He explained to me that he was not a pacifist because some forces in the world had to be fought. Fascism was one such force and he enlisted in World War II because of it. He was subsequently wounded on a beach in France, earning a Purple Heart medal from the U.S. Army. My father was not a man who glorified his memories of the War. But he did teach us that like the swastika, the ‘goose step’ march of the Nazis was one to disdain.

The alt-right frightens me, as a Jew and as a woman. According to the Southern Poverty Law Centre, the alt-right is a set of far-right ideologies, groups, and individuals whose core belief is that ‘white’ identity is under attack by multicultural forces using ‘political correctness’ and ‘social justice’ to undermine white people and their civilization.

This fear runs deep, disturbs me to the core. White supremacy and the alt-right are dangerous ideologies and their impact is growing. The views and actions they espouse are reminiscent of Nazi Germany, an unsafe place for Jews, women, homosexuals, disabled persons and the Roma. Anyone thought to be different was victimized.

While I do not walk down the street in fear, they are not far away. It is not just an American or European phenomenon. The alt-right is present here in Canada – and not only on social media. There are 6,660 right-wing extremist channels, pages, groups and accounts across seven social media platforms operating in this country. They use the internet to construct collective identities that are reinforced and mirrored by others of like mind. There’s been an increasing number of hate crimes in Canada, linked to far-right ideologies that demonize Muslims and Jews, as well as immigrants, Indigenous people, women, LGBTQ communities and other minority groups. The alt-right fascist ideology intensifies misogyny, sexism and racism via the intersection of social identities such as race, gender, class, religion, nationality and sexuality.

In examining the strength of the alt-right, it is instructive to note the fact that many started out as a men’s rights activists. Some were prodigious bloggers. The linkages between misogyny and the alt-right are worth exploring and interestingly, the Southern Poverty Law Centre labels men’s right activists as hate groups.

Men’s rights activists say that men are suffering and it is women’s fault. Men as a group are subjugated and women should be punished.  The incel movement is characterized by men’s insecurity, sexually and otherwise. They are anti-feminist. The word incel is short for “involuntarily celibate,” a term used by those who feel they’ve been cheated out of their confidence and masculinity by women who have refused to have sex with them.

It is, perhaps, important to recognize this vulnerability — to have empathy for these men. But that only goes so far, in my opinion. It may explain their extreme hatred of women, but it does not excuse it. And there are other significant linkages.

Extreme misogyny and white supremacy aren’t just analogous, they’re entangled. Both see increased demands for equality, whether it’s Black Lives Matter or the #MeToo movement, as coming at the deadly expense of the privileged group — white people or men, respectively. 

Other parts of the alt-right focus on this related issue of white supremacy. One leader says “diversity is the code word for white genocide”. Other leadership figures chime in that they need an ethno-state. They mean white people only. And one of Canada’s own alt-right leaders, Lauren Southern, claims that “non-whites should assimilate or go home”.

Men’s right activists speak of taking the “red pill”, awakening to the “truth” that the power structure is, in fact, flipped on its head, and that it’s not women who are the victims of sexism, but men, who they think face unjust family courts and false rape accusations.

The idea that women are the ones who face discrimination and disenfranchisement is, in their minds, the greatest deception of all, concocted in order to create a protected class for women to elevate their social status and shield them from criticism or repercussion.

The election of Donald Trump to the presidency in 2016 and the resurgence of white nationalist organizing brought the white supremacy of the alt-right to the fore around the world, including Canada, but misogynist extremism has endured at the movement’s core. And the ideology of incels, men’s rights and the red pill advertises itself as the rejection of dominant culture. But violent misogynist extremism can’t be addressed without first dealing with the misogyny in our dominant culture that feeds that ideology.

Just before Alek Minassian rammed his vehicle in an attack that occurred on April 23, 2018, along Yonge Street through the North York City Centre business district in Toronto, Ontario, Canada, he released a manifesto praising another misogynist killer. The driver targeted pedestrians, plowing down innocent people in his path, killing 10 and injuring 16, some critically. The attack is characterized as revenge for perceived sexual and social rejection. He was rebelling against what he saw as the domination of women. Eight of the ten deceased victims were women. This act, and others like it, are like snapshots into the motivation of the alt-right. It is a scary business. Why does it make me so antsy?

A recent brush with anti-Semitism comes to mind. One night in Argentina, my partner and I were having dinner with our host family and some of their friends. In the context of a wide-ranging conversation touching on the cost of making real estate deals in different countries, another dinner guest says in Spanish, “You know, it takes two Dutchmen to make a Jew.” We must have looked surprised and rather dismayed, not quite believing the remark had been made. Without skipping a beat our host, a distinguished retired university professor, repeats the comment in English, to ensure that we fully catch the meaning. We are appalled. Struggling to converse in our intermediate level Spanish, neither of us says anything. The moment quickly passes, conversation skips to some other topic. No notice is made of the blatantly anti-Semitic remark. Nor of our host’s odd snap decision to reinforce it.

After dinner we retire to our bedroom, right across the hallway from our hosts’. In hushed tones, unsettled and still in shock, we search for more solid ground. Do we tell them that the remark has made us uncomfortable, that it reflects a view of Jews and money that is stereotypical and unacceptable?

In this spectacularly beautiful and remote corner of northern Patagonia, how do we account for the ugly stain the remark has made? Do we report this otherwise charming, refined gentleman to the language school where we are studying? What is to be gained from calling out our hosts and possibly losing the roof over our heads? What is lost by not speaking out?

I experience a strange sensation. I feel unsafe. With a full-on imagination spurred by World War II movies, I picture our host in an SS uniform, complete with jackboots and strutting behaviour. After all, Argentina was a prime destination for thousands of Nazi war criminals and other fascists as the war came to a close. I recognize the exaggerated nature of my thoughts and resolve to keep them at bay. They are not helpful. I did not speak up in that situation, and wish now that I had. I believe that not speaking out only reinforced the original negative message.

In a related vein, the expression of male rage during the January 6, 2021 siege of the U.S. Capitol building, evoked strong feelings. Like many, I felt a kind of bodily fear watching the protesters. In a conversation with my psychotherapist we identified that extreme male rage as a feature of my childhood. In reaction to it I had learned to be vigilant. To walk on eggshells around my father who could storm about, to want not to provoke that out-of-control behaviour.

The protesters at the Capitol building were also motivated by rage, some taking up space that was not theirs to take, like the goon who splayed his legs out over House Speaker Nancy Pelosi’s desk. And so, I begin to understand my reaction to the alt-right as something carved deep in my core. The actions of the white supremacists trigger my fear and desire to protect myself from violent expressions of anger.

Perhaps this is the missing nugget of truth that impels me to act against the alt-right.

It is not just that white supremacy makes my skin crawl. It does and we also have to come together to combat it by working with labour, groups in civil society and youth to make the alt-right less attractive to people who feel disenfranchised. A new collective politics must be forged if we are to dismantle unequal power relations and domination and effectively thwart the far right from gaining further ground. I don’t know all the elements of this politics, but am convinced that the first step is naming the insidious ideology wherever it appears. It is with this in mind that I will not be silenced again.

 

 

 

Review of The Amateur Scientist’s Notebook: Poems by Jesse DeLong.
Reno, Nevada: Baobab Press, 2021. Paper, 62 pages. $16.95.

 

            Florets, phosphorus, birds, water, and light are recurrent images in Jesse DeLong’s debut collection, The Amateur Scientist’s Notebook: Poems, which explores the evolving dynamic of a couple, a man and a woman, whose complicated connection to each other is embedded in earthly ecosystems in a universe where interactions are driven by the fundamental forces: gravity, the weak force, the strong force, and electromagnetism. It’s an ambitious collection characterized by turns with beauty, clarity, and intricacy.

            A floret is a one of the small flowers that make up a composite flower head, such as that of a sunflower. So too, the individual poems in The Amateur Scientist’s Notebook are like florets that make up the collection. The first poem is called “Florets,” and it is shortly followed by “Floret as Water,” “Floret as Phosphorus,” and “Floret as Bird.” “Florets” begins with these lines:

            The struggle of scale begins
            in a sunflower. Floret: sharp of petals, stem-bright,
 
            it starts—to fill air, to feed earth, to forge
            from root to flower
 
Thus, a sunflower, the poem, the book, and a story of two people all begin.

            To understand DeLong’s poems, it helps to know what phosphorus and its cognates are. Phosphorus, atomic number 15, is an element that does not occur naturally in the free state because of its great reactivity but is essential for life, where it is found primarily in the phosphate ion. When elemental phosphorus is isolated in the laboratory, it gives off a glow called phosphorescence. A phosphor is a synthetic substance that emits a similar glow. All of this is relevant to DeLong’s poems: the terms phosphorus, phosphate, phosphorescent, and phosphor are abundant in The Amateur Scientist’s Notebook. DeLong deftly weaves the science into the poems both as metaphor and as fact. In “Floret as Phosphorus,” he says, “…When you draw close / I feel phosphorus & not phosphor,” i.e., he feels both himself and his beloved to be the real thing, not a simulacrum, and their love is phosphorescence, not an imitation light.

            The book includes a nine-poem sequence called “Fieldguide to the Southeastern Idaho Phosphate District.” In addition to being found in the DNA and RNA of all living things, phosphate occurs in some rocks and can be mined for use in fertilizers. Historically, phosphate mining has been extremely destructive to the environment, leaving behind open pits and waste rock dumps and also contaminating streams with selenium that ultimately kills both wildlife and animals such as horses and sheep. In DeLong’s poems, a damaging relationship unfolds in a damaged land. From “[Structural Setting of Bird & Phosphor]”: “I am not who you think I am & so I hurt you. You are not who I think you are & so you hurt me.”

            DeLong often addresses his beloved as “bird.” In “Floret as Bird,” a six-part poem, he tells her, “Bird,   know / the birds are      feasting.” In the final section, when he sees two cardinals ruffling their wings against each other and knocking each other down, he says, “Tell me we will never be / those birds.” Throughout the book, actual birds surround the humans: “Birds forage for seeds” and “birds bleat” (“Floret as Water”); “A platoon of birds, so large they cover the canopy, lift from the field & demand the sky” (“Table 2.1”); “A bird gongs on the after-autumn air” (“On Uprooting”).

            Water, a basic necessity of life, is also necessary to these poems. In them, we see river water, pond water, trough water, storm water, glasses of water, and the “water-worn pages of a book” (“On Air & Angels: The Reconciliation of Twos”). But water can be dangerous as well as sustaining, and humans, whose bodies are mostly water, can

drown in our own
flesh.
We, bloated & barely
breathing, begin to
surface here. (“The Aether Notes”)
 
            The florets, phosphorus, birds, and water within the poems, as well as the poems themselves, are woven together with light: “Bird, I light a lamp” and “phosphorus, water & light. A sunflower / bound of small flowers blooming in the sun” (“Florets”); “See, a man steps into the net of lamplight. / He holds a glass of water…” and “A disoriented swallow / flies around a lighted window, exhausted” (“Floret as Phosphorus”).

            In The Amateur Scientist’s Notebook, the forces of the universe become embodied in human interactions. In the prose poem, “Newton & the Law of Celeste’s Body,” Celeste explains gravity to Newton: “Attraction…is controlled by the strength of a body & its proximity to another. If a girl is closer…her force is stronger.” In “The Aether Notes,” the electroweak force (which combines electromagnetism with the weak force responsible for some types of radioactive decay) and the strong force (which holds atomic nuclei together) become the characters the Electroweak (the poet’s girlfriend) and the Strong (a man she speaks to at a bar). DeLong concludes that the forces “are all different aspects / of the same phenomenon—love.”

            In addition to lineated poems, prose poems, and hybrid poems with lineated and prose components, The Amateur Scientist’s Notebook includes two poems constructed in the form of tables, “Occurrence of Phosphorus Intermediates in Florets” and “Table 2.1.” Like the other poems in the book, these two poems combine human concerns with science in the context of particular ecosystems. “Table 2.1” shows greenhouse gases woven into the fabric of everyday life. The table tells us that carbon dioxide increases with fossil fuel burning and deforestation. It also describes DeLong’s father working as a logger. Similarly, after showing that chlorofluorocarbons are found in “refrigerators, foam / insulation & packing, / previously spray cans,” the table presents the poet’s little brother spraying a ladybug with Lysol while his father loads a broken refrigerator into the back of a truck. The table continues with information on the sources of methane and nitrous oxide in ecosystems and examples of how these gases have fit into the lives of the poet’s family members.

            The Amateur Scientist’s Notebook brings to mind Theodore Roethke’s greenhouse poems and Muriel Rukeyser’s The Book of the Dead, with its melding of science, the environment, and human disaster. The collection gives us florets, phosphorus, birds, water, and light, along with forces, logging, ladybugs, spray cans, broken refrigerators, and many other objects and elements we encounter in our sojourn on this planet, with its lovely, tattered ecosystems, where the best thing we can find is love.

 

 

—Wisdom and peace can suffer as each generation is inclined to view morality, ideals, and the au courant through its myopic group lens.

                                                             

The two friends, both in their seventies, stood in the parking lot, dazed, ears ringing, and wondering what had just happened. John and Ed had just been run out of the premises once known as Charlie’s Bar. John sighed and recalled how his wife, Helen, had discouraged him from returning to this place.
                                               

Earlier that evening

 “I’m heading to Charlie’s to knock down a couple of cold ones,” John called out to Helen.

“Oh, no you’re not,” Helen yelled back from their bedroom. She joined him at the front door, disguised in a hairnet and white moisturizer mask.

“I’m not, am I?” he asked, bemused, smiling through his gray beard.

For years John and a group of guys he’d known since high school had gotten together the first Friday of every month at Charlie’s Bar. One of them, Jake Spelling, had fallen ill and for the past four months the friends had spent most Fridays at his house or the hospital for Jake’s last days.                  

“No,” she answered, with a soft smile., reaching out to touch his cheek. “Don’t you remember? I mentioned to you that Charlie’s is gone.  It’s called Fusion Wave now.”

“With Jake being sick and all, I guess I forgot.”

“They remodeled. I heard it’s a pretty trendy bar, probably designed to cater to a younger crowd.”

“Maybe,” John said, as he rubbed his balding head, “I’ll check it out.”

“I don’t think you’ll like it.”

John considered that. “I’ve got to go anyway. Meeting Ed there at eight. I mean he’s likely already on his way there. The rest of the guys aren’t making it until next week, our usual first Friday.”

Helen picked a piece of lint off his shirt. “You can meet Ed, but you won’t be going in. I believe it opens at ten.”

“Ten? I’m about ready to hit the hay by then.”

“I doubt it’s your kind of place anymore, anyhow.”

John and Ed arrived at Fusion Wave at the same time.  “Something’s not right. It doesn’t look the same” Ed said. Ed is a tall guy, thin, with a full head of white hair,

“Our beloved Charlie’s has been transformed into Fusion Wave, whatever that means. And the doors open at ten.”

“Well, that’s the end of that,” Ed said, resigned.

“Baloney! We need to see what sidelined Charlie’s. I say we go in at ten fifteen.”

Ed frowned, doubting his best friend, but agreed, and they went for a leisurely dinner and returned at ten fifteen. The windows were tinted like a celebrity’s limo, giving the place an unwelcome appearance. John pulled the door open. Inside it was a lot darker than Charlie’s was, and there was a hazy lavender glow coming from the ceiling. The old mahogany bar was gone, replaced by one that looked like marble or granite. The guys exchanged shoulder shrugs and walked on in. John heard several shouts over the unfamiliar music.

The square cafe-style tables had been refinished and now had tiny amber lights on them. The smell was antiseptic and floral, not the aroma of stale beer that made Charlie’s approachable and, for John, welcoming. They groped the edges of tables until they found an empty one. As they sat, the volume of the music increased. It bored into John’s ears and the bass punched his body like an angry boxer. His instincts screamed: flee this joint and live to hear another day. Ed had his hands covering his ears. John shot him a consoling look. 

Ed leaned across the table and shouted, “Is it time to go yet?”

“Hey, as long as we’re here, let’s have a beer,” John yelled through cupped hands. His friend nodded okay with a forced smile.      

A petite blond server, wearing a tight, neon-blue dress, stopped at their table. “So, are you boys plannin’ to order?” she asked with a sassy smirk.

“Planning’s over. We’re ordering,” John responded. “Please make it a couple of draught beers.”

“Sorry, honey,” she said, with a bit more warmth. “Bottled beer only.”

“Okay. You got Sam Adams?”

She held up two fingers and said, “Two Sam Adams coming up,” giving John a wink as she left.

When the beers arrived, John handed the server ten dollars and waved her away. “Keep the change.”

She hesitated, then broke the bad news that the tab was twelve dollars. He gave her another five. “Now keep the change.”

“Wow,” Ed said. “You can get a six-pack for twelve bucks at the grocery.”

“I guess they need to pay for all the wonderful changes,” John said, with sarcasm coloring the last two words.

“And the decimating decibels,” Ed added with a chuckle.

While it seemed impossible, the music grew louder. John expected the bottles to explode. Or worse, their eardrums. They nodded at each other, got up, and scurried out, two half full bottles of Sam Adams abandoned. As the door closed behind them, John noticed the music level dropped significantly. And was that…cheering?

“As usual, Helen was right. She said we wouldn’t like this place,” John lamented.

                                                          ***

John said goodbye to Ed, but didn’t leave. He sat in his car thinking about the cheers. He sensed there was some monkey business going on and was determined to find out what it was. 

When a twenty-something guy came out, John walked toward him. “Hey, young man, want to make twenty bucks?”

When he got closer, the young guy said, “Dude. I know you. You were one of the old guys who came into the bar a while ago, right?”

“Right you are. But the question stands, are you interested in a quick buck?”

The kid scratched a patch of hair below his lower lip and said, “Sure. What do you need? A ride?”

“No, no. Just information. I think something strange went on while I was in there and I think you probably know what was up.” John folded a twenty lengthwise and held it so it stood up. “Tell me and I’ll give you this crisp twenty-dollar bill.”

“Okay,” the guy replied as he scanned the area. “But you can’t let anyone know I told you, okay?”

“Deal,” John said.

“Well, the manager said that whenever someone with gray hair comes in, we’re supposed to yell, ‘OCA’.”

“What’s OCA?” John asked.

“Oh, yeah. It stands for ‘Old Coots Alert.’ Uh, no offense. That’s the signal for the bar to blast the music. The manager figures old people will then leave. If they do, everyone gets a discount drink, and so everyone cheers. It’s kinda a game.”

“Rather inhospitable,” John groused, under his breath.

“It’s what?”

“Why would they do that?” John asked.

“The manager wants a young crowd and oldsters had gotten in the habit of coming here, because it used to be an old coot’s bar. Uh, again, no offense. So he invented the OCA game.”

“None taken. And was the volume lowered after my friend and I left?”

“Yeah!  Man, you guys hung in there. You bros are McQueen. Most people don’t last more than a minute or so. We could hardly stand it. I thought the speakers might blow any second.”

“Thanks, young man. Here’s your twenty,” John said. “And one more thing. Shave that hair from below your lip. It makes you look silly. Uh, no offense.”

The kid raised a hand to touch the soul patch, as if he’d forgotten it was there, and headed off, tucking the twenty in his pocket.

When John relayed this information to Ed, his old friend listened, mouth agape.

“Well, who wants to pay six dollars a beer anyway,” Ed said. “Good riddance to ’em.”

“Not so fast…” John drawled, rubbing his palms.

“Oh no, Johnny,” Ed complained. “That sly grin never ends well.”

“Thinking of a little plan,” John replied. “You in?”

“Aren’t I always?”

                                                                     ***

John outlined his plan to Ed and then the other six friends in their group. They were all in. So in. Ages ago they’d worked together on a high school team and they were about to do it again. They had a mission. They called themselves commandos.

The Commando Coots assembled outside Fusion Wave twenty-one hundred hours. Those with hearing aids turned them off. Those without them put cotton in their ears. At precisely twenty-two thirty hours, they marched in. Just past the door, there were hollers from the opposing forces, followed by an assault of music. The team had  been briefed with this intel, no one broke ranks. 

They maneuvered to a large table and established a base camp. A barrage of even louder music sprayed across them like shrapnel, and they hunkered down and readied themselves for more. It was their OCA. The ‘Old Coots Attack!’ was underway.

Intelligence reports had revealed that beer bought by the bucket was cheaper. When his eyes adjusted to the low light, John saw the blond server. He ordered provisions, two buckets, and gave her the wink. As expected, the enemy fire escalated, shaking drink glasses. Communications were maintained with hand signals. As the onslaught continued, all eight grinned and tapped feet to the beat as they had done during practice exercises. The siege was on, and they were prepared to weather rising decibels until bottles, mirrors, and designer cocktails shattered.

Several guys in their twenties were sitting at a nearby table. A tall, muscular one waved and yelled, “How you like the music?”

“Love it!” the eight Coots yelled back in a rehearsed chorus. “Woot! Woot!”

“No need to use the old hearing aid,” Ed shouted, as he smiled and pointed at his right ear. 

A few patrons seemed annoyed by the deafening music and left. The opposition was losing heart! The Coots kept smiling and tapping. A guy who looked like the manager came out of a door behind the bar. He surveyed the crowd and when he spotted the Coots, he glared.

John leaned over and spoke into Coot Magursky’s ear. “He’s trying an intimidation tactic. Let’s return fire.”

Magursky grinned, reached under the table, and pulled out a large piece of white cardboard folded in the middle. He opened it and lifted it above his head, facing the manager. It read: “LOUDER PLEASE.”

The manager shook his head and disappeared into the office. And it got louder, but it sounded less like music and more like a loud kazoo band on speed. That didn’t last long. Two speakers blew, and the kazoo band was replaced by two barking dogs on megaphones. Customers began screaming. Most ran for the door. But not the Coots. Suddenly it was silent. Victory!

Ed looked at John, eyebrows raised, eyes saying, “You did it again ‘ol buddy.”

With the mission completed, John proposed a toast. “You know Jake Spelling would’ve loved to be a part of this.” John raised a bottle in the air. “Here’s to Jake!”

The Coots shouted, “Here, here,” and clicked bottles together. They began swapping stories, as they always did.

A stocky fellow, with a crewcut, at the young fellows’ table yelled over to them, “We sure miss the music. How ‘bout you guys?”

“Us too,” Ed replied, glancing at John. “We mainly come here for the music.”

“We didn’t see you guys dancing,” a skinny young guy chirped.

“Thanks for the invitation, but not right now,” Magursky shot back.

The young guys laughed at their skinny friend and poked his ribs. Red-faced, Skinny attempted to recover. “Don’t disrespect us, dude, we’re here with this town’s greatest high school quarterback ever.”

Magursky smiled and leaned toward Skinny. “Cool, cool. Don’t get all flustered. We always respect what should be respected. So who is this stud player? We all played a little football in our day.”

Skinny placed a hand on the shoulder of the tall muscular guy. “I’ll have you know that this here is Greer Stanton, the best damn quarterback in the history of Worthington High.”

Greer stood up and took an exaggerated bow. The boys gave him wild cheers, like a Karaoke crowd gone wild.

When the cheering stopped, Ed muttered, “That’s not true.”

A loud indignant “What?” came from a young guy with a ponytail.

“I’ll say it again,” Ed said louder. “Your friend isn’t the greatest quarterback who ever played at Worthington.”

“You want to put your money where your mouth is,” Ponytail challenged. “Old man?” 

“The heck with money. When it comes to my mouth, I’d rather put some of your beer in it,” Ed answered, standing. “Our table will bet yours three buckets that your claim that Greer is the best quarterback to play for Worthington is wrong.”

The younger group was taken aback and huddled to discuss the proposition.

“You. Are. So. ON!” screeched Skinny. Another youth-group cheer.

“Are you youngsters ready for a field trip?” Magursky said to the other table.

“Like what kinda field trip? Boy Scouts or Mars?” Greer asked. “Where’re we going?” 

“Just follow us. It’s not far,” Ed replied.

En masse, they left the bar and the old walked with the young on a street lined with weathered brownstones. Falling moonlight spread across the group, creating a shadow army on the gray pavement. A young couple with a baby sat on front steps eyeing this strange band passing through their neighborhood. “What are they up to?” they must have wondered. “Can gang members be that old?”

They reached the old high school, now vacant since a new school had been built two years before. Ed shined a flashlight through a gymnasium window. Everyone crowded forward putting hands and foreheads on the glass to stare at the light focused on a wall. It revealed a chart on the wall titled ‘Football Hall of Fame,’ which hadn’t yet been moved to the new school.

The chart listed every position, and the best three players of all-time. And Skinny was right about Greer being an outstanding quarterback. There he was, on the quarterback list. When the boys spotted his name, they shouted and slapped Greer’s back. But Ed pointed out that Greer was second on the list. 

“Who’s that guy listed first—Johnny Ballentine? Never heard of him,” Ponytail said, a scowl twisting his face.

“You’re standing right next to him,” Ed said, as he gestured toward John. “Meet Johnny Ballentine, greatest quarterback in Worthington High history.”

“See the tight end rankings,” John said. “At the top of the list is Jake Spelling, a buddy we lost last week.”

“Sorry to hear about your friend,” Greer said.

“You guys have been friends forever,” Ponytail added.

“You can count on old friends,” Ed replied.

Walking back to Fusion Wave, they learned that each group’s team had won the county championship. They traded football stories, enhanced by time, but readily appreciated by gridiron comrades.      

When they walked into the bar, there was the yell. The music system had been repaired and it ramped up. When Greer entered, he trotted over to the manager, looked him in the eye and said, “Turn that mess down now, bro!” The manager nodded in agreement. “And bring three buckets to my dudes.”

           

 

“For much of our history as a nation, we took great pride in telling the truth. We had an American culture that held truth telling, individual honesty, and personal integrity as an expectation and a source of pride. We paid honor to people who were so honest that their word was their bond —and one of the most dangerous things you could do would be to accuse someone of lying, because people in many American communities would fight anyone who questioned their integrity and honor. We told the truth to each other and we expected people to tell the truth to us. Our leaders took great pride in their reputation for honesty and truth telling — and leaders could very easily lose significant levels of support if they were ever caught in a lie of any kind.”—Institute for InterGroup Understanding

 

In recent times, facts, truth, and honesty have been manipulated in the culture and the media, to the point where their interpretations have become hard to define. Truth is complicated and personal – it’s not black and white. Truth is based in experience. Further, truthfulness and honesty are not the same things. Honesty means not telling lies. A criminal defense lawyer, for example, must be honest but he doesn’t have to be truthful—he has no obligation to tell the defendant’s whole story.

In society we sometimes mistake honesty for the truth, because we all tend to see ourselves as the standard for the truth about reality. We assume we’re unbiased. We assume we are objective. But we are influenced in our perceptions by people who are like-minded. Therefore, truth can be, in fact, subjective. Facts are true by definition and empirical observation. They are objective states.

People present the truth in the best possible light to make their own points and sell their own point of view. The underlying expectation is that what a person says is actually what they believe to be true. The implication is that what they say is true because their opinion is reinforced by evidence-based fact.  

However, in the Art of War, Sun Tzu advocated integrity relative to your own troops and weaponizing duplicity and skillful deception as one tool in an arsenal to defeat an opponent.

“That is not a good set of behaviors and values for our inter group communications. It might feel emotionally right in the heat of partisan conflict, but it is not a safe and solid pathway for us to go down as a country relative to all of those interactions.” (Ibid)

As a nation, we are drifting down a slippery slope toward a society which utilizes deception to engage our natural instincts about tribal mentality and divisiveness. Rather than basing truth on empirical fact, we are trending more and more toward truth-by-consensus. It is important that we take steps to recognize that manipulation and return to truth- and honesty-based values, behaviors and expectations.  This can start with a conscious effort to model such behavior, because there are aspects of truthfulness: being true to yourself and being true to others.

For this issue, we are looking for writing that explores where truth is open to question in our society. What is the story you tell yourself about who you are? What is your personal statement of belief? How is your social persona different? Every time you revisit a memory, it has already changed. Does that make it less true? What about the external world? How are the lines blurred between technology, reality and fantasy? What about truth in the media (sponsored content, influencers, deepfakes)? How do feel about the level of gaslighting? If we want our society to change, we must shape it ourselves. Let’s start with finding the passionate truth of a well-argued essay or the emotional truth in a well-wrought poem.