The Case For (or Against?) Gluten Free Socialism

Last Friday, having failed to pack a lunch and racing between meetings from one side of town to the other, and with nary a fast food drive thru in site, I succumbed to that food of last resort, the 7-11 hot dog. I paired the quarter pound dog, minus the bun per my gluten free lifestyle but slathered in yellow mustard, with a bag of plain potato chips, Snapple, and M&M’s. Arriving at my destination a few minutes before the scheduled start of a 12:00 meeting, I sat down in the conference room and dug in. Someone happened by to use the copier machine and, using the friendly authoritative tone unique to the giving of unsolicited advice to strangers (their status as strangers cancelling out their authority; it remains impossible to have authority over someone whilst being their actual friend, which is why everyone knows you shouldn’t work for your friend or date your boss), extolled me to eat something healthy that night, preferably a mélange of leafy green vegetables, to make up for the disaster of a lunch laying prone on the conference room table.

I played along, even as I fought back the urge to retort “But it’s all gluten free!” This urge had nothing to do with self delusion or denial; I was fully aware of the nutritional contents of both my tube steak and handpicked side dishes. But my unaired protest had nothing to do with the meal set before me. I believed my meal to be healthy because, like life itself, it was constituted by what it lacked, i.e. gluten, which, I have come to be persuaded, is to the gut as smoke is to the lungs.

Although I am beginning to think that I was thusly persuaded in order to satisfy a longing much deeper than the not insubstantial need for some relief from the emotional peaks and valleys of my hypoglycemic carb-loading days. This is related to the notion I slipped in above about lack and its place at the center of the universe. Lest this sound nihilistic, no less a sage than the Kabbalah itself teaches that in order to create the universe, God first, to make room for it, had to absent Him/Herself from the scene. (The gender-inclusive pronouns are mine; not sure where the Kaballah stands on the question of whether God goes to the men’s room or the ladies room, or both.) The Kaballah, from the little I know of it, goes on ad infinitum to explain how despite God’s constitutive absence we nevertheless remain connected through what sounds to me like an elaborate version of the life lines on Who Wants to be a Millionarre? I will leave the parsing of the details on that to the Kabbalists, but the take home message is clear to me. The universe began with God’s absence. We exist because, at least right here and now, God, at least in all His/Her fullness, does not. We are all donuts bent around a primordial lack.

Two of the three Abrahamic faiths, Islam and Judaism, deal with this constitutive lack, at least in part, through their respective halal and kosher dietary laws. Food, especially when there is a plenitude, is the opposite of lack. The cornucopia, on our minds this week as we celebrate Thanksgiving, is the perfect symbol of God spilling over into creation in all His/Her abundance. This sounds like the ultimate good thing, until we remember that it was God’s very absence that made room for us to begin with. At which point the cornucopia is transformed into The Blob, and God’s abundance spilling over into creation, in the form of a table very much like the one we all plan to sit down to this Thursday, threatens to squeeze us into oblivion. Islam and Judaism defuse this threat by inscribing lack into nourishment, placing God at a safe remove under the guise of upholding His/Her law, like parents stealing off to work each day purportedly to put food on the table for their children but really just to get some time away from them.

Christianity, alone among the Abrahamic faiths, makes do without comprehensive dietary restrictions, but for the faint echo heard in meatless Fridays for Roman Catholics. Instead, Christianity made the radical move of inscribing lack on our very persons, in the form of Original Sin. It is perhaps no surprise that the cure for Original Sin, God the Son, made only a brief appearance, exiting the scene before His abundance Blob had time to grow into an existential threat, leaving behind the third member of the Holy Trinity, the Holy Ghost. Ghosts, of course, are pure lack, meaning that Christianity has made all the necessary arrangements for an ongoing surfeit of inner (Original Sin) and outer (Holy Ghost) lack, at least until the Second Coming.

Through its three major religions, western civilization had eased the tensions stemming from its missing foundation, the ground of all being that was, in fact, pure groundlessness. But after several centuries along came capitalism, overturning the “straight and narrow path” of lack’s prohibitions and replacing it with “everything in moderation,” which, if the last 250 years has taught us anything, can only ever lead to everything in excess. Where the three Abrahamic faiths have sanctified lack, capitalism has duped us into thinking we can become our own Blobs, consuming lack out of existence, even as in doing so we feed lack until it has grown into the existential threat that God once was.

People appear to be choosing one of three paths forward:
1. Continue trying to consume lack out of existence until it consumes us,
2. Return to the traditional straight and narrow path of one’s preferred Abrahamic faith, or
3. Like me, cede Christianity (or the Abrahamic faith you happened to be born into) to the Evangelical right (or its Jewish or Muslim equivalent), replacing it with a progressive secularism tinged with individualized spirituality, an arrangement that inevitably proves as unsatisfying as being “friends with benefits.” Then, unwilling to engage in option 1 or 2, reinscribe lack into one’s individualized creed by becoming either vegan or gluten free, and/or socialist, which is just spending most of your time thinking about how much people are lacking.

Personally, I recommend gluten free socialism, although my wife is covering all of her bases by trying to go gluten free (option 3) and become an observant Jew (option 2) at the same time. One thing she doesn’t lack is chutzpah.

Capitalism with Asian Values, American Style

Earlier this week The Washington Post reported that the Dow Jones Industrial Index was approaching an inflation-adjusted all-time high on the same day that NPR’s All Things Considered reported that national approval ratings of our elected government officials in Washington, across both major parties, was at an all-time low. This juxtaposition was striking in that bull markets have for decades been reliable fuel for the signature American optimism. A traditional African saying holds that if you want to know whether or not times are good simply ask “How are the children?”; In America we have more often asked “How’s the economy?”, and we have turned to the numbers on Wall Street to get much, if not all, of our answer.

But the times, as reflected by our general disgust with the folks we have sent to Washington to represent our interests, seem anything but good, even as Wall Street chugs right along. One obvious narrative is that the rich are getting richer, but that has ever been the case. What has changed is the fact that the have-nots, who have always cut the rich some serious slack based on their own caviar dreams, are fed up because not only are they still not rich, now they don’t even have a functioning democracy.

All of which means that the Asian Century is right on schedule, if we understand that the “Asian Century” is a term carefully selected because it is less threatening to the west than the “Chinese Century.” China, of course, is home to a thriving brand of capitalism that has no truck with democracy. This is politely referred to as capitalism with Asian values. Tuesday November 19th, 2013, the day the Post and NPR made their twin reports, marks the beginning of the Asian Century in America, a mere 13 years and change after the putative beginning of the 21st century, making us strangely like Orthodox Christians celebrating Christmas 13 days after December 25th.

Let's Talk About It

As recent revelations that the NSA’s subterfuge includes spying on allies, as in the case of German Chancellor Angela Merkel, and on ourselves, via snooping into the data centers of Google and Yahoo sans court approval, the old adage that “We have met the enemy… and he is us,” has taken on new layers of meaning. More noteworthy, if not at all surprising, is the fact that in my day to day travels since this news hit I haven’t heard a peep about it from anyone, making us, as in the case of the Afghanistan and Iraq wars we collectively discussed only slightly more frequently than the Spanish-American War, our own worst enemies all over again. The few people with whom I have broken the code of silence by asking their opinion have, in so many words, asked me how I could be so daft to express surprise at the headline “Spy agency caught spying.”

I am left wondering why almost no one is thinking about the implications of this, or, if they do stop and think, write the whole thing off as spies being spies, as if this were no different than Manny being Manny or any other version of boys being boys. It may, perhaps, have something to do with the rate at which we broadcast the minutiae of our lives on social media; what can the NSA uncover that I haven’t already posted on Facebook? But it is more deeply rooted in the fact that the vast majority of us wake up in the morning and get the kids off to school, then go to work to make a living so that when the kids get home from school there is food on the table. Even those of us with political leanings towards the outer limits of the bell curve have difficulty imagining that the government could unearth anything more damning than a pattern of checking out books at the library which call into question the current trajectory. My Tea Partying next door neighbor may be checking out the books accusing Obama of socialism while I check out the books wishing he were, but we both have bills to pay. And in a country where credit is as omnipresent as death and taxes, what could be more American than that?

But it is my experience of the credit industry that gives me pause. My wife and I were recently alerted by our credit card company that someone had gotten hold of our credit card numbers and used them to make on-line purchases. The credit card company contacted us because they knew, quite accurately, that my wife and I would never in a million years have made the purchase in question. This is, quite simply, the practice of profiling. And the credit card companies are batting a thousand in their profiling of me and my true love. They have signed off on every single purchase but one in the ten years we have shared an account, even during the years when Jen and I were vying to see whether she could trump my accumulation of tennis racquets (always bought in pairs) with her collection of baby wearing wraps. Maybe the fact that I purchase the same twelve items at Trader Joe’s every single weekend (the gluten free frozen pancakes make up for what they lack in texture with an accurate flavor reminiscent of the idea at the core of the I Can’t Believe It’s Not Butter brand identity) makes me an easy mark for the credit card company algorithms, but one hundred percent is one hundred percent. Socrates’ advice to know thyself rings a little hollow when MasterCard already knows me better than I ever could.

Now if my credit card company has this much of a bead on me, what might the NSA have gleaned from my internet footprints? I am reminded of the Tom Cruise vehicle Minority Report, based on the near future sci-fi story by Philip K. Dick, in which police apprehend criminals prior to the committing of crimes, based on the input of psychics. It is all too easy to imagine a near future in which the NSA, relying, in lieu of psychics, on the pattern seeking software it surely already uses on your Google account, begins making accusations of threat prior to crimes, the precedence for which already exists in the form of the preemptive strikes taken in the aforementioned Iraq and Afghanistan, and in the everyday experience of racial profiling by Black men everywhere. Now imagine taking the stand to defend yourself against a District Attorney who, like my credit card company, is never wrong. In the words of Maryland’s own Stephen L. Miles, criminal defense attorney extraordinaire, “Let’s talk about it,” lest Miles and his ilk be rendered permanently extraneous (making “Save the lawyers” the new “Save the whales”).

When the Forest Goes All Incognito

As I write this, the Jonathan Martin/Richie Incognito imbroglio is reaching a crescendo as the Miami Dolphins, the organization whose workplace is either, in the words of a third Dolphins offensive lineman, Mike Pouncey, home to a “band of brothers,” or, conversely, as toxic as downtown Chernobyl, or, possibly, both simultaneously, take center stage on the national broadcast of Monday Night Football. Among the Martin/Incognito story’s many facets, which have been discussed ad nauseum on every sports radio broadcast I have tuned into during my daily commute for the last week, the element I find most revealing is that when Martin’s agent complained to Dolphins General Manager Jeff Ireland about Incognito, Ireland’s proposed solution was for Martin to punch Incognito in the face.

Ireland’s response tells us exactly how the Dolphins “family,” building on Pouncey’s idea of a “band of brothers,” functions. Ireland, from his position in senior management, is the father who greets his son’s report that the neighborhood bully just bloodied his nose by telling his son to get his butt back outside and not to even think about coming home until he has settled his score with the bully. The countless fathers who have used this approach always believe that they are doing what’s best for their sons, who, for all of the obvious reasons, must learn how to handle themselves. Just so, Ireland thought he was doing Martin a favor when, via his exchange with the agent, he essentially sent Martin back out the front door with his bloody nose.

What is so odd and, ultimately, galling about this scenario is that an organization worth at least half a billion dollars by the most conservative assessments, an organization that pays its players tens of millions of dollars, and its coaches and management millions as well, would ascribe to an ethos that is the product of endemic poverty. The cycle of violence in which a father sends his son out to the streets to sink or swim, desperately hoping that his son will prove just violent enough to swim (too little and too much violence both placing one at risk of drowning), is rooted in streets from which there is literally no way out. Each son thrown to the wolves by his father (for those lucky enough to have a father to do the throwing) serving as one more example of systemic economic injustice playing out one violent episode at a time.

The Miami Dolphins are rolling in money while mimicking the desperate and violent practices of those who have little or no choice, and who have been deprived of that choice through the violence perpetrated by a system set up to benefit the Miami Dolphins of the world at everyone else’s expense. It is the ultimate form of hubris and one we don’t even talk about as we natter on about whether Incognito is a racist bully or if Martin is a mentally unstable wuss. It is exactly where we are at the tail end of 2013, when we have never been less capable of seeing the forest for the trees.

Shut Down Nostalgia

In the condensed timescape of the twenty four hour news cycle, it is now officially appropriate to begin feeling nostalgia for the October government shutdown. We have, it seems, reached the point where the only storyline that captures our collective attention is one of existential threat, which, with the looming specter of federal government debt default, the shut down provided in spades. For just a moment, before House Speaker John Boehner let it slip that he would not, in fact, allow us to welsh on our debt and launch a global economic meltdown on his watch, it was beginning to feel like late 1991 in the Soviet Union. For those of us not out a paycheck this moment was, among many other things, spectacularly entertaining. It was like watching an overtime NFL playoff game, except that instead of the possibility of the end of the road for Ravens Nation (until next season) we were actually witnessing the possible final act for our really existing nation state, without the “just wait ‘til next year” safety net. This made for some real Must See TV, an archaic phrase popularized by the National Broadcasting Company’s dominant Thursday night comedy lineup in the 1990’s, an institution ultimately done in by reality TV. The government shutdown is, of course, nothing but the ne plus ultra form of reality television.

To get a sense of just how entertaining the government shutdown was, one needs only tune in to the news media’s current sky-is-falling narrative account of the difficulties in the implementation of the Affordable Health Care Act. It turns out that “Hey look, Obamacare isn’t working,” isn’t anywhere near as compelling as “Hey look, our way of life hangs in the balance,” although many on the right and many in the media would seek to conflate the two, both judging, perhaps correctly, that doing so is good for their bottom line. But, as I heard Tony Kornheiser say on his radio show the other day in response to Ted Cruz and Sarah Palin’s grandstanding about the World War II Memorial’s shutdown enforced closure, the American people aren’t stupid. As with pornography, we know looming catastrophe when we see it. And, not unlike the eight billion dollars’ worth of porn we consume annually, when we see it we can’t stop watching. (And if that isn’t testament to Freud’s pairing of Eros and Thanatos, the libido and the death instinct, then perhaps nothing is.)

It would be nice to close by saying “Wake me up when Obamacare is as taken for granted as Social Security.” But that presumes a future, one with both a functioning democracy and something resembling a modest social safety net, that was, if I am being optimistic, placed in jeopardy by the government shutdown, or, in my more pessimistic moods, was actually foreclosed by the half-way point of Ronald Reagan’s first term in office. If the latter, then our inability to stop watching the government shutdown was already a form of nostalgia for something long since lost. But since this perspective is simultaneously maudlin, defeatist, and realistic, I choose optimism. In the wake of the government shutdown, and with the full frontal assault on the Affordable Health Care Act in full swing, it may be the peak of naivete to give thanks and exclaim “We just dodged a bullet,” but I prefer the term chutzpah. The only way forward for the left is to have more chutzpah than the right and their corporate media acolytes, who have effectively pronounced Obamacare dead on arrival, to which I can but say “Obamacare is dead. Long live Obamacare!”