The Darkness, and the Daylight
In the World Around Us
Note to Subscribers: This piece should have been my ‘Fathers Day’ message of last Sunday, remembering my Dad in a particular way, but I was sidelined by some illness. I’m mostly better now, thanks. - Keel
I remember, with some specificity, the time when I became aware of the wider world - and of people in distant lands with languages and opinions different from my own.
It was not long after my Dad, a WWII vet, had given us a few glimpses of his time overseas and what he had witnessed, endured, survived. Then, on some Christmas, he brought home a short-wave radio which helped me to hear strange voices from other lands.
This device of wonder and great mystery was called a ‘Zenith Trans-Oceanic’ radio, a popular model in its day built like a small suitcase or satchel, and a rigid outer shell. When you opened it, as I proceeded to do everyday for the longest time, the raised lid on the front of the set revealed an array of seven or eight tuning dials. This looked nothing like the simple one dial on my more familiar ‘Hopalong Cassidy’ AM set over there on the bedside table - and these dials did not bring voices like those I heard each evening on Nashville’s local WKDA, WMAK or WSM. No, these were exotic languages from around the globe.
I would not study foreign languages for several years further, not until my early teens in Ms. Charlotte Caldwell’s classroom at Stratford High School, but my Zenith short-wave and the faraway voices it brought out of the darkness were my first introduction to a much larger world.
In reality, most of us live in some dimension of darkness, sometimes in the form of ignorance of our larger planet and its great diversity, and all of it always begs for more daylight. For me in my pre-teens, it became a blessing to learn and hear with my own ears people on the other side of the Earth - and, in time, to read news of their lands and cultures, of their own trials and tribulations.
This was the germ of my present-day interest in the political news of Asia and Africa and of Europe and its dominions, Great Britain, France, Italy, Germany. I have now been to many of these places, as well, and learned for myself how travel becomes its own grounding so relevant to the politics within our own nation (especially now) and even within our own communities (especially now).
The best current examples are the reactionary (or so-called “populist”) risings in Europe that are now seeming to de-stabilize the liberal democracies of France and Italy - and have great relevance to rise of the same energies and politics here in the States. I am uncomfortable with the “populist” term here, inasmuch as their authoritarian leaders or figureheads are opportunists who stoke and seize upon the fears of their own citizens to harness their anxieties to selfish dark ends, as also happens here. Very true for Meloni in Italy, le Pen in France, Putin in Russia - and also true for Trump in our hemisphere, mind you, and his normalization of outrage and hate here at home.
We must see them all clearly, and respond to them with great seriousness, because we have all learned a bit of history too along the way. Or we should have.
I feel a similar impulse when I look around me, even closer to home, with some precincts in Williamson County particularly so. There, worries about the modern world surrounding “our children” have given rise to all manner of extremism: Bans on books, the assertion of Christian nationalism, the no-exception ban on abortion, demonization of gay and trans citizens, and on and on.
Out of this ferment just south of Nashville has risen many oddball characters: To name just two, Governor Bill Lee and state Representative Gino Bulso. In particular, Lee with his long drive to channel significant public monies to private schools. And the maddening way that all modern “Republicans” - either through their outright complicity or with their silence - have fallen in line in the headlong drive to give Donald Trump one more term in the White House.
It’s all connected.
I came to Knoxville from Durham, NC in 1985. At that point, NC was slipping from progressive endeavors (Research Triangle Park, improving public education, etc) towards regressive, right-leaning meanness. There were many similarities already then (Jessie Helms) with east Tennessee, but the magnitude of corruption was daunting; Knoxville politics were dominated by blatantly dishonorable, even illegal actions. Fortunately the judicial forces provided some corrections.
As now, the seduction of regressive voices was confusing: why do so many support politicians & policies that work against most citizens’ well-being? As with Trump & Lee & Blackburn & most Republican state legislators, fear, distrust, & designating adversaries as responsible for the distress are drilled into citizens’ heads & hearts. These negative messages activate the adrenal systems of believers, elevating cortisol levels, inhibiting critical thinking. Stilling frontal lobes, while elevating primitive limbic responses, these distressing messages bring us MAGA madness, anti-democratic decreased public school funding & increased funding for private schools, resistance to increased gun-control measures, denial of climate crisis, etc, etc.
It is all so obvious, and, yet, clearly effective. Christian nationalism - its very name says, “anti-constitutional.” But here we go…
Enjoyed reading your article today. Calling out the folks that make our lives harder and more dangerous. I will never understand the banning of books, taking public school funds to be used in private schools, the no-exception ban on abortion and the demoralization of gay and trans citizens. Plus, the lack of gun control for all citizens. Thank you for your opinions and honesty. Please keep it up.