January 3, 2017--The Two Faces of Donald Trump

With just two and a half weeks until the inauguration, liberal friends who had calmed down a bit about Donald Trump's election are now again full of anxiety.

And so am I.

I don't think it's contact-anxiety, but the real thing.

I have been urging that we wait and see what kind of president Trump turns out to be. The former liberal Democrat who has been obscuring his core beliefs so as to appeal to a very conservative base. Is he a true representative of angry-white-men or has he become their voice because they have the capacity to elect a president--and just helped to do. Is Trump someone who has more moderate views and for cynical political purposes has been pandering to true believers.

Are his cabinet appointments another appeal to this constituency or will he, once president, tell them what to do and fire them if they don't moderate their previous views.

Trump's ubiquitous tweets may be both a window to his soul or a vehicle to sow confusion about who he really is and what he is likely to do. Being contradictory and unpredictable is one way to exert power.

Take his two New Years. tweets as examples--

The first, a snarky one was posted December 31st at 5:17AM--

Happy New Year to all, including to my many enemies and those who have fought me and lost so badly they just don't know what to do. Love!

The second was posted later that night, right at midnight--

TO ALL AMERICANS--Happy New Year & many blessings to you all! Looking forward to a wonderful & prosperous 2017 as we work together to MAGA [MAKE AMERICAN GREAT AGAIN]

Which is the true Trump?

I suspect both. Which doesn't make things any easier or help get anxiety about him under control.

Do we have a version of a schizophrenic about to enter the White House and have the nuclear codes by his side 24/7? I think not.

But I suspect we have someone of two minds. The first Trump is pure id. The Id-Trump composed the first tweet. It is him at his most puerile, his most narcissistic. He won the election so why is he still obsessing about those who opposed him, those he truly believes are his "enemies"?

To quote a favorite expression from his tweeting--HOW SAD!

The midnight tweet was either written for him by daughter Ivanka or son-in-law Jared Kushner. Or, more hopefully, comes from Trump himself.

In Freudian terms this Trump might be thought of as the Ego-Trump. The Trump who spends at least a little time thinking what to say before lashing out, the Trump still with huge ego-needs but a Trump in control of his emotions who, actually, has the capacity to look beyond himself and reveal a touch of empathy.

Superego? Not ever in evidence.

At best I'm reconciling myself to the idea that he is not as bad as my friends think but minimally, has these dual faces. Both real. And, as these back-to-back tweets suggest, there is a war within him between them, his better angels versus his demons.

Among other things, as someone who also doesn't sleep much, he needs to get seam rest.

January 16, 2016--Hooked?

For some time in this place I have written about my struggles to get comfortable with the new media. Especially "mobile devices," which I understand to mean primarily smartphones, while mobile devices down here in Florida are more walkers and wheelchairs.

I am feeling left behind as the two generations succeeding mine seem so naturally comfortable with texting, tweeting, and snap-chatting. I watch them thumbing their iPhones at preternatural speed as they dodge traffic on Broadway, while eating out, and when waiting on line to get into a club or movie.

Though viscerally discomforted by this--partly, if I'm honest, largely because this feeling of being left out is more personal than technological--I have tried to see something positive deriving from all of this hardware and software.

The amateur historian in me knows that there were similar, worrisome things said about the paradigm-shifting impact on culture, society, and the Church brought about by the Gutenberg Revolution and the resulting proliferation of books.

For the most part, that worked out well. But mobile devices that are now possessed by billions around the world and hundreds of millions mainly young people here in the United States, may be turning out to be quite a different, less benign or liberating story.

Are we seeing the emergence of a passive generation of techno-zombies hooked on connectivity?

To help sketch the extent of one aspect of this, here is an excerpt from Jacob Weisberg's essay in the most recent issue of The New York Review, "We Are Hopelessly Hooked":

Hands and minds are continuously occupied texting, e-mailing, liking, tweeting, watching YouTube videos, and playing Candy Crush. 

Americans spend an average of five and a half hours a day with digital media, more than half of that time on mobile devices, according to the research firm eMarketer. Among some groups, the numbers range much higher. In one recent survey, female students at Baylor University reported using their cell phones an average of ten hours a day. Three quarters of eighteen-to-twenty-four-year-olds say that they reach for their phones immediately upon waking in the morning. Once out of bed, we check our phones 221 times a day--an average of every 4.3 minutes--according to a UK study. 

This number may actually be too low, since people tend to underestimate their own mobile usage. In a 2015 Gallup survey, 61 percent of people said they checked their phones less frequently than others they knew. . . . 

What does it mean to shift overnight from a society in which people walk down the street looking around to one in which people walk down the street looking at machines? We wouldn't be always clutching smartphones if we didn't believe they made us safer, more productive less bored, and were useful in all the ways a computer in your pocket can be useful. 

At the same time, smartphone owners describe feeling "frustrated" and "distracted." [Though] in a 2015 Pew survey, 70 percent of respondents said their phones made them feel freer while 30 percent said they felt like a leash. Nearly half the eighteen-to-twenty-nine-year olds said they used their phones to "avoid others around you."

Weisberg then cites Sherry Turkle's book, Reclaiming Conversation: The Power of Talk in a Digital Age:

The picture she paints is both familiar and heartbreaking: parents who are constantly distracted on the playground and at the dinner table; children who are frustrated that they can't get their parents' undivided attention; gatherings where friends who are present vie for attention with virtual friends; classrooms where professors gaze out at a sea of semi-engaged multitaskers; and a dating culture in which infinite choices undermines the ability to make emotional commitments.

It does feel like a very new world. I will continue to struggle to get comfortable with it and to find good things to say about where we are headed. In the meantime I do have my books.