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Nationalism: Where the Sidewalk Ends

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Source: The Cistercian Informer
Photo Credit: The Cistercian Informer

The difficulty in changing the mind of the Nationalist isn’t in providing facts. It’s providing an acceptable lineage to accompany anything factual.

What could I possibly be missing? Over my morning coffee I scrolled the length of a Facebook thread between friends who immigrated to the US decades ago from the former Soviet Union. One friend is convinced of the following:

[The] BLM organization runs on Marxist platform! Coming from Soviet Union and knowing very well what the last stop of Marxist platform is, I cannot support this organization and I cannot support party that backs it up..fully backed up by Biden!

A Facebook User Posting…like so many others

I held my coffee suspended over my breakfast…wondering where this idea came from and how this person found it credible. Fortunately I didn’t need to look far, as the author added a few links supporting her argument. One was to a Facebook post from Dan Bongino, a source I had never heard of before, and a second linked to the New York Post.

After a bit more research I traced an association of BLM (and the Democratic party) to Marxism via a Perspectives post on The Heritage Foundation Website (a reprint of an article from The Daily Signal). In general, the comments ranged from vitriolic to incoherent. The Heritage is very clear in their mission to drive “conservative” policy and Dan Bongino has expressed his dedication to “own the libs.“

After only a few paragraphs, patterns quickly emerge in the arguments used by both Bongino and The Heritage. The rhetoric goes something like this: because the founders of BLM and the liberal left have “Marxist roots,” undermining “Capitalism” using “Socialist” tactics and ideology is the inarguable purpose and direction of the organization.

“Marxist roots” appear to be anything ranging from prior comments in a speech or attending a particular University or class. A significant part of the text is dedicated to establishing lineage between a person and a concept in order to explain behavior. “So, it is not a stretch to say..” is a common rhetorical bridge between the person(s) in question and the author’s version of Marxism or Capitalism:

In a 2015 interview, Patrisse Cullors, one of the three founders [of BLM], said that she and Alicia Garza were trained Marxists, which is true…So, it is not a stretch to say that all of these ideas are Marxist at base, right? Because Marxism is a theory that sees all of life as being a question of group dynamics, of the oppressed and the oppressor. And this is exactly what identity politics is all about.

“What’s Behind the Plot to Change America?” Rachel del Guidice. The Daily Signal, July 29th 2020.

After connecting the BLM founders to a controversial idea such as Marxism, the author uses biblical references to argue for the stagnation of human nature.

Human nature is unchanging. No ideology can change human nature..If you read ancient texts, read the Bible, or you read any books, you read the Quran, any book from ancient times or any of the classical, any of the texts from the Classical Age, you see that man was back then exactly the same way we are today.

Ibid.

Nationalists scaffold their opponents in pseudo-ideology, then add a healthy measure of biblical concrete to cement the relationship and its immobility. After a few days to cure in social media, a fresh length of mental sidewalk opens to an already fearful American public.

For the Nationalist, the most important question is whether you’re walking on their side of the road. The Nationalist is about lineage. There exist “conservative truths” and “liberal truths” based on the perceived orientation of the speaker. “Marxist” professors” and “Liberal” media are common examples, but the question has spilled over to more tangible things…like counting seats. Given the same aerial photo of a Trump rally, Nationalists will trust a blessed source to decide whether the rally was well attended. Rationalists will trust the authenticity of and evidence suggested by the photo.

For the Nationalist, the “true” answer depends on the lineage of the evidence. Objective standards of journalism do not matter, and Journalism itself is suspect. The Washington Post and The New York Times cannot be trusted because they have been branded too liberal, despite the papers’ journalistic integrity. This creates space for bullhorn personalities like Bongino who amplify the Nationalist lineage without any semblance of journalism or objective reasoning. In contrast, Rationalists (liberal and conservative) value objectivity in journalism despite the unavoidable bias left or right.

The difficulty in changing the mind of the Nationalist isn’t in providing facts. It’s providing an acceptable lineage to accompany those facts. For years, journalism provided America with a shared lineage of truth available to purchase in print on sidewalks across America. Today we are stranded on a few remaining slabs of concrete journalism. Neighborhood streets that were once pedestrian friendly have either been abandoned or crushed under the weight of social media traffic, leaving Americans stuck staring at directionless piles of news rubble.

Believe in Truth. To abandon facts is to abandon freedom. If nothing is true, then no one can criticize power, because there is no basis upon which to do so. If nothing is true, then all is spectacle. The biggest wallet pays for the most blinding lights.

Snyder, Tim. “On Tyranny: Twenty Lessons for the Twentieth Century.” p.65. Tim Duggan Books. 2017.

History may be our greatest hope for the future. Consistently reminding America of what our guiding principles actually are may be the first rope tossed and received to bridge our separating nation.

Our Simple Expectations of American Democracy

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This brief summary of our most basic democratic expectations serves as a stark reminder of how distracted we Americans have become. Delivered during one of the most tumultuous times in world history, this reminder from Roosevelt separates the democratic ideal from an authoritarian antithesis that threatens our society today.

Scott Catalogue USA: 933

“For there is nothing mysterious about the foundations of a healthy and strong democracy. The basic things expected by our people of their political and economic systems are simple. They are:

  • Equality of opportunity for youth and for others.
  • Jobs for those who can work.
  • Security for those who need it.
  • The ending of special privilege for the few.
  • The preservation of civil liberties for all.
  • The enjoyment of the fruits of scientific progress in a wider and constantly rising standard of living.

These are the simple, basic things that must never be lost sight of in the turmoil and unbelievable complexity of our modern world.”

President Franklin Roosevelt’s Annual Message (Four Freedoms) to Congress (1941)

Our Universal Freedoms

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Scott Catalogue USA 933

I would pay a lot more than five cents for a Roosevelt stamp to support our postal service, and to remind America of the actual freedoms that have guided our nation.

In his Four Freedoms Speech, President Roosevelt introduced new universal human rights that influenced political support for WWII at home and the ideological purpose of the United Nations.

  • The first is freedom of speech and expression – everywhere in the world.
  • The second is freedom of every person to worship god in his own way – everywhere in the world.
  • The third is freedom from want…everywhere in the world.
  • The fourth is freedom from fear…anywhere in the world.

The first two bullet points, freedom of speech and religion, are protected by the first amendment of the US Constitution. Freedom from want refers to “economic understandings which will secure to every nation a healthy peacetime life for its inhabitants, everywhere in the world.” And Freedom from fear is a plea for disarmament, “a world-wide reduction of armaments to such a point and in such a thorough fashion that no nation will be in a position to commit an act of physical aggression against any neighbor—anywhere in the world.“

In 1965, over 20 years later, President Lyndon Johnson expanded on the Four Freedoms in his vision of The Great Society, one that “asks not how much, but how good; not only how to create wealth but how to use it; not only how fast we are going, but where we are headed.” And as steps towards realizing The Great Society, LBJ proposed the following as part of a new national agenda:

  • I propose that we begin a massive attack on crippling and killing diseases. 
  • I propose that we increase the beauty of America and end the poisoning of our rivers and the air that we breathe.
  • I propose that we eliminate every remaining obstacle to the right and the opportunity to vote.
  • I propose that we honor and support the achievements of thought and the creations of art.

Today we have a President walking in the opposite (ideological) direction while demanding our loyalty along the way. Here are a few examples:

Right now the Postal Service is at risk of financial insolvency placing the entire mail-in ballot vote at risk. The President is thrilled at this prospect, and continues to actively sabotage American institutions created after WWII to protect our human rights. Today we have a President taking the path of isolation his predecessors warned will only end in a false sense of peace and a cheap forgery of liberty.

Let’s take a moment to remember the actual principles that make America great. The true freedoms that have propelled America since WWII are humanitarian.  They speak to the strength of universal human rights against the brutality of dictatorship and the rule of a few.

Digitalism: An Art Manifesto

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How hard could this be? Over several weeks in 2017 I spent pockets of time assembling photos that reflected my artistic vision for a juried exhibition. With over 20 years of photographs in my archive, I needed to explore what, if anything, connects my photos beyond composition, theme, time or person. What vocabulary could I use to describe my work uniformly? An hour before the submission deadline I realized I was at a total loss of how to summarize my artistic vision in words.

So…I took more photos. A lot more photos. And more importantly I traveled with an artistic partner. We stumbled into exhibits and museums everywhere we went: California, Massachusetts, Brooklyn, and Paris. Along our journey I chose to visit, consciously or unconsciously, works that just spoke to me for some reason or another.

I also took good notes. Patterns started to emerge of what I will call a new Digitalism. “New” mostly because this has nothing to do with the German electronic music duo of the same name. I started to create a taxonomy of the qualities I observed both in my own work, and in the art I enjoyed.

Digitization is the conversion (or sampling) of natural waves into digits for use by computers, and is visually represented by a step curve. In contrast, analog is the recording of natural waves in complete form, and is visually represented by a sine curve. The former looks like a staircase and the latter resembles a much friendlier wave you might want to surf.

Digitalism is a range of visual emphasis from an analog (or natural) to a digital (sampled) recording of our world. And within this spectrum there are five different streams or elements present in Digitalist work: Code, Pixel, Viz, Multiple and Analog.

‘Calculating the Universe’, Troika, 2014. Black & White Dice.

Code shares an inside-out view of digital art. It celebrates the craft of coding by including actual syntactical elements (snippets of of code) or by emphasizing iteration. Examples of the latter range from the kinetic arts of Arthur Ganson, to “Mine the Scrap” Certain Measures (Tobias Nolte et Andrew Witt), 2016 or “Life and Death of an Algorithm” Troika, 2017.

KTTV by Casey Reas, 2015

Pixel reduces the world to an assembly of blocks, using forms from ’80s style video games or Legos as the primary medium of expression for example. The work of Nathan Sawaya is a wonderfully literal example of Lego, and “The Big Wave” by Jean-Michel Othoniel freezes the impossible in a towering collection of bricks. “Glitch art,” such as Ultraconcentrated by Casey Reas, reduces digital images (and TV signals) to a smear of pixels bearing little resemblance to the original. The work of James Turrell is the most minimalist form of Pixel, shaping light into a singular experiential form such as Afrum I.

"Five Decades of US Crime" Shine Pulikathara, 2019. Tableau Public Gallery.
“Five Decades of US Crime” Shine Pulikathara, 2019. Tableau Public Gallery.

Viz is the intersection of data science and art, and shorthand for the visualization of data. The purpose of Viz is to enlighten by balancing quantitative and qualitative information and the use of volumes and/or variety of data is what separates Viz from other streams of Digitalism. Bar charts, line charts and scatter-plots are Pixel without data.

Untitled. From Industry I. Jesse Weissman 2018

Multiple has evolved from a style attributed to Victor Victori “highlighting the many behind the one, unfolding all possible dimensions of a being in one all-inclusive piece of work.”  In Digitalism, Multiple includes objects and abstraction without an underlying data set (or algorithm) and in this way bears resemblance to Cubism. The lack of an underlying data set is what separates Multiple from Viz.

‘Waterfall’ Jesse Weissman, 2018

Analog remains true to original, natural form while employing digital tools or enhancements. In portraiture, the Selfie is a simple example. The image is captured digitally and typically any changes are intended to enhance the original subject. Filtered images are another example, such as the saturated landscapes that decorate our Windows (or Mac) Desktops. Abstract images are Analog when their visual ingredients remain largely recognizable.

Armed with this taxonomy, I looked back over the photography I had assembled for the exhibition and for the projects on my personal site. Am I a Digitalist? Professionally, I occupy the world of Viz and delight in creating new ways of exploring data in Tableau. And my art draws heavily from the Multiple stream, especially in my exploration of industrial themes. But a large part of my work echos a desire to return to a more analog world, grounded in tangible things, beautiful in its simplicity.