We’re hearing a lot of complaints about white supremacy these days, to the extent that I’m becoming confused. As usual in reflecting on this subject, I’d like to start with a definition. What is meant by “white supremacy”?

The dictionary definition is:

a person who believes that the white race is inherently superior to other races and that white people should have control over people of other races

That itself is a bit loaded. Superior according to what metrics?

I certainly don’t want control over anyone else, whatever their race might be. Lord, let this cup pass from me.

I believe that races exist. Since you can test for race in a lab without ever seeing an individual it’s pretty hard to deny. I don’t believe that any race is categorically superior to another. I think the variances within the races are much more significant in determining “superiority” (whatever that means) than the variances between the races.

“Whiteness” is something entirely different. Many, many Hispanics (“white Hispanics”, oddly enough) think of themselves as white, other Americans think of them as white, and they will increasingly be considered white by everybody here. Maybe it’s just me but I consider Hispanics, Arabs, and East Indians to be white. I imagine that would have horrified my great-great-grandparents.

I would rather live in the United States than in Mexico or China or Italy or Ghana. I would resist efforts to render the United States more like Mexico or China or Italy or Ghana. I don’t think we need to exclude people from Mexico, China, Italy, or Ghana to keep the United States being the United States but I do think that we should be cautious about whom we accept to live here and I certainlty don’t think we have some sort of obligation to allow just anyone who wants to to live here. Does that make me a “white supremacist”?

I believe in linguistic relativity, AKA the weaker version of the Sapir-Whorf hypothesis. I don’t believe in linguistic determinism (the stronger form). Said another way I think that in order to participate in our culture on an equal basis you should speak English fluently. I don’t think it’s impossible to do so without speaking English fluently but I do think it’s extremely difficult. Does that make me a “white supremacist”?

I don’t think that English is a superior language, just the language of the dominant culture here. I actually think that many other languages are superior in some ways to English. However, there are some concepts to which being a native speaker of English predisposes one which a native speaker of, say, Russian or Chinese are less likely to embrace as easily. It’s not that they can’t comprehend them. It’s just that it takes a lot more effort for them to comprehend them. Words are like hooks on which you hang concepts.

In case any of you have wondered about the spottiness of my posting over the last week or so, I have been working on a project in Italy since last Saturday. Sadly, I didn’t have much time for sightseeing. Much of my time was spent in an unairconditioned warehouse between Milan and Bologna during a recordbreaking heatwave. As one of my hosts pointed out at the end of the week, this week I’ve lived the life of a warehouse worker. I ended each day physically exhausted and drenched in perspiration. I rarely slept more than three or four hours a night due to a combination of jet lag, the slowness of my old body to adapt, and an uncomfortable hotel bed.

This week I will return as well as I can to my regular schedule. Last night I went to bed at my normal hour, taking some melatonin in an attempt at helping my body to regularize its internal clock. That always knocks me out the day after so, although I rose at the normal time, too, I’m pretty groggy.

This was the first time I had ever been to Italy and I’m very much looking forward to returning as a tourist. I’ll be posting the impressions I formed during my travels over the next several days. I speak no Italian but people who work at the airports, in hotels and restaurants, and at my client’s spoke English pretty well, as I anticipated. At one point I used my Russian to communicate which practically brought tears to the eyes of the person to whom I was speaking (a Russian).

In an op-ed at the Wall Street Journal physician E. Fuller Torrey underscores the views I’ve expressed in the last two posts:

Based on the increase in the U.S. population, there are now some one million people with serious mental illness living among the general population who, 60 years ago, would have been treated in state mental hospitals. Multiple studies have reported that, at any given time, between 40% and 50% of them are receiving no treatment for their mental illness. With the best of intentions and the worst of planning, America has emptied out its public psychiatric hospitals without ensuring that the released patients would receive the necessary treatment to control their symptoms. What did we think would happen?

Now we have two more mass shootings, committed over a 13-hour period. In El Paso, Texas, 20 people were killed in what authorities have called a hate crime, while in Dayton, Ohio, the death toll is nine. One database claims these were the 21st and 22nd mass killings in the U.S. in 2019. Such databases vary depending on the number of dead required to meet the definition.

They also vary according to other factors. If, for example, they only count gun deaths, then they don’t include Adacia Chambers, diagnosed with bipolar disorder, who in 2015 killed four and injured 48 by driving her car into a parade crowd in Stillwater, Okla. What is clear from all the databases is that these mass killings are increasing in frequency and have been since the 1980s. Not coincidentally, that was when the emptying out of state mental hospitals was at its peak.

So what role does mental illness play in these mass killings? Multiple studies done between 2000 and 2015 suggest that about a third of mass killers have an untreated severe mental illness. If mental illness is defined more broadly, the percentage is higher. In 2018 the Federal Bureau of Investigation released a report titled “A Study of the Pre-Attack Behavior of Active Shooters in the United States Between 2008 and 2013.” It reported that 40% of the shooters had received a psychiatric diagnosis, and 70% had “mental health stressors” or “mental health concerning behaviors” before the attack.

Most recently, in July 2019, the U.S. Secret Service released its report “Mass Attacks in Public Spaces—2018.” The report covered 27 attacks that resulted in 91 deaths and 107 injuries. The investigators found that 67% of the suspects displayed symptoms of mental illness or emotional disturbance. In 93% of the incidents, the authorities found that the suspects had a history of threats or other troubling communications. The results were similar to those of another study published by the Secret Service on 28 such attacks in 2017.

Reacting to these shooting in a serious way requires treating mental illness in a more serious way than we have in the last 40 years. A big country like ours will inevitably have a lot of people who are seriously mentally disturbed. Expecting to end mass shooting by banning large capacity magazines or pledging to eliminate all firearms is not a serious reaction.

I see that my reaction is much more consistent with those expressed by the editors of the Wall Street Journal on the shootings:

The mass shootings in El Paso and Dayton over the weekend are horrifying assaults on peaceful communities by disturbed young men. American politics will try to simplify these events into a debate about guns or political rhetoric, but the common theme of these killings is the social alienation of young men that will be harder to address.

I think the strand that ties them together is mental illness. The editors continue:

Which brings us back to the angry young men. This is the one common element in nearly all mass shootings: 19-year-old Nikolas Cruz in Parkland, Fla.; Chris Harper-Mercer in Oregon’s Umpqua Community College; Adam Lanza at Newtown, Conn.; Devin Patrick Kelley in Sutherland Springs, Texas, and the rest. All were deeply troubled and alienated from society in our increasingly atomistic culture.

There are actually two elements: “deeply disturbed and alienated” young men and firearms. We can render firearms less lethal and make them harder to obtain. That may make spree killings rarer but it won’t do much about the murders that take place every weekend on the South Side of Chicago. Holding a complete elimination of firearms as the standard is not just unrealistic, it’s cynical.

The first time I heard about the two mass shooting, one in El Paso the other in Dayton, was this morning when I began checking out the news and reading the opinion sections. They weren’t much covered in Europe.

Although I am as dismayed as the editors of the Washington Post about them, I don’t agree as much with their prescriptions. From the speech they wish that President Trump had delivered:

Today, I am calling on Congress to return to Washington for an immediate joint session, to give up their district politicking and take action to combat gun violence. Enact a ban on sales of military-style assault rifles, as well as high-capacity magazines. This weaponry was made for war; its purpose is to kill as many people as possible as quickly as possible. It doesn’t belong on our streets.

Make background checks mandatory. And for those who have other ideas, such as federal licensing and buy-backs, come forward, and we will work on them. I have instructed my administration to undertake a major scientific research effort on gun violence that will help us chart more answers in the long term. We must free ourselves of a special interest lobby. I will personally campaign for the solutions as hard as I can and invite those from both parties to join me.

I am also sick about the rivers of hate speech and fear coursing through our society. It is time to assert, in the boldest way we can: In America, there is no room for racism, no tolerance for hatred, no silence in the face of those who incite racial violence and preach manifestos of supremacy. We welcome and value all Americans, no matter where they or their ancestors came from.

As difficult as it will be, we must confront this dark sickness on the digital pathways, on the cultural playgrounds and in the classrooms. This is not only a job for government. It is a mission for all of us, but I am asking law enforcement to boost its attention to combating domestic terrorism.

“Assault weapons” is a catch-all term for scary firearms that members of Congress don’t like. It does not have a rigorous definition. It has been illegal for ordinary citizens to own fully automatic weapons other than under very restricted circumstances for 80 years. I would have no objection to “high capacity magazines” being banned as long as they are defined clearly and reasonably. I don’t think it would have much effect.

I agree that we should be lowering the temperature of discourse. I am saddened that the term “racism” has now been so overused and applied so inappropriately as to become meaningless. Is it racist when President Trump’s ICE separates migrant families from their children but not when President Obama’s ICE does the same thing? Separating children from their parents is a commonplace nationwide when the parents have been arrested for committing crimes, even minor ones. Is it only racist when the laws being broken are those governing entering the country illegally?

I fear that the same thing is happening to “white supremacy”. Let’s define things narrowly and accurately. At least we’ll all understand what is meant.

IMO the factors being the number of mass shooting in the United States are

• We’re five or ten times or more as large as France, Germany, or Norway. The prevalence of mass shooting in Norway, France, and Switzerland is higher than in the United States.
• The availability of firearms. This is a jinn that cannot be returned to the bottle.
• Treatment of the mentally ill.
• Low social cohesion at the best of times.
• Mass immigration actually reduces social cohesion and introduces stresses that would not otherwise be present.

If that’s white supremacy so be it.

In his latest New York Times column David Brooks expresses worry about the spiritual state of the country:

Trump is a cultural revolutionary, not a policy revolutionary. He operates and is subtly changing America at a much deeper level. He’s operating at the level of dominance and submission, at the level of the person where fear stalks and contempt emerges.

He’s redefining what you can say and how a leader can act. He’s reasserting an old version of what sort of masculinity deserves to be followed and obeyed. In Freudian terms, he’s operating on the level of the id. In Thomistic terms, he is instigating a degradation of America’s soul.

We are all subtly corrupted while this guy is our leader. And throughout this campaign he will make himself and his values the center of conversation. Every day he will stage a little drama that is meant to redefine who we are, what values we lift up and who we hate.

The Democrats have not risen to the largeness of this moment. They don’t know how to speak on this level. They don’t even have the language to articulate what Trump represents and what needs to be done.

I think the situation is somewhat worse or at least different than he thinks. You cannot hire someone to be decent for you. Either you’re a decent, honest person or you aren’t. You can’t be a decent, honest person and then grow rich through your power and influence. That is inherently corrupt.

The choice isn’t between the Trump and his indecent supporters or any of the two dozen Democratic presidential candidates and their putatively decent supporters. We are merely choosing between different forms of indecency. Any Chicagoan knows exactly what I’m talking about. We can only choose the form of the destructor.

All I can say about Will Wilkinson’s claim, made in his New York Times column, that America’s national character is “unalterably multiracial, multicultural” is that it is ahistorical. Anyone who has read John Dewey is aware that the public school systems in the United States was founded on the principle of acculturating the children of immigrants from their parents’ native culture and inculcating in them a single, national culture. That was largely successful for most of the last century. It wasn’t until a conscious decision was made to teach multiculturalism that the strategy began to fray at the edges. In other words the single American culture was unalterable until it was altered.

I believe that we can be a peaceful, more egalitarian multi-racial society. If we accept multiculturalism it will be neither peaceful nor egalitarian. We can be confident of that because multiculturalism isn’t egalitarian anywhere in the world. The French, to their credit, are steadfast in their attachment to French culture. They recognize that it is inherent for their pursuit of liberté, égalité, et fraternité

I find myself in the somewhat uncomfortable situation of being in substantial agreement with Zeke Emanuel (brother of Rahm and Ari the Hollywood agent). Democrats are having the wrong debate about health care. From his New York Times op-ed:

Democrats are deeply concerned about achieving universal coverage. The simple way to do that is not through a single-payer Medicare for All plan, which faces daunting political opposition. Instead, they can get coverage for most of the remaining 28 million or so Americans with auto-enrollment. Changing some existing policies, like harmonizing the income eligibility standards for Medicaid and the insurance exchanges, would enable the government agencies, hospitals, insurers and other organizations to enroll people in health insurance automatically when they show up for care or other benefits like food stamps.

For the other 295 million Americans who have some form of health insurance, the problem is high costs. Even with health insurance, high premiums, deductibles and co-pays, surprise hospital bills and exorbitant drug prices inhibit people from accessing care and taking their medications, threaten to drain their savings, or even force Americans into bankruptcy. Democrats need a plan to deal with this problem.

He proposes four strategies for managing health care costs:

• Negotiate for pharmaceutical prices
• Cap hospital prices
• Standardize insurance billing
• Accelerate the transition from fee-for-service to value-based alternatives

I’m in material agreement with him on the objective. Indeed, I’ve been saying that the push for universal coverage was largely misplaced because lower costs will make universal coverage easier but not vice versa. I remain unconvinced by three of his four cost-saving proposals.

It’s understandable that Democrats would place their focus where they have. Insurance coverage and care tend to be popular. Controlling costs isn’t for a simple reason: one person’s expense is another’s revenue. Controlling costs inherently means controlling wages. And as G. B. Shaw put it when you rob Peter to pay Paul you can always depend on the support of Paul.

There’s a wisecrack that’s more than 2,000 years old, attributed to Archilochus: “The fox knows many things but the hedgehog knows one big thing”. It certainly looks to me that the Democratic Party is aspiring to be the Fox Party to the Republicans’ Hedgehog Party.

Marianne Williamson of all people and nearly alone among the Democratic presidential aspirants seems to get this. The big thing should be defeating Trump’s re-election bid. If all of the bright, shiny objects that the hopefuls are dangling in front of various constituencies distract from that big thing and Trump is re-elected, does anyone seriously believe the Democrats will blame themselves for the loss?

Perhaps they need reminding that it was Herbert Hoover who promised a chicken in every pot and a Ford in every garage. He won but look at what he actually delivered: the Great Depression. I suspect that the greater your campaign promises become the less impressive they are.