Here's to Two Bens and My Son, Michael

I’ve been reminded more than once recently that I am guilty of the same sickness that seems pervasive in our country today. I’ll call it infantile analysis, for lack of an official diagnosis. The symptoms of the disease are: general disaffection with life as we find it, feverish periods of unfocused anger, overheated rhetoric (often targeting people rather than issues) and, at its worst, violent opposition to whatever is deemed “not in my best interest.” As the illness progresses, victims become more irrational, less tolerant and ultimately are so focused on the sound of their own voices that they exhibit the inability to hear a point of view that does not reinforce their own.

As for the title I’ve chosen to lead this blog, it’s a tribute to wisdom I’ve encountered from three men who have helped me see that I, like others with this illness, need to return to health and sanity if I truly love my country. And I do love this country. Sure, we have our failings, but it’s still a great country and we owe it to the American ideals upon which it was founded to find a cure for our infantile analysis and return ourselves and the nation to good health again. We can do this if we listen more than we shout and commit ourselves to working together rather than promoting divisiveness.

The first Ben is Benjamin Franklin. In an effort to keep some perspective on where we find ourselves today, I try to read a little history every day. As much as we would like to think we have an entirely fresh take on life and political issues, any look back will teach us that we, subject to the human condition as we are, tend to repeat history and repeat it again and again. So I found myself looking to the wisdom of Ben Franklin for a refresher course on how things really were in the time of the often-evoked founding fathers.

Among other things Franklin said that have a bearing on the heated rhetoric and negative campaigning we experience in 2010, I’ll share here.

“Anger is never without a reason, but seldom with a good one.”

“Any fool can criticize, condemn and complain and most fools do.”

“For having lived long, I have experienced many instances of being obliged, by better information or fuller consideration, to change opinions, even on important subjects, which I once thought right but found to be otherwise.”

“How few there are who have courage enough to own their faults, or resolution enough to mend them.”

He was a pretty smart guy, that Ben Franklin, and one who gave invaluable service to our country at its beginning, even as he argued with other founders, then found ways to collaborate with them to “form a more perfect union.”

The second Ben surprised me somewhat. As I watched CBS Sunday Morning, Ben Stein’s commentary was introduced and I steeled myself to hear something with which I would surely disagree, based on past experience. Then he offered some wonderfully cogent thoughts on this very illness from which too many of us are suffering.

Ben Stein proposes a new pledge for America, a “Declaration of Conscience,” as he called it. Among other comments, he echoed a slogan once used by the City of Atlanta, when he said “we are far too busy to hate.” He called on all our parties to rise above the public tone that is “sometimes morally and physiologically ugly” and suggested that our disagreements not be characterized by “a spirit of hatred based on religion or race or sexual orientation or wealth or poverty. “

He made sense and earned my respect. I recommend that you go to the CBS Sunday Morning website and read Stein’s commentary.

The third man who set me on the road to first think about my own infantile analysis, then attempt a recovery, was my son Michael. He called me out in a conversation when I said that I just “hated” someone with whose point-of-view I vehemently disagree. He was gentle, but straightforward, my son, reminding me that I would never allow him to espouse such hostility toward others unless they were guilty of viciously horrendous crimes against mankind.

He was right, of course. I was, like too many of us these days, verbally swinging for the fences when a solid hit to get on base would be more intelligent.

So I thank the two Bens and my Michael for helping me to stop and think about what I can do to help our country today rather than just be upset about it. And beyond what I can do, they’ve made me realize that I want to do it in concert with others, including those with whom I differ. What we need now is to stop baiting and bashing and start applying our passions to productive behavior. I’m going to work toward that goal.