“. . . skies of couple-colour as a brinded cow . . .”
Glory be to God for dappled things –
For skies of couple-colour as a brinded cow;
For rose-moles all in stipple upon trout that swim;
Fresh-firecoal chestnut-falls; finches’ wings;
Landscape plotted and pieced – fold, fallow, and plough;
And áll trádes, their gear and tackle and trim.
All things counter, original, spare, strange;
Whatever is fickle, freckled (who knows how?)
With swift, slow; sweet, sour; adazzle, dim;
He fathers-forth whose beauty is past change:
Praise him.
—Gerard Manley Hopkins (1844–1889)
I am a Twentieth-Century Man—the very embodiment of up-to-date-itude.
I am sleek and powerful, like the Super Chief and the Twentieth Century Limited, streamlined trains that could whisk you from coast to coast in under three days. I am as modern as a 1955 Chevrolet, as efficient as a new Amana refrigerator with its Stor-More door, as timeless as a Sheaffer White Dot fountain pen.
To me, the twentieth century signifies modernity. To my grandchildren, it sounds antique. Even their mother, my daughter, looks askance when I say “the greatest thing since sliced bread” or “hold your horses” or “now you’re cooking with gas!”
Katie, born in 1976, has at least one foot in my century. Elsie and Tristan are innocent of all centuries but the twenty-first, poor darlings. They will live their lives in a postmodern world. It makes me shudder.
My grandparents were born in the nineteenth century, but all four of them lived past the midpoint of the twentieth. They were old-fashioned people. When they were young, horseless carriages, hot-and-cold running water, and indoor toilets were new things. They lived life before modernity came along.
People in those days were conscious of passing a century mark. As the year 1900 approached, the term fin de siècle came to denote the years of the 1880s and 1890s. “Fin de siècle” only means “end of century,” but the fancy French term gave dignity to an uneasy sense of living at the end of Time itself. After great wars in Europe and America, life had become stately, decorous, refined, and calm. Pointillist painter Georges Seurat captured it with A Sunday Afternoon on the Island of La Grande Jatte (1884-86). But people knew that orderly society could not last long.
Seurat’s masterpiece. Public Domain.
King Edward VII. Public Domain.
When the calendar rolled over, nothing much happened. Folks just had to remember to write “19__” on their checks. A new term, la Belle Époque, the Beautiful Age, seemed to describe the opening years of the twentieth century. In England, it was the Edwardian era; in America you might recall the setting of Vincente Minelli’s excellent film Meet Me in St. Louis. On both sides of the Pond, it was a time of continued calm.
But chaos lurked around the corner. War erupted in 1914, and all the European states joined in. The hounds of hell got loose. Nothing was the same after that.
Many historians say the Modern period of history ended in 1914 and everything since has been, for want of a better word, postmodern. After two world wars and a host of smaller ones, two global pandemics, and three or more technological revolutions, we feel somewhat the worse for wear.
I was privileged to be born and raised in the eye of the storm—the Postwar Years from 1945 to 1963 when everything seemed normal. But by the 1990s, I had pretty much forgotten that idea. The shooting of President John F. Kennedy in November 1963 marked the beginning of endless turmoil. A long war in Southeast Asia, race riots and Marxist-inspired student uprisings, and political scandals at home.
No wonder when another turn of the century approached, we were spooked. Like our ancestors a hundred years before, we seemed to be living at the end of Time itself. At the turn of the millennium, we would be ruined merely by the Law of Unintended Consequences. Society was scheduled to implode on January 1, 2000—when clocks built into all computer programs would fail to demarcate events correctly. At long last, Chicken Little would be vindicated. The sky would fall.
I worked for the adjutant general of Wisconsin, in the Department of Military Affairs, closely allied with the Division of Emergency Management. On New Year’s Eve—December 31, 1999—I huddled with a few other bureaucrats in the state’s emergency operations center, waiting for a deluge of news media representatives seeking information on the cascading disaster for the ten o’clock news.
Once again, nothing happened. All we had to do was remember to write “20__” on our checks. (We still used paper back then.) It turned out the nation’s computer boffins had fixed the Y2K bug ahead of time. It was a non-event.
There ensued a brief period of calm. But on September 11, 2001, our world caved in when terrorists attacked the United States. There followed a difficult and troublesome Global War on Terror, a major financial meltdown, additional wars, and then a highly virulent global pandemic.
Sigh.
Where will this all end?
I do not know. All that I do know is that the future is unpredictable.
Mark Twain, who did not say everything attributed to him. 1907 photo by A.F. Bradley. Public Domain.
Why then do I continually harp on the past, trying to bring vanished scenes and happenings back to people’s consciousness? I just think if you know about the past, you’ll have a better chance of recognizing the future when it treads upon your toe.
Somebody—most likely not Mark Twain—said, “History does not repeat itself, but it rhymes.”
Dame Julian of Norwich, statue at Norwich Cathedral by David Holgate, completed in 2000. Public Domain.
“Jesus answered with these words, saying: ‘All shall be well, and all shall be well, and all manner of thing shall be well.’ . . . This was said so tenderly, without blame of any kind toward me or anybody else.”
—a vision from Revelations of Divine Love by Julian of Norwich (1343-1416 or later), English mystic
We find ourselves thrust into an age when the foundations of the world crumble. We wish we could re-anchor our world, put it on a firmer footing. But all hope seems vain.
Here, then, is good news: There is something simple—not easy, but simple in concept and execution—that each one of us can do to help set the anchor.
We must restore Trust.
In the world’s large affairs, disputes between nations or factions are moved inch-by-inch toward resolution through “confidence-building measures”—small actions that begin the renewal of trust.
Small things can lead to big things.
Let me be the apostle of small things. Allow me to insist that the tiny, relentlessly accumulated, sooner or later rules the great.
#
Once upon a time, we trusted our government more than we do now. We trusted our churches more than we do now. We trusted our news sources more than we do now. We trusted our police more than we do now.
I am old enough to remember when we trusted one another in general, even as we reserved the right to suspicion in special cases. Nowadays, however, we regard one another through slitted eyes.
This change did not happen overnight. I have watched the seepage of Trust from our society, bit by bit, most of my adult life. There is no precise measure of that outflow, but there can be no doubt that it happened.
This will not be not news to you. You know it, too.
#
A young friend of mine, involved in our community’s nightly street disturbances in 2020, posted this justification on Facebook:
i think something people dont understand is that these protests and riots aren’t dangerous. spray painting city property is not dangerous. marching in the streets is not dangerous.
it gets dangerous when police start a fight
arguably, rolling dumpsters to the courthouse and setting them on fire really isn’t that dangerous. it was very controlled. we aren’t idiots.
Forget windows broken, stores looted, buildings torched. Forget the potential for people to be maimed or killed. Those, after all, are large issues, and I am the apostle of the small.
My young friend is right to focus on the trivial, as in “spray painting city property is not dangerous.” But let us examine that claim.
Wouldn’t it depend on who or what you might think is endangered? True, painting slogans or graffiti on a public building does not directly threaten anybody’s life or limb.
But something more important is endangered: Trust.
When we take somebody else’s stuff and spray paint our own message on it, we have taken what is not ours to take. In so doing we have dissolved a smidgen of the mutual trust that society absolutely requires in order to function.
When did we stop knowing this?
Any time we encroach on someone’s property or person, we are tearing down the house we all live in.
That is the reason bullying is so roundly condemned. Not only for its physical effect on the immediate victim, but because of the harm done to all of us when it is tolerated—leaving us exposed to a more dangerous world we do not entirely trust.
#
“But, it was city property.”
Okay, but city property is ours only in the sense that it is also everybody else’s. We own it in common with all other citizens. How do we grant ourselves alone the special right to paint it with art of our own choosing?
In doing so, we cause more than the physical results of our vandalism. Our fellow citizens will now trust us less than they did. Or, since they may never know who it was that wielded the spray paint, they will now trust people in general less than they did.
It would be the same if we set a dumpster fire. We steal somebody’s dumpster and damage it with flame, smoke, and ash. We release smoke and probably a vile smell into our common air.
We deem ourselves protectors of the environment, but look: We have just committed a gross act of pollution. The air is not ours to foul. It belongs to everybody.
Have we forgotten such elemental concepts? Have our parents failed to teach them to us?
The direct effects of encroaching on other people’s rights are as nothing compared to the erosion of Trust that eventually affects us all.
Vandalism, arson, and looting may destroy physical property. But far harder to repair is our broken Trust in the protectiveness, the essential safety, of our community.
#
“Thank you for your touching concern, but I can look out for my own reputation. The trust of my fellow citizens is not as important to me as you may think, Old Timer.”
Have you been listening at all, Grasshopper? If you were destroying only your own reputation, I would not lose much sleep.
But something greater is at stake: Namely, our future happiness, and that of our children and grandchilden.
Trust, or lack of Trust, does not exist in a vacuum.
When you break what is not yours, the markdown of Trust does not accrue to you alone.
The generalized Trust that keeps society glued together is all one thing. That’s why, as you may notice, I use a capital T. Your little bit of that Trust is part of the common pool.
When you piss away trust through your own actions, the total Trust in our society goes down. When your conduct validates trust placed in you, total Trust is increased.
That—the sum of small increments of responsible or irresponsible conduct—makes the difference between a High-Trust Society and a Low-Trust Society.
In a Low-Trust Society, everybody locks everything up. Properties are guarded by walls topped with barbed wire and broken glass. Cameras are everywhere. Stores and businesses have small windows, or none at all. Strangers are viewed with suspision. A large, aggressive police establishment is called forth, because nobody is to be trusted.
A High-Trust Society has less need for such precautions. Store owners display fine merchandise in large picture windows. There is a plenitude of goods and a smaller propensity to steal them. What police there are may seem more like Andy and Barney in Mayberry. People are more relaxed, less guarded.
Such societies do exist, or did. I remember.
You and I would rather live in a High-Trust Society than the Low-Trust version.
#
“But you can’t make an omelet without breaking eggs.”
What if we must violate others’ persons and property in order to build a more perfect society? If even a little act like spray-painting a building or burning a dumpster destroys Trust, then what about police brutality? What about racial discrimination? Don’t they destroy Trust even more? May we not need to combat larger crimes with smaller ones?
Every act that encroaches on persons or property reduces the total of Trust in our society. This includes not just things done in the heat of demonstrations or riots. It also includes acts of larceny, coercion, intimidation, or brutality committed in everyday life. It includes offenses done by law enforcement officers who should know better.
All such encroachments are bad. All of them make it harder for us to build a society of people who mostly trust one another.
It is mistaken to think your graffiti or your dumpster fire is okay, or even laudable, because it is not a racial slur or a police shooting; or that your graffiti or dumpster fire may prevent future racial slurs and police shootings.
Your act of vandalism in the streets is the same kind of thing as the police shooting of an unarmed black man, different only in scale. Both acts violate other people’s rights, degrade our sense of community, and lead to a Lower-Trust society
Two wrongs, in the whole history of good and evil, have never yet added up to a right.
Small offenses, while not as extreme as large ones, are much more numerous. Taken together, they may bleed off much more Trust from society at large.
#
Here Is What I Am Not Saying: I am not saying we should simply trust one another more, regardless of our experience.
Here Is What I Am Saying: I am saying that we need more Trust in society, and that to get it we must act in ways that engender trust, not in ways that squander trust.
Here Is What I Am Not Saying: I am not saying that you have no right to protest wrongdoing.
Here Is What I Am Saying: I am saying that you can not protest a great wrongdoing by means of lesser wrongdoings. To do so squanders trust, thus adding to the problem, not subtracting from it. Mohandas Gandhi and Martin Luther King knew this, preached it, and practiced it.
Martin Luther King, Jr., 1964. Public Domain.
Studio photograph of Mahatma Gandhi by Elliott & Fry, London, 1931. Public Domain.
#
I have tried to show that small, seemingly inconsequential, acts of incivility and barbarism are actually dangerous contributors to the sweeping malaise of our society, which is largely a simple deficit of Trust.
This is, in brief, an appeal for us all to hold ourselves to a high standard of trustworthiness in all our acts.
Trust and fear exist together. You cannot separate them.
They live on a continuum, with trust at one end, fear at the other.
If you aspire to Literary Lionhood at all, you are already a person for whom reading is an unalloyed pleasure. Maybe even a chief cornerstone of your life.
But when you are a serious writer, reading is a job requirement.
As anyone who has ever had a job can tell you, there is some distance between an unalloyed pleasure and a job requirement.
Kinds of Reading
Let us consider the kinds of things you might read.
Books for meals.
First of all, there is Unalloyed Pleasure Reading—any book or books you are so eager to read that you pick them up whenever you have a spare moment. You take such a book with you to the doctor’s office to make good use of your waiting time. You read it on the bus. Those are the books I’m talking about. For me, anything by John Grisham, John Steinbeck, or Jack Finney.
Second, there are Exemplar Books. These are either so well-written or so ill-written that reading them will help you become a better writer. You can emulate their prose, or avoid it, as you evolve your own unique and compelling voice. Such a book may or may not give unalloyed pleasure. Even if it’ s a chore to read, you grit your teeth and get through it. For me, the phrase “good writing to emulate” brings to mind William Saroyan’s The Human Comedy, John Hersey’s A Bell for Adano, and Donna Leon’s Commissario Brunetti mysteries, among others. I won’t mention a specific example of writing to avoid. Suffice it to say, they are legion. You will discover them on your own.
Third are the books about how to write books. At least a million are in print, with hundreds more published every day. They are all above average. More than two-thirds of all writers who have written any book at all have also written a book about how to write a book.* (*Proceedings, Institute for Fabricated Statistics, Vol. X, pp. y-z.) In fact, many writers who have never written a book have nevertheless written a book about how to write a book. This could get out of hand. Take my advice: choose one or two of those listed below, and let it go at that.
Poetics, by Aristotle (No last name. You know: That Aristotle.)
Writing the Breakout Novel, by Donald Maass
Story, by Robert McKee
Books to the left of my laptop.
Fourth are books about how to sell books. There are works about how to find an agent, how to get your book published, and how to sell lots of copies once it is published. It seems every writer who has written a book about how to write a book has also written one or more books about how to sell your book once you have written it; and every writer who has written a book about how to sell anything at all has also written one or more books about how to sell, specifically, books. As to recommendations: Even I, Dear Reader—your reliable Guru of Literary Lionhood, famous for rushing in where angels fear to tread—even I tremble to recommend any one of these volumes. If you are thinking of consulting any part of this 21st-century cornucopia of unsolicited-yet-pricey advice, consider this free bit of wisdom from the late Sir William of Goldman:
“Nobody knows anything.”
He was talking about the movie business, but it applies equally to all forms of publishing. This may strike you as dismal news, but consider it in this light: You know as much as anybody, so plunge in. Just do something. Or don’t do something; just stand there. It might work as well as anything.
Books to the right.
Fifth are the Obligated Reads. These are books by friends or acquaintances which you have agreed—perhaps unwisely—to read and review. Some are beta reads, works in progress whose authors want useful feedback from you, so they can make their work better. Others are published books whose authors want your endorsement, in the form of a published review or a blurb for the book cover. When the author is a particular friend and the book is something you just can’t hack, then you are stuck with what our cousins across the Pond call a sticky wicket. If the book happens to be the second or subsequent installment of a series, you have an easy out. “Author Johnny Johnson has done it again!” Otherwise, you’re sunk.
Sixth are books you need to read, or at least skim, as research for something you are writing. For us historical novelists, this kind of reading is broad and wide-ranging. But almost any writer* will need to do some research.
*Well, not writers who are actually Artificial Intelligence programs. AI bots can just make something up that reads as if it is based on research, but it’s actually just pieced together with likely-sounding phrases stolen from thousands of real, and mostly starving, writers. But then, you’re not an AI bot. Are you? I feel like I should insert a Captcha box here.
Coping With the Deluge
All these reading demands can actually get in the way of one’s writing.
Books awaiting attention.
Upon becoming a Literary Lion, I increased my already liberal use of the South Central Wisconsin Library System. There’s something called LINKCAT, which is a wonderful thing. I can go online, find any book that exists anywhere within 51 included libraries, place it “on hold,” and it will be delivered to me at my local library, usually within a few days.
Because of the numerous reading interests noted above, books—those being read, those to be read, or those already read—reside in stacks all over my house.
I repeat, it’s getting out of hand. Last week, I realized these demands were forcing me to avoid reading what I most wanted to read, because I had to read something less pleasurable and, in the grand scheme of things, less important.
So I’ve drawn a line in the sand. From now on, I will only acquire books I actually look forward to reading, in the sense that I have a credible expectation of joy; or, those needed for specific bits of research. That’s it—only Unalloyed Pleasure or Necessary Research. Away with all other pesky categories! I hope that holds up.
A Final Word
I tell you as a bona fide Literary Lion: Get yourself a copy of Strunk and White’s The Elements of Style.
As Dorothy Parker once said: “If you have friends who aspire to be writers, give them The Elements of Style. Then shoot them while they’re still happy.”
