Trumpism as an "Aversion to the Higher Elements of the Human Spirit"
David Brooks nailed it—almost.
Since I’m phasing out of Facebook and Twitter because I believe it's time to distance myself from platforms linked to criminal and corrupt figures like Mark Zuckerberg and neo-Nazis like Elon Musk, this account will begin to include more political and sociological reflections, always with an emphasis on the post-material ideal.
A good place to start could be this article by David Brooks in The New York Times: “What’s Happening Is Not Normal. America Needs an Uprising That Is Not Normal.”
It is unfortunate and somewhat paradoxical that a call for a mass movement is behind a paywall; however, I largely agree with Brooks's op-ed and believe he accurately addresses the current situation and necessary course of action.
Reading him, my preferred line was…
“Trumpism is about ego, appetite and acquisitiveness and is driven by a primal aversion to the higher elements of the human spirit — learning, compassion, scientific wonder, the pursuit of justice.”
Brooks pinpoints the core issue: the "primal aversion to the higher elements of the human spirit" is not a coincidence. As these higher elements emerge more prominently than ever in the collective, the old order feels threatened and retaliates with full force, regardless of the consequences. A higher spiritual vision, feeling, perception, and understanding of life and the world are no longer a privilege or a special state of consciousness reserved for a few; they are becoming a widespread condition among humanity. The dark and regressive forces recognize that if this new state of consciousness successfully emerges and establishes itself on a global scale, it will be their death sentence. It is a clash of forces that has a deeper spiritual and evolutionary meaning, and that I described here and here.
Trumpism is not just an isolated phenomenon in the US; similar forces are at play in Europe. In Hungary, Viktor Orbán embodies this same lower spirit. In several other countries, these forces are gaining momentum. Fortunately, for now, the retrograde powers that would love to see us collectively regress to 19th-century forms of authoritarianism and ancestral societal structures, are still not as strong across Europe as they are in the US, thanks to its multi-party systems and because these groups are still searching for a charismatic leader. However, it may only be a matter of time before they find one, particularly in Germany, France, Poland, Italy, or GB.
This is to say, that Trumpism embodies a spirit, feeling, and energy that transcends Trump himself; he is merely a vessel for it. If Trump were to die, Trumpism would persist. Impeachments, dethronements, and even his departure would not extinguish the lower human spirit that he represents. The primal aversion to the higher elements of the human spirit can only be countered by an even stronger aversion to the lower elements of that same spirit. This dark power can not vanish due to clever political maneuvering, power struggles, and court rules, alone. Because it is fundamentally supported from the grassroots level. It is likely that someone similar to him—perhaps even someone worse—would rise to take his place, and the whole drama would continue in a different form. True change must arise from a collective awakening, exerting pressure from the bottom up. There is no other easy shortcut.
Brooks’ appeal? His main message is a call to action. Those who oppose Trump's authoritarian tendencies (yes, those impacted by "Trump Derangement Syndrome") must unite, form alliances, and respond collectively. They should avoid isolated and fragmented battles, as these only ensure that "Trump will trample on one victim after another. He divides and conquers." It should also be something that transcends the partisan rallies led by Bernie Sanders and Alexandria Ocasio-Cortez, which “make this fight seem like a normal contest between Democrats and Republicans.”
Brooks unfortunately overlooks the recent mass rallies organized by independent groups like Indivisible, 50501, and other movements, where millions joined together in protest. Why this omission? Perhaps he believes that “…there does have to be one backbone organization, one coordinating body that does the work of coalition building.”
Despite this, he is correct in stating that “what’s happening is not normal. America needs an uprising that is not normal.” We are not in a typical political environment where we might have differing views but, nonetheless can coexist without major disruptions. The challenges we face cannot be resolved through mere bipartisan decision-making. There are deeper psychological reasons for this. We face a choice between a civilization grounded in solidarity, compassion, tolerance, empathy, human unity in diversity, interconnectedness, democracy, the rule of law, human rights, and freedom, or a society focused on authoritarianism, selfishness, and nationalistic isolationism, where "my country first" doctrines prevail and empathy is seen as a weakness. A choice that has its origin in an evolutionary pressure that comes from within.
“It’s time for a comprehensive national civic uprising. It’s time for Americans in universities, law, business, nonprofits and the scientific community, and civil servants and beyond to form one coordinated mass movement. Trump is about power. The only way he’s going to be stopped is if he’s confronted by some movement that possesses rival power.” This could look like “lawsuits, mass rallies, strikes, work slowdowns, boycotts and other forms of noncooperation and resistance,” but they must act as a united and unifying factor precisely because Trumpism is a divisive one.
I agree with his take but also know that this can’t be the whole solution. In Germany, millions took to the streets to protest against a far-right uprising, but, so far at least, this hasn’t produced any change of minds. To the contrary, the last elections saw the German neo-fascist party AfD at 20.8%, and actually at 24% in the polls. So, an uprising alone is like an action without a plan. Something deeper is missing.
I think Brooks comes somewhat closer to the core issue:
“… a civic uprising has to have a short-term vision and a long-term vision. Short term: Stop Trump. Foil his efforts. Pile on the lawsuits. Turn some of his followers against him. The second is a long-term vision of a fairer society that is not just hard on Trump, but hard on the causes of Trumpism — one that offers a positive vision.”
We need more clarity on what this “positive vision” is supposed to be, and how on earth we can turn Trump’s followers against him.
I believe that Trumpism offers visions to the masses—mostly negative visions that appeal to the lower elements of the human spirit—but still visions. I would even contend that he offers lower spiritual visions, yet visions that are not exclusively temporal and worldly. Meanwhile, the opposition struggles to offer alternate visions that go much beyond the status quo or envision a purely materialistic improvement, and that don’t really appeal to the higher elements of the human spirit either.
In the next post, I will explore how this underlying reason contributes to Trump's strong influence over many people's minds and will argue that only by presenting new and post-material visions can one loosen that grip.
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I'm afraid Brooks is very much in a liberal bubble and doesn't really know what the other side thinks, and neither do other establishment liberals (Brooks calls himself a conservative, but the Republicans I know would laugh at that), so when he says, "This could look like “lawsuits, mass rallies, strikes, work slowdowns, boycotts and other forms of noncooperation and resistance,"—but that just sounds like more of the same.
I keep thinking, "Well, Trump seems hell bent on ruining the economy. Maybe now, finally, Republicans will turn against him." But there's a real problem here, a problem much deeper than any rally or strike could possible speak to—there are no more shared facts or even a bottom line to appeal to. One of my Republican friends has already latched on to an excuse for price increases that haven't even happened yet by saying, "It's not Trump's tariffs that's causing price increases, it's businesses taking advantage of the situation." There's always an excuse, always someone else to blame.
To give you some idea of how bad this problem is, I stopped by a friend's house (different friend) who happened to have the 2016 inauguration playing on TV, and she said, "Aren't they classy?"
Classy. That was the exact word she used.
I'm glad you chose to bring up politics in this forum, because it gives me a chance to engage with you on these questions. I'm currently about halfway through your book _Spirit Calls Nature_ (thanks to Tina Lee Forsee's intercession), and as you may already know, I've been touching on many of the same themes in my own WordPress blog (staggeringimplications.wordpress.com) for the past four years: the failure of scientific materialism, the promise of a new awareness of being-in-the-world, the hopes for something like a Goethean science. However, I have a different view of what is actually happening in the postmodern or metamodern era-- one that blends optimism for the emerging paradigm with a certain pessimism concerning its apparent direction.
Your commenter Don Salmon has mentioned a chapter called "The Coming of the Subjective Age" in Sri Aurobindo's book _The Human Cycle_. I haven't read it, but I'm alert to what some have called the "subjective turn" in the late 20th and early 21st centuries, and I think "subjectivity" is a good way to characterize the new awareness. To my mind, Kierkegaard's observation in _Concluding Unscientific Postscript_ that "truth is subjectivity" is the earliest, and in ways still the most telling, formulation. For Kierkegaard, objective ways of seeing leave out something extremely important: the subject. This realization, which was also at the heart of the Romantic movement, has continued to develop until the present day. It accelerated dramatically in the 1960's, began to find philosophical expression late in the century in works as varied as Nagel's _The View From Nowhere_, Goleman's _Emotional Intelligence_,and Damasio's _Descartes' Error_, and has lately found social and political expression in postmodern and metamodern attitudes. Succinctly, Kierkegaard's "truth is subjectivity" has evolved into the idea, once considered shocking but now considered commonplace and even admirable, that truth has a personal aspect: that we may, and indeed we must, speak of "my truth" and "your truth."
Despite appearances, this development is not confined to the political left. While you have suggested in your essay above, following David Brooks, that Trumpism represents a reactionary regression against a higher form of perception, my contention is that the change in perception is happening across the board; that it involves this renewed sense of "truth as subjectivity;" and that unfortunately it has begun to manifest, on both the political right and left, in regressive rather than progressive ways. This is the explanation, not only of the reassertion of "family values," the distorted Christianity, the violent selfishness, and such like seen on the right, but also of "cancel culture," the impatient perversion of the values of modernity (such as equality and freedom), and indeed, the violent selfishness to be observed among the more extreme factions of the left. What the two have in common is the rejection of "objectivity" as a dangerous and erroneous attitude that interferes with the necessary expression of their subjective truth.
In the terms that Owen Barfield used in _Saving the Appearances_, we have resurrected "participation" as a mode of being, but we have also regressed, as I think he feared, to the "original participation" that preceded the age of abstraction and idolatry. We ought instead to be progressing toward what he called a "final participation," in which our advances over original participation are maintained and enhanced. In Goethean terms, we might say that we have embraced a new, intuitive way of seeing, but we have failed to preserve the alternative rational way of seeing; thus, rather than advancing beyond an impoverished materialistic science into a richer and better one, we are in danger of jettisoning our progress so far, and simply letting the pendulum swing back the other way, into a new Dark Age.
These are my concerns, and since we are starting from the same observations about a sea change at the end of modernity, I wanted to raise them with you. I do not mean to discourage or oppose your own views, or to impose my own in their place. I hope only to find a way to work through the current social and political crisis toward a successful resolution. I do not see this as a contest between the old and new ways of seeing, but as a failure to reconcile them: a failure to begin seeing, to use a metaphor I favour, with both eyes.