I had the pleasure of attending your lecture at the University of Cologne and have followed you since. Thank you for sharing the essay by Professor Kan. And although I understand his inclination to mourn the loss of the United States as a trusted ally and partner when considering the behavior of the current administration, I would suggest that mourning is premature.
One might more accurately describe the current situation as a state of liminality where the outcome is yet uncertain. Many millions of Americans – the majority - are not prepared to cede our Democracy to the current, and temporary, occupants of the White House. That struggle is ongoing and strengthening.
Without question, these are dark and painful days, but we the people are not waving the white flag of surrender. On the contrary, the loyal opposition is rallying to retake control of Congress in November and the White House in 2028. Our Federal Judiciary has not capitulated, and the struggle in State Courts is only beginning to ripen.
Europe is wise to take responsibility for securing its defense and economic viability. As someone who currently lives in the EU, I have long hoped that efforts to more fundamentally unite Europe would prevail. These efforts are long overdue and their absence provides ripe fruit for the picking by a populist demagogue like Trump.
That said, it is premature to mourn the death of the US as a trusted ally – We have been seriously wounded but we aren’t dead yet!
Thank you, Mr Dooley, for this set of observations and comments.
It is a fact that many of us Americans rally and do the work to re-work and re-institute constitutional governance; it is a fact that will benefit of the people of the world that, "Europe is wise to take responsibility for securing its defense and economic viability...."
It is an interesting choice of words, "...a state of liminality...", to apply to the current political American situation. Are we in between perceived and conceivable states of political existence domestically and of cooperative relations with others of other nations; are we in similar state among ourselves as a people within a constitutional, democratic, rule of law polity? "...America’s darker trends were never invisible...." This, as A.H.G. Rinnooy Kan points out in this letter, has always been the case for both America's friends and enemies in other nations. Will enough of us Americans learn this lesson of self-perception and, from this learning, choose a novel commitment to constitutionalism and the self-governance limits this suggests we must each commit to in order to have a rule of law that not only promotes and protects personal agency and responsibility but also consciously tempers and sensitizes us to our self-limiting cooperative capacities to come to agreements with Europeans and others in the future?
Human agency overlaps or is, in very practical ways, overlapping and by virtue of that in need of self-limitation and mutual optimistic cooperation. We Americans have a rudimentary awareness of political democracy, but have we yet even a practical beginning understanding of the reality and need of social democracy if mutual security and mutual benefit are to accrue? As A.H.G. Rinnooy Kan notes, "Mourning brings self-reproach, as well as regret over missed opportunities. Could we have seen this coming?..."
Prof. Kan is not wrong; however, please do not give up on us yet. There are so many of us who do not support this regime or their worldview! Things may never be the same, but I hope, with time, we can move forward and find ourselves again. And thank you for standing strong! We need the rest of your European compatriots to do the same! Like you said, kissing the ring does nothing but draw scorn ... it does not change the behavior.
Grief, sadness, and yet resolve to work together with what remains of mutual respect and mutual optimism for a shared -- and better-able -- cooperative future, ... post Trump et al's turn in government.
"...America’s darker trends were never invisible...." This, as A.H.G. Rinnooy Kan points out in this letter, has always been the case for both America's friends and enemies in other nations. This side of what, collectively, appeared to these on-lookers as part of the mix of many and diverse separate self-views [self-perceptions] of being an American and the thrust of America as a nation was, by necessity, among the capacities that had to be considered and kept part of the mix when dealing with any American US government or large US corporation.
"This intrusive assertiveness will not be confined to four years. It is becoming ever clearer that the new configuration of America’s relationship with the rest of the world will outlive Trump’s chaotic presidency...." We have the capacity to see the factual basis for this perception. With what commitment and honesty each of us brings to our efforts to politically hold to our constitutional and legal constitutional civil society both in resisting and re-constituting the public assumptions and public policies and programmatic actions our whole society and its optimism will be the tangible aspects of our agency and choices as Americans visible to ourselves and others.
In a recent conversation at work, I was reminded of a practical matter and practical perspective that, I think, is useful, perhaps vitally useful, in effectively holding to our constitutional and legal efforts.
In an effort to move past a procedural error block that seemed to be going unnoticed, consciously speaking, by a few colleagues, I mentioned hearing from them that they had tried the procedures, but the procedures did not work [well and without substantial effort], that we tried, the effort didn't pay off, we can't be successful doing that. It essential to be conscious that any short-coming of the planning and of the subsequent implementation be understood as a measure of limited understanding and effort; it doesn't mean that we cannot achieve the intended outcomes. When we fall short of a goal that continues to us to appear necessary and or worthy of our cooperative effort, we are effectively working toward learning means and ends.
As we proceed to work to our goal, we experience perceptual change. We all experience that working assumptions need reform or adjustment. It is reforming perspective through experience , and it is the conscious perspective reform that is necessary to giving thoughts and words practical form, for providing a systematic approach to working toward identifying and understanding political needs and political solutions that suggest themselves within our constitutional context of self-governance and limited government.
There will be only partial success at working toward identifying and understanding political needs. Our collective cooperative work can produce practical solutions, but in practice we may also discover the real limits associated with conceptual expression. What can only be accomplished by real effort is not the same as what is conceivable, but cooperative effort is an experience lesson that teaches more about what can be accomplished than what is conceivable.
Also, with abstract solution making, both logical inconsistencies and definitional limitations apply, but need not hinder the real efforts that reflect the needs agreed on and the limited achievement of mutual interests that form the basis for the cooperation and for the lived benefiting from the cooperation. Inconsistency is hallmark of ideation; incomplete understanding is inherent even in most successful cooperative efforts.
Our Constitution presents some logical inconsistencies if we look to it too exactly for statement of need, for statement of benefit. That is not what a conceptual document, as a product of human abstraction and expression, is capable of doing. What we do reflects actual needs and needs based, shared interest outcomes. What we say reflects abstraction, which abstraction can only be a partial and incomplete expression of the realities lived.
So what? Many solutions to many forms of experienced problems for many or most Americans are, obviously, currently needed, and there will be substantial involvement among ourselves, within the context of our Constitution if we choose it, that will require substantial cooperative agreement and work.
Everyone's conscious, practical understanding of our Constitution's framework for governing ourselves, as politically equal and responsible and accountable actors or agents who support and perpetuate civil legitimacy, civil liberties, and civil agency and security for everyone as we proceed and as a principle of being a constitutional society in common effort to seek novel solutions to the challenges of living, is a practical necessity. The form of self-government under the Constitution we have means form provides self-imposed and self-consciously accepted limits on personal agency in order to give maximum agency while supporting universal security of the Constitution and rule of law.
The Trump et al conscious use of election to obtain public office and then proceed to undo the Constitution limits on Executive branch power and undo the separation of powers arrangement, along with undoing the constitutional nature of federalism, works completely against this understanding of limited effective common political agency and legitimacy.
The respect for the reality of any person's human agency and human need satisfaction along with the conscious distribution of human agency authority for political governance that actually works to fully support equal agency, equal responsibility, equal protection, and equal legitimacy in pursuit of and enjoyment of liberty and security is the respect that the Constitution recognizes as real and prudent. It is the only source of motivations that support each of us as each of us actively participates in self-governing and that collectively enable us to resist lawlessness, whether by members of government or members of society.
The tension that is visible and that can be expressed in the matter of upholding of state law and state legal authority that is evident, for ex, now in Minnesota in re DHS/ICE actions in violation of Minnesotans civil rights and of state and federal law might be tensions that can get the constitutional perspective that is necessary to support and use rule of law and civil rights by making as clear as possible the above perspective on self-government under our Constitution.
While we have constitutional authorized limited federal government, we have also authorized active government by each state, the reserved powers spoken of generally.
The original authority and the current authority for actively managing and using continues to come from us, the people. If we, via the Constitution, see the advantage of distribution of our original authority, of use of our agency in a constitutional system of this character, then we can keep it and reform it and effectively use it as such.
The situation that the people of Minnesota now face could be being faced by any of us of any State. An abuse or violation of law, constitution or rule of law form is still ours to effectively resist by asserting our prudent and relevant federal and state agency. If it appears to being a playing off of one set against another, it need not be. It is and can be our effective interpretation and use of constitutional self-governance.
Thank you for this sad but accurate assessment of the changes to our world. I also morn the state of America. My hope is that when we manage to reclaim our country from the current madness, we can build something better, something that works for everyone and not just the wealthiest among us. I know our relationship with our allies will never be the same.
I also know that when new relationships are built, they must be a more equal basis. I long for the day when we can again become a shining example of democracy instead of a cautionary tale of what happens to a people that did not head the signs that our system was being destroyed -- mostly from within but also with the helpful prods from our advisories.
This is such a significant essay. How well can we use it to resist further corruption and to reform and re-establish a more and more cooperative and just vision of what Americans can contribute in the world, a better [if not perfect...] one of mutual respect and mutual agreement?
I do not know if any one here has read any of the work of Joy Harjo. She may offer, in the form of poetry, some insight:
"Once the World Was Perfect
By Joy Harjo
Once the world was perfect, and we were happy in that world.
Then we took it for granted.
Discontent began a small rumble in the earthly mind.
Then Doubt pushed through with its spiked head.
And once Doubt ruptured the web,
All manner of demon thoughts
Jumped through—
We destroyed the world we had been given
For inspiration, for life—
Each stone of jealousy, each stone
Of fear, greed, envy, and hatred, put out the light.
No one was without a stone in his or her hand.
There we were,
Right back where we had started.
We were bumping into each other
In the dark.
And now we had no place to live, since we didn't know
How to live with each other.
Then one of the stumbling ones took pity on another
And shared a blanket.
A spark of kindness made a light.
The light made an opening in the darkness.
Everyone worked together to make a ladder.
A Wind Clan person climbed out first into the next world,
And then the other clans, the children of those clans, their children,
calling it straight “a process of mourning.” as you follow through the relationship; shock, anger, nostalgia, self-reproach, as Europe watches “a steady, familiar partner” recede into something harsher and unreliable.
Professor Wehle:
I had the pleasure of attending your lecture at the University of Cologne and have followed you since. Thank you for sharing the essay by Professor Kan. And although I understand his inclination to mourn the loss of the United States as a trusted ally and partner when considering the behavior of the current administration, I would suggest that mourning is premature.
One might more accurately describe the current situation as a state of liminality where the outcome is yet uncertain. Many millions of Americans – the majority - are not prepared to cede our Democracy to the current, and temporary, occupants of the White House. That struggle is ongoing and strengthening.
Without question, these are dark and painful days, but we the people are not waving the white flag of surrender. On the contrary, the loyal opposition is rallying to retake control of Congress in November and the White House in 2028. Our Federal Judiciary has not capitulated, and the struggle in State Courts is only beginning to ripen.
Europe is wise to take responsibility for securing its defense and economic viability. As someone who currently lives in the EU, I have long hoped that efforts to more fundamentally unite Europe would prevail. These efforts are long overdue and their absence provides ripe fruit for the picking by a populist demagogue like Trump.
That said, it is premature to mourn the death of the US as a trusted ally – We have been seriously wounded but we aren’t dead yet!
Thank you, Mr Dooley, for this set of observations and comments.
It is a fact that many of us Americans rally and do the work to re-work and re-institute constitutional governance; it is a fact that will benefit of the people of the world that, "Europe is wise to take responsibility for securing its defense and economic viability...."
It is an interesting choice of words, "...a state of liminality...", to apply to the current political American situation. Are we in between perceived and conceivable states of political existence domestically and of cooperative relations with others of other nations; are we in similar state among ourselves as a people within a constitutional, democratic, rule of law polity? "...America’s darker trends were never invisible...." This, as A.H.G. Rinnooy Kan points out in this letter, has always been the case for both America's friends and enemies in other nations. Will enough of us Americans learn this lesson of self-perception and, from this learning, choose a novel commitment to constitutionalism and the self-governance limits this suggests we must each commit to in order to have a rule of law that not only promotes and protects personal agency and responsibility but also consciously tempers and sensitizes us to our self-limiting cooperative capacities to come to agreements with Europeans and others in the future?
Human agency overlaps or is, in very practical ways, overlapping and by virtue of that in need of self-limitation and mutual optimistic cooperation. We Americans have a rudimentary awareness of political democracy, but have we yet even a practical beginning understanding of the reality and need of social democracy if mutual security and mutual benefit are to accrue? As A.H.G. Rinnooy Kan notes, "Mourning brings self-reproach, as well as regret over missed opportunities. Could we have seen this coming?..."
Again, thank you for your input.
Prof. Kan is not wrong; however, please do not give up on us yet. There are so many of us who do not support this regime or their worldview! Things may never be the same, but I hope, with time, we can move forward and find ourselves again. And thank you for standing strong! We need the rest of your European compatriots to do the same! Like you said, kissing the ring does nothing but draw scorn ... it does not change the behavior.
Thank you, Ms Wehle, for sharing this letter.
Grief, sadness, and yet resolve to work together with what remains of mutual respect and mutual optimism for a shared -- and better-able -- cooperative future, ... post Trump et al's turn in government.
"...America’s darker trends were never invisible...." This, as A.H.G. Rinnooy Kan points out in this letter, has always been the case for both America's friends and enemies in other nations. This side of what, collectively, appeared to these on-lookers as part of the mix of many and diverse separate self-views [self-perceptions] of being an American and the thrust of America as a nation was, by necessity, among the capacities that had to be considered and kept part of the mix when dealing with any American US government or large US corporation.
"This intrusive assertiveness will not be confined to four years. It is becoming ever clearer that the new configuration of America’s relationship with the rest of the world will outlive Trump’s chaotic presidency...." We have the capacity to see the factual basis for this perception. With what commitment and honesty each of us brings to our efforts to politically hold to our constitutional and legal constitutional civil society both in resisting and re-constituting the public assumptions and public policies and programmatic actions our whole society and its optimism will be the tangible aspects of our agency and choices as Americans visible to ourselves and others.
clarification:
In a recent conversation at work, I was reminded of a practical matter and practical perspective that, I think, is useful, perhaps vitally useful, in effectively holding to our constitutional and legal efforts.
In an effort to move past a procedural error block that seemed to be going unnoticed, consciously speaking, by a few colleagues, I mentioned hearing from them that they had tried the procedures, but the procedures did not work [well and without substantial effort], that we tried, the effort didn't pay off, we can't be successful doing that. It essential to be conscious that any short-coming of the planning and of the subsequent implementation be understood as a measure of limited understanding and effort; it doesn't mean that we cannot achieve the intended outcomes. When we fall short of a goal that continues to us to appear necessary and or worthy of our cooperative effort, we are effectively working toward learning means and ends.
As we proceed to work to our goal, we experience perceptual change. We all experience that working assumptions need reform or adjustment. It is reforming perspective through experience , and it is the conscious perspective reform that is necessary to giving thoughts and words practical form, for providing a systematic approach to working toward identifying and understanding political needs and political solutions that suggest themselves within our constitutional context of self-governance and limited government.
There will be only partial success at working toward identifying and understanding political needs. Our collective cooperative work can produce practical solutions, but in practice we may also discover the real limits associated with conceptual expression. What can only be accomplished by real effort is not the same as what is conceivable, but cooperative effort is an experience lesson that teaches more about what can be accomplished than what is conceivable.
Also, with abstract solution making, both logical inconsistencies and definitional limitations apply, but need not hinder the real efforts that reflect the needs agreed on and the limited achievement of mutual interests that form the basis for the cooperation and for the lived benefiting from the cooperation. Inconsistency is hallmark of ideation; incomplete understanding is inherent even in most successful cooperative efforts.
Our Constitution presents some logical inconsistencies if we look to it too exactly for statement of need, for statement of benefit. That is not what a conceptual document, as a product of human abstraction and expression, is capable of doing. What we do reflects actual needs and needs based, shared interest outcomes. What we say reflects abstraction, which abstraction can only be a partial and incomplete expression of the realities lived.
So what? Many solutions to many forms of experienced problems for many or most Americans are, obviously, currently needed, and there will be substantial involvement among ourselves, within the context of our Constitution if we choose it, that will require substantial cooperative agreement and work.
Everyone's conscious, practical understanding of our Constitution's framework for governing ourselves, as politically equal and responsible and accountable actors or agents who support and perpetuate civil legitimacy, civil liberties, and civil agency and security for everyone as we proceed and as a principle of being a constitutional society in common effort to seek novel solutions to the challenges of living, is a practical necessity. The form of self-government under the Constitution we have means form provides self-imposed and self-consciously accepted limits on personal agency in order to give maximum agency while supporting universal security of the Constitution and rule of law.
The Trump et al conscious use of election to obtain public office and then proceed to undo the Constitution limits on Executive branch power and undo the separation of powers arrangement, along with undoing the constitutional nature of federalism, works completely against this understanding of limited effective common political agency and legitimacy.
The respect for the reality of any person's human agency and human need satisfaction along with the conscious distribution of human agency authority for political governance that actually works to fully support equal agency, equal responsibility, equal protection, and equal legitimacy in pursuit of and enjoyment of liberty and security is the respect that the Constitution recognizes as real and prudent. It is the only source of motivations that support each of us as each of us actively participates in self-governing and that collectively enable us to resist lawlessness, whether by members of government or members of society.
another thought...
The tension that is visible and that can be expressed in the matter of upholding of state law and state legal authority that is evident, for ex, now in Minnesota in re DHS/ICE actions in violation of Minnesotans civil rights and of state and federal law might be tensions that can get the constitutional perspective that is necessary to support and use rule of law and civil rights by making as clear as possible the above perspective on self-government under our Constitution.
While we have constitutional authorized limited federal government, we have also authorized active government by each state, the reserved powers spoken of generally.
The original authority and the current authority for actively managing and using continues to come from us, the people. If we, via the Constitution, see the advantage of distribution of our original authority, of use of our agency in a constitutional system of this character, then we can keep it and reform it and effectively use it as such.
The situation that the people of Minnesota now face could be being faced by any of us of any State. An abuse or violation of law, constitution or rule of law form is still ours to effectively resist by asserting our prudent and relevant federal and state agency. If it appears to being a playing off of one set against another, it need not be. It is and can be our effective interpretation and use of constitutional self-governance.
Thank you for this sad but accurate assessment of the changes to our world. I also morn the state of America. My hope is that when we manage to reclaim our country from the current madness, we can build something better, something that works for everyone and not just the wealthiest among us. I know our relationship with our allies will never be the same.
I also know that when new relationships are built, they must be a more equal basis. I long for the day when we can again become a shining example of democracy instead of a cautionary tale of what happens to a people that did not head the signs that our system was being destroyed -- mostly from within but also with the helpful prods from our advisories.
Many Americans also mourn for our country and for the harm it is doing to these historic relationships ❤️ thank you
I HATE what is happening to our country!!!!
This is such a significant essay. How well can we use it to resist further corruption and to reform and re-establish a more and more cooperative and just vision of what Americans can contribute in the world, a better [if not perfect...] one of mutual respect and mutual agreement?
I do not know if any one here has read any of the work of Joy Harjo. She may offer, in the form of poetry, some insight:
"Once the World Was Perfect
By Joy Harjo
Once the world was perfect, and we were happy in that world.
Then we took it for granted.
Discontent began a small rumble in the earthly mind.
Then Doubt pushed through with its spiked head.
And once Doubt ruptured the web,
All manner of demon thoughts
Jumped through—
We destroyed the world we had been given
For inspiration, for life—
Each stone of jealousy, each stone
Of fear, greed, envy, and hatred, put out the light.
No one was without a stone in his or her hand.
There we were,
Right back where we had started.
We were bumping into each other
In the dark.
And now we had no place to live, since we didn't know
How to live with each other.
Then one of the stumbling ones took pity on another
And shared a blanket.
A spark of kindness made a light.
The light made an opening in the darkness.
Everyone worked together to make a ladder.
A Wind Clan person climbed out first into the next world,
And then the other clans, the children of those clans, their children,
And their children, all the way through time—
To now, into this morning light to you.
Copyright Credit: Joy Harjo, "Once the World Was Perfect" from Conflict Resolution for Holy Beings. Copyright © 2015 by Joy Harjo. Reprinted by permission of W. W. Norton & Company, Inc.."
calling it straight “a process of mourning.” as you follow through the relationship; shock, anger, nostalgia, self-reproach, as Europe watches “a steady, familiar partner” recede into something harsher and unreliable.