Life Goes On: Taking Stock at 53

Life is what happens to you while you’re busy making other plans. – John Lennon

During my sophomore year in college, I took a course on monetary policy taught by a gentle, elderly professor named Dick Liming. Boasting a full head of curly white hair, Professor Liming was a bespectacled, happy-go-lucky sort, a genuinely absent-minded professor straight out of central casting. With a pleasant disposition and friendly, approachable air, the professor would often stop by the Student Union for a mid-afternoon coffee break. One day, the professor invited me to sit down at his table and discuss with him some pressing issues involving macro-economics and the government’s role in the economy. Over the course of the semester, he made it a habit to invite students to sit with him while he held court on issues of national and global import, offering his opinions, knowledge, and at times radical concepts on a wide variety of topics, mostly in an effort to generate a lively exchange of ideas. A proponent of John Maynard Keynes and John Kenneth Galbraith, schools of thought that remained influential in the late 1970’s, Professor Liming helped economics come alive for me. From the quiet, tranquil confines of Springfield, Ohio, the professor’s discourses made relevant what was happening in U.S. politics, economics, and the world around us.

I do not recall all of the things we discussed during these talks. But I remember the sense of intellectual excitement I felt as I discovered and developed my own insights on topics about which, only a few years before, I knew nothing. I loved feeling it was possible to make sense of the world and to envision a role in making it better. At Wittenberg, I felt compelled to make up for lost time, believing I had wasted my high school years on the narrow pursuits of adolescence, lacking insight into what life had to offer in the present or foresight into what lay ahead.

One spring afternoon, sensing my uncertainty about the future, Professor Liming discussed his own course in life. “I was a young buck out of Harvard,” he said of his more youthful days, “Full of energy and ambition, I had the world at my fingertips.” He talked of his career in the banking and insurance industries, and later academia; the mistakes he made along the way; and the notion of intellectual contentment he had finally found at Wittenberg. In listening to the professor speak, I sensed he could have accomplished more in his career and traveled in more powerful circles, but in the end he had chosen a quieter, less remunerative, more studious path. He seemed a happy man, content with his life’s choices, overlooking his declining health as he embarked on his twilight years. From these conversations, I desired a life of intellectual fulfillment, perhaps as a professor of economics, teaching and molding young minds at a place like Wittenberg; or a life in politics and government, making policy and changing the course of history for the better. The possibilities were limitless, or so I came to believe during these formative years, though I knew not which path to take or where it might lead me.

Much has happened since my afternoon coffees with Professor Liming. Within a few years, I attended law school in Washington, D.C. – not the direction I previously envisioned – and soon began a career as a federal prosecutor. For eighteen years, I made opening statements and closing arguments before juries in big city courtrooms far from the gentle hills of southern Ohio. No longer the shy kid from central New Jersey, I navigated a world of cops and robbers, crime victims and crackheads, drug dealers and murderers, judges and street-wise lawyers. I argued cases in esteemed courts of appeal in Washington and Philadelphia before life-tenured, Presidentially-appointed judges, some of whom would later serve on the Supreme Court. As a prosecutor and now, for the past several years, a managing director of a corporate investigations firm, I have been involved in many interesting cases encompassing a wide variety of life. I have traveled far from the banal days of my suburban youth, when I lived in a solitary world of imaginary heroism far removed from the realities of everyday life, squandering countless hours shooting baskets in front of the garage, lying on the couch listening to music through stereo headphones, or rolling dice and keeping box scores playing Strat-O-Matic baseball.

I turn 53 this week and cannot help but wonder where the years have gone. “Lost time is never found again,” advised Benjamin Franklin. It is a reality I am powerless to overcome. There are times when life resembles a walk through a museum. Too often, I look around and move quickly to the next exhibit, failing to study and absorb the beauty and wisdom of the object before me. Have I by-passed the essence of my life, taking note only of what is immediately relevant? How much have I failed to absorb along the way? Our memories are like a picture book that allows us to re-examine, in the context of history, the layers of life that so quickly pass us by.

The other night I leafed through my high school yearbook of 1977, the year I graduated, left for college, and never looked back. As I flipped the pages and studied the faces of my past, as if momentarily traveling back in time, I re-lived the happiness, the humor, and the anxieties of my youth, which 35 years later continue to haunt me. More than three decades later, I remain uncertain of my place in life. As I look at the younger version of myself, a part of me continues to feel like that same, socially awkward, introverted teenage boy from the 1970’s. I have come so far, yet continue to feel that I could have been so much more. Have I really failed myself, or is it the confidence in myself that simply fails me?

“Life isn’t about finding yourself,” wrote George Bernard Shaw. “Life is about creating yourself.” There is the life we present to the world, the life of our imagination and expectations, and the life we lead. I have dreamed of accomplishing great things, of changing the world, while leading a life of integrity, intellect, and spiritual fulfillment; it is an imagined life of perfection. Perhaps I set the bar too high. Just like the seventeen year old high school senior who knew he could have done more with his young life, and the twenty-one year old college student, ambitious but undisciplined, lacking a guidepost and a solid notion of what life had in store, there remains a part of me unsatisfied and unfulfilled. Have I simply gone where the ride has taken me and failed to steer the ship? Like E.B. White, “I arise in the morning torn between a desire to improve the world and a desire to enjoy the world. This makes it hard to plan the day.”

I don’t know why I am so hard on myself, why I cannot forgive myself for failing to achieve perfection. It is an impossible standard to meet, but one with which I have yet to come to terms. At 53, I still have much to accomplish, but I now understand there are limits to what can be achieved in life. Like Professor Liming in his later years, I am less ambitious these days. I refuse to sacrifice the occasional quiet moment, long solitary walks in the park, baseball on summer afternoons, a good book, time to write and reflect; I value too much the precious time with my kids, my family, and Andrea. “Any fool can make things bigger [and] more complex,” said Albert Einstein. “It takes a touch of genius-- and a lot of courage-- to move in the opposite direction." Only time will tell if I can forgive my shortcomings.

Perhaps I am simply caught up in the emotions of a father who sees his two children growing up, one about to graduate from college and become wholly independent of me, the other preparing to leave home, attend college and start afresh her life’s journey. It makes my heart burst with pride and hurt with anguish all at once. Such is the life of a parent. And yet, it is when I reflect on my children that I am most content with my station in life, for the focus is no longer on me, but my legacy. If my world were to end tomorrow, I need only look back on my experience as a father, on the pleasure, humor, and excitement of watching young minds develop and characters formed, to know that it was all worthwhile. Whatever sadness my life has experienced – and I have been luckier than most in this respect – and whatever regrets about my choices and outcomes, I know that I am blessed, that life has been easier for me than for most. The small joys, the little pleasures, these will have been enough.

“In the long run,” said Eleanor Roosevelt, “we shape our lives, and we shape ourselves. The process never ends until we die. And the choices we make are ultimately our own responsibility." Life is a journey and a puzzle. Happiness is elusive for no good reason. It is why I write, and walk, and think. I will always be a work in progress. And for this, I am forever grateful.

The Girl from Ohio: A Mother's Day Tribute

A mother is the truest friend we have, when trials heavy and sudden, fall upon us; when adversity takes the place of prosperity; when friends who rejoice with us in our sunshine desert us; when trouble thickens around us, still will she cling to us, and endeavor by her kind precepts and counsels to dissipate the clouds of darkness, and cause peace to return to our hearts. – Washington Irving

Richard Nixon once said that his mother was a “saint.” On this point, at least, he may have told the truth. Even saints give birth to sinners. It is a sentiment shared by many sons, including me, about their mothers. But we are often reluctant to speak of our mothers in such sentimental terms. I am not trying to suggest that my mom is a saint in the ecclesiastical sense. In the movie Michael, John Travolta portrays an angel who protests, “I’m not THAT kind of angel.” My mother might also protest that she is not THAT kind of “saint,” but her life is surely a testament to the goodness of God’s creations.

Born and bred a country girl, Mom spent the first three years of her life in Parkersburg, West Virginia, then moved with her family to a large, white-pillared estate in Akron, Ohio, the place she called home the remainder of her childhood. But it was neither an ideal setting nor an ideal childhood. Her father was an attorney who made his money in construction and real estate, a conservative and serious man with traditional notions of gender roles and class structures. Although he never showed my mom much love or affection, she continues to hold firm to the notion that he tried his best. You see, my mom always sees the best in everyone and refuses to believe that some people can be simply self-absorbed or cruel.

When my mom was eight years old, she was sent to live in West Virginia with her Aunt Boe, her father’s sister, for part of the summer. She had fun there, but looked forward to returning home to her mother’s embrace. When she arrived home, however, her mother was not there. Annoyed at her questions - “Where’s Mom?” - her father deployed Norm, Mom’s 13 year-old brother, to inform her of the news. “Mom is no longer living with us,” Norm said, “Pop and Mom are getting divorced.” Her father never said one word about it nor concerned himself with the effect of this news on his daughter. Although unusual in those days, Mom remained with her father in the cold, formal house in Akron, only occasionally seeing her mother, until she could be sent away to boarding school. Never really understanding why it happened, Mom remained close to her mother and chose not to assign blame to anyone for this turn of events. Years later, it was my mom who took care of my grandmother when she was old, sick, and lacking financial means; and Mom was by her side the night she died.

For any young child, the news that your family is breaking apart is devastating, as it surely was for my mom. Yet, she always possessed a soulful, powerful sense of God’s presence. Anyone who does not believe in God should speak to my mother. Raised in a religiously indifferent family, her father rarely attended church and did nothing to encourage it. But from the time her parents divorced, Mom awoke every Sunday morning and walked alone to the local Presbyterian Church, where she attended Sunday school classes and worship services. When she returned home, she would find her father and two brothers asleep, or off to the racetrack, or attending to their more secular concerns. Looking back, Mom has said, “I really think God took me in my arms and held me. It is something I always felt.”

When Mom was thirteen, her father sent her away to Hathaway Brown, a select all-girls boarding school in Shaker Heights, Ohio, just outside of Cleveland. Her classmates came from some of the wealthiest and most accomplished families in Ohio. They were fast and sophisticated, far different from Mom, who remained in many ways the innocent country girl from West Virginia. Alone among her peers, she continued to attend church each Sunday – a prominent American Baptist church with an engaging pastor and innovative worship services. Many of her classmates would go on to attend some of the nation’s finest universities – Smith, Wellesley, Radcliffe and Barnard. As a straight-A student, Mom could have attended any of these schools, but my grandfather believed her education was sufficient at Hathaway Brown, which he perceived as a finishing school, a reflection of the times and of women’s role in society in the late 1940’s. Though she rarely contradicted her father’s decisions about her life, Mom had other ideas about college. There were no father-daughter college visits, but at least Grandpa accepted Mom’s ambition to attend college. Although she seriously considered all-girls Smith College in Massachusetts, she opted instead for the less pretentious, coeducational Wittenberg University in Springfield, Ohio, where she would eventually meet my dad and begin a new life.

Mom and Dad exchanged vows on September 1, 1951, and, nearly six decades later, they remain happily married, two people who share a love and devotion rarely seen in today’s fast-paced culture. That she has remained with my Dad for sixty years alone may qualify my mother for sainthood. I tease my father often that he “married up,” but he only laughs a little at this remark, for secretly he realizes just how true is the sentiment, and what a lucky man he has been.

A lesser person might well have despaired the kind of childhood that my mother lived, separated from a loving mother, living with an uncaring father and sent away to boarding school. But through it all my mom maintained a deep and abiding faith. It is, I believe, why she remains to this day secure in the face of life’s challenges and why her life is devoted to serving others: her family and her church, her former students, the PTA, a neighbor grieving over a lost relative, a homeless man on a street corner, anyone needing a helping hand. She is a woman of great empathy and compassion for others, almost to a fault, with little concern for self-recognition. Everyone who has ever met my mom has been swept away by her abundant optimism and sunny disposition. Whatever life throws her way, she can turn darkness into sunshine with an almost surreal energy.

My mother has always been compelled to serve. When I was growing up with my sister and brother in New Jersey, Mom took care of everyone and everything. She tended to our family in a way that is less appreciated in current times, but was profoundly important in developing our family’s character and strength. She was always there for us and, even when she started work, first as a librarian and later as a school teacher, she always managed each night to have dinner on the table, keep the house neat, and clean and fold the laundry. She fed and walked the dog, cleaned the dishes, chauffeured us to basketball practices and orchestra rehearsals, helped with our homework and still had time to prepare her lesson plans for the next day. When I played Little League, it was Mom with catcher’s mitt in hand, crouched down from forty-five feet away, who caught my formidable fastballs. She would never allow me to take something off my pitches to her, to treat her as a “girl,” for she was a solid athlete in her own right. At Hathaway Brown, she often reminded me, she was a star field hockey, basketball, and softball player, one who could keep up with her older brothers.

If that were not enough, Mom also faithfully fulfilled the role as a pastor’s wife and, later, “First Lady” of the New Jersey Lutheran Synod when my dad was its President. She hosted dinner parties on Saturday nights, attended both church services on Sunday mornings when my dad preached, helped with the coffee hour, and then volunteered for church activities during the week. She rarely said no to anyone, constantly overextending herself to serve as a Sunday school teacher and chairperson of the Lutheran women’s group. She coordinated a prayer chain one week, visited shut-ins the next, and made cookies for the Girl Scouts when she was not otherwise packing our lunches or folding our laundry or putting us to bed. Come to think of it, Dad, what the hell did you do?

“A mother is a person,” quipped Tennerva Jordan, “who seeing there are only four pieces of pie for five people, promptly announces she never did care for pie.” Self-sacrificing to a fault, there have been times that my mother’s excessive zeal to serve her family and others has caused me to become a touch exasperated. When we visit, even now, I will enter the kitchen in the morning and exclaim, “Don’t worry, Mom, I’ll make my own breakfast.” But I have to elbow her out of the way, as she insists on buttering my English muffin (“I don’t want butter”) or pouring my coffee (“I can do it myself”). If she would only listen to me, I painstakingly protest, I could go about my business and all would be well. But it is to no avail.

I know, I know. What’s a son to do? I feel guilty for insufficiently appreciating Mom’s unwavering efforts. Despite my exasperation, I know that Mom’s insistence on doing these things is an expression that she wants only the best for me and for all of us, that her love is infinite and endless. If she could, she would give us the world. Instead, she has attempted to serve the world. As a schoolteacher in the 1970’s, Mom taught scores of first-graders to read and, as the letters from her students attest, she greatly influenced and molded their young lives. Today, as a grandmother of six and the adopted grandmother of several young families in her neighborhood, she continues spreading to others a bright and shining love that perhaps, in today’s cynical and fast-paced world, only young children can fully appreciate.

“Most of all the other beautiful things in life come by twos and threes, by dozens and hundreds,” wrote Kate Douglas Wiggin. “Plenty of roses, stars, sunsets, rainbows, brothers and sisters, aunts and cousins, comrades and friends – but only one mother in the whole world.” There is a reason why mothers are special, for they bring us into this world, then watch over us as we try to find our way. In the end, for a special few, they remain true to their lifelong purpose, to make their children feel the unique love that only a “Mom” can dispense. And that is what makes a mother a “saint.”

Happy Mother’s Day, Mom!

The Man From Jersey City

When a man has done his best, has given his all, and in the process supplied the needs of his family and his society, that man has made a habit of succeeding.-Mack R. Douglas

My father was born in Jersey City in 1929, three months before the stock market crashed. “Dad was born and the world went into a Great Depression,” I have often quipped. Twenty years earlier, his father, alone and only nineteen years old, left Denmark for the United States in search of work and economic security. My grandfather spoke no English when he arrived on the shores of Ellis Island, but through perseverance and the will to succeed, he found work as a carpenter, formed a family and created an American life. A quiet, kind-hearted man, with gentle mannerisms that contradicted his strong, calloused hands, I know little else about my grandfather. He died before I was born and my father has never told me much about him; his father rarely discussed his European roots and early struggles with his youngest son, which may explain why I have never possessed a strong ethnic identity even though that part of me is a second-generation American.

It was from my father, however, that I developed an interest in history – listening to his stories of growing up in a Jersey City row house during the Depression; of playing stick ball in the street and rooting for the New York Giants when they played in the Polo Grounds; of working at a pencil factory in the 1940’s when his two older brothers went off to war, one never to return. “You remind me of your Uncle Ted,” he has told me on occasion, with a sad look in his eyes, pained by thoughts of what might have been. “Everybody loved and respected Ted,” my mother would add.

My father was the first in his family to attend college, and it was a scary moment when the skinny 17 year-old kid from Lincoln High School first boarded a train for a southern Ohio town, having never ventured further than New York City. Arriving at Wittenberg University in 1947, its lush, green lawns and tree-filled campus amidst stone buildings and walkways, it was unlike anything from his prior citified existence. Over the next few years, he befriended returning vets studying under the GI Bill and divided his time between studies, part-time work, and fraternity life. In what may have been his most impressive move, at Wittenberg he met and proposed to my mom. It was my dad’s good fortune to have married up, much to the chagrin of his future father-in-law. A life-long love affair secured, he went on to three years of seminary education and, in 1953, became an ordained Lutheran minister, his professional calling.

The ministry was an odd mixture of success and disappointment for my father. He faithfully served four congregations in New Jersey, New England, and Virginia. He preached to and counseled professors and students, farmers and business executives, millworkers and janitors, Congressmen and even a Supreme Court justice, treating each as equal members of God’s family. He was elected Bishop of the New Jersey Lutheran Synod in the early 1970’s, a volatile time in our nation’s history and in church-state relations, when the Church was embroiled in issues of racism and civil rights, gender equality, war and peace, the sexual revolution, drugs and poverty – the same issues then enveloping the country. He helped young men conscientiously opposed to the Vietnam War develop alternative service options. He helped pastors struggling with personal and family problems, and mentored seminary students and young ministers who privately doubted their chosen paths. He confronted and overcame challenges posed by the growing alienation of our youth, rising divorce rates, changing social mores, growing secularism and a heightened skepticism of all things religious. He fought against the rising tide of Christian fundamentalism, a battle he continues to fight today in the Bible-Belt South. And he encouraged congregational leaders and choir directors to experiment with liturgy, music and worship styles to ensure that the Church remained relevant and connected to modern humanity.

Despite reaching the top of his chosen profession, I have always detected a sense of frustration deep within him; that somehow his labors were not fully appreciated and that, especially in retirement, his talents were not fully utilized. “The ministry is a very misunderstood profession,” he warned my brother when Steve first considered following my father’s example. “No one appreciates how much work and effort is involved. Most people think you work one day a week. People rarely praise you and they can be very critical.” For my dad and many of his contemporaries, the desire to preach prophetically and to act boldly in the face of social and economic injustice was under constant attack by existing power structures from within and outside of the Church.

When I was younger, my friends found it hard to believe my dad was a minister. Possessed of a lively sense of humor, his language occasionally reflected his Jersey City roots; it was . . . shall we say . . . salty, a bit impure, with an emphasis on his secular side. A sea of calm during times of crises and periods of great stress, he possessed an explosive temper that erupted only over trivial matters, such as when he misplaced his keys or broke his shoestring. Now in his twilight years, he has mellowed some, his body tired, his soul more contemplative. (“Oh, I don’t know about that,” I can hear my mom saying right now.)

But anyone familiar with my dad also knows of his enormous sense of compassion, empathy, and profound understanding for the sufferers among us, for those who are sick, or poor, or have lost a loved one. He is a great listener, a trait that has served him well in counseling and comforting people in need. Like my mom, he is compelled to serve. Even in retirement, a status he embraced only reluctantly, Dad was the president of the local chapter of Habitat for Humanity and, subsequently, president of Mainstay, a shelter for battered women in western North Carolina. He served as the interim pastor of three different congregations and, with my mom, continues to volunteer each week at the local soup kitchen.

I often wonder why he sometimes doubted his decision six decades ago to enter the ministry. Had he gone into business or banking, he likely would have become CEO and made a lot of money; had he become a teacher, he would have risen to principal or school superintendent. I believe he could have done most anything he wanted, given his straightforward determination and hard-driven work ethic developed in his formative Depression-ridden years.

A city boy who grew to despise cities, Dad chose to retire with Mom and their dog in a small country town in rural North Carolina, away from the congestion of metropolitan living. The son of an immigrant with little interest in his family’s heritage, he extends sincere interest to the backgrounds and stories of others. A man who has committed his entire life to the Church and to serving others, he refuses to let others serve him, and he becomes frustrated with the Church’s unresponsiveness to social ills and injustice. A tendency to focus on the negative, always moving in the opposite direction of his roots, my father is at times an enigma. He has been vaguely discontented with his life’s accomplishments, never realizing how much the people whose lives he has touched along the way respected and admired him.

But of all my dad’s career and life accomplishments, his most lasting legacy is the love and support he provided, along with my mom, to his three children. No matter how busy he was, regardless of his many late night meetings, he always made the time to join us for dinner and to ask about our days. He went out of his way to watch my brother and I play in our countless baseball and basketball games and other sporting events, which seemed to consume 365 days a year through high school. Along the way, he prodded but never pushed, nudging us in directions he thought we should go. Although I did not always appreciate it then, upon reflection I know now that my dad possesses a level of judgment and wisdom exceeding most mortal souls, gained from years of insight into the mistakes and milestones of the many families he has counseled and consoled along the way. He gave each of his three children the freedom to choose our own paths, to make our own mistakes, secure in the knowledge that, whatever we did, however we succeeded or failed along the way, we could always come home to the embrace of unconditional love. As award winning photographer Anne Geddes once said, “Any man can be a father, but it takes someone special to be a dad.”

A Wittenberg Moment: Looking Back and Moving Ahead

Every few years the Wittenberg University Choir passes through town as part of a tour through the northeastern United States. Andrea and I saw them perform this past Saturday night at St. Paul’s Lutheran Church in Ardmore, Pennsylvania. For those who have never seen or heard the Wittenberg Choir, they are world class, as good as any university choir you are likely to see, on a par with St. Olaf and Concordia and many of the other great college choirs.

I have seen the Wittenberg Choir perform several times over the years, and every time I leave feeling blessed, spiritually uplifted and culturally enriched. The collective sounds of these young people’s voices are beautiful, a mosaic of harmony and acoustic perfection. And while they always sound glorious, on Saturday they were really quite spectacular.

The music on this night was mostly religious and traditional, with classical and spiritual overtones. They performed three songs – Ubi Caritas, O magnum Mysterium, and Sanctus – in Latin, singing Still wie die Nacht in German, and Bogoroditse Devo in Russian. During their performance of When I Survey the Wondrous Cross (arranged by Gilbert Martin), I turned and noticed Andrea overcome with emotion, struck by the beauty and power of the moment. At the end of the concert, the choir enclosed the audience in a large circle and sang The Benediction by Knut Nystedt. Although each choir member stood alone, together they formed an elaborate sound of quadraphonic wholeness. Earlier that evening, in Calling My Children Home (arranged by Joseph Jennings), they sang the words with such deep feeling it could not help but penetrate one's heart:

Those lives were mine to love and cherish, To guard and guide along life’s way./O God, forbid that one should perish, That one alas should go astray./Back in the years with all together, Around the place we’d romp and play./So lonely now, I often wonder, O will they come back home some day?/I’m lonesome for my precious children, They live so far away./O may they hear my calling And come back home someday./I gave my all for my dear children, Their problems still with love I share./I’d brave life’s storms, defy the tempest To bring them home from anywhere./I lived my life, my love I gave them, To guide them through this world of strife./I hope and pray we’ll live together In that great glad hereafter life./I’m lonesome for my precious children, They live so far away./O may they hear my calling And come back home someday.

For someone like me, who grew up listening mostly to folk, pop, and rock music, the sounds emanating from this modest amalgam of young voices was impressively diverse and expansive. The night was in part a tribute to Dr. Donald Busarow, who is completing a journey enveloping 28 years as choir director and 35 years as a professor of music theory and composition, and who is stepping down as only the fourth director in the choir’s 80-year history.

I left Wittenberg nearly 30 years ago, though in many ways it never left me and continues to occupy a warm place in my heart. Founded in 1845 by German immigrants, Wittenberg sits on a stunningly beautiful campus in southern Ohio, spreading its wings over 120 acres of lush grounds. The biggest negative to Wittenberg’s draw is its location in the city of Springfield, a once proud industrial town of the old rust belt, formerly home to a major International Harvester plant, but now host to unemployed factory workers and a stagnant service industry. Surrounded by farmland, the area is a mixture of northern Kentucky and central New Jersey. There is very little to do in Springfield, but that never mattered much during the four years that I was there. Wittenberg was everything to me then, its grand brick buildings and majestic trees overlooking its rolling hills of green grass, brick walkways, and well tended flowerbeds.

Perhaps I so appreciated the Wittenberg Choir on Saturday night because I have often considered my time there as among the best four years of my life. As I think back on it, I have difficulty remembering a single bad day. Life was fun and fulfilling, the days vivid and fresh, friendships came easy, and I never felt alone. On the night of graduation, while others celebrated, I quietly cried, anguished by the thought that life would never be as free and easy again. I loved Wittenberg and knew even then that it was an experience never to be replicated in life’s subsequent stages. Yet as I sat in the pews of St. Paul’s church, I could not remember once having seen the choir perform during my years at Wittenberg. Sometimes we appreciate only later in life the things we so often overlooked in the past.

In reality, there has been so much more to life since I left college. I headed to Washington, D.C., and later to Philadelphia, places full of history and culture and excitement. I became an accomplished lawyer and prosecutor. I have met sons and daughters of important people, worked alongside men and women who hailed from the best schools, and involved myself in interesting and fulfilling work. I have been introduced to the worlds of politics and law, art and theater, differing cultures and religions, things I had overlooked or not been exposed to in humble Springfield. I embraced a larger world, which in its splendor sometimes fails to acknowledge the simple and gentle confines of places like Wittenberg.

I have few regrets over the paths I have chosen and choices I have made, and I realize that, in some respects, I may have outgrown Wittenberg – when I graduated in 1981, I was ready to move on – but part of me never left. When I spotted the Wittenberg banner upon entering the church narthex on Saturday night, and set my eyes on the bright red and white gowns of the Wittenberg Choir, I felt a rush of pride about where my Wittenberg journey has led me in life and my connection to this grand place. I felt at home.

To this day, when I think of Wittenberg, I feel an occasional twinge of sadness, a longing for the days of my youth, when my whole life stood before me, my dreams unlimited, and my ideals untainted. I know now that constantly looking back serves no useful purpose. If I had the chance to live life over again, I would certainly do some things differently. I would, for one, not take time and relationships for granted, and I would be more open to new experiences, to travel, and to taking risks in life. But there is very little I would change about Wittenberg and my experiences there. Living in the present is healthier and more productive, the only way truly to live. I know that I am blessed – with my health, my family, my children, with Andrea, my career, and my faith, however tenuous and imperfect it may be.

It is due in no small part to my days at Wittenberg, the things I learned, the growth I experienced, the confidence I gained, that today I am so blessed. If my children can experience in their college years even half of the joy, the fun, the learning, and the sense of fulfillment that I found during my four years at Wittenberg, I will sleep soundly knowing they are on the right path, journeying forward to a life complete.

On Economics, Values, and Meaning

As an undergraduate student at Wittenberg University in the late 1970’s, I chose to major in economics in the belief that no other subject so adequately explained the workings of everyday life. By understanding economics, or so I believed, one could understand the efficient allocation of resources, the affects of competition on prices and jobs, the distribution of wealth and income, the proper role of government and law in regulating business and the economy, the impact of advertising on the behavior of consumers, and the realities of business cycles and international trade. The true study of economics is not restricted to quantitative formulas and complex computer models – the stuff of Ph.D. programs – but concerns itself with matters difficult to quantify – political decision making, human psychology, sociology, and culture. Although the days when I debated the merits of John Maynard Keynes and John Kenneth Galbraith, Milton Friedman and Adam Smith, are long gone, the theoretical and practical distinctions of their philosophical differences continue to interest me.

I wish here to reflect not on capitalism or socialism, not on the relative merits of free enterprise versus a centrally planned economy – I wish instead to focus on the morality, values, and ethics of society’s grasp for excess wealth and the growing gap between the rich and the poor. What are the spiritual dimensions of our present economic circumstances? Is there a way to alleviate poverty and suffering, reduce gross inequalities, and improve the quality of one’s life?

Jim Wallis, the founder and executive director of Sojourners, poses such questions in Rediscovering Values: A Moral Compass for a New Economy (Howard Books, 2010). Wallis recently spoke at the Friends Select School in Philadelphia, where he argued that the global economic crisis “provides the rare opportunity to ask some fundamental questions about our most basic values.” He does not approach economics from a left or right framework – he is neither a capitalist nor a monetarist nor a Marxist, neither a liberal nor a conservative – rather, he examines the American economy from the pulpit, as a progressive, socially conscious evangelical preacher with an activist bent. He acknowledges that the 20th century created and distributed a great volume of goods and services with unprecedented efficiency. But he suggests that “with these great advances, the moral weight of our decisions becomes greater than ever before.” Is the purpose of business simply “restricted to turning a profit” or can it become something more? Does self-interest always have to be the prime motivational force of business conduct and personal behavior? Can one make sound financial and economic decisions without sacrificing moral values, fairness, and compassion?

Market forces are important, but the ability and power of markets to solve all social and economic needs has limits. Market values do not govern personal and family relationships, ethics and religion, service to the community, and matters of social justice. It is impossible to place a monetary value on a sense of personal contentment, or a life enriched by poetry, music, art, service to others, and closeness to family and friends. This occurred to me last weekend when I attended a fundraiser at the Abington Friends School, which in the Quaker tradition attempts to instill an appreciation for a simpler life, one of mind and spirit, a life committed to responsible stewardship and community service, with little emphasis on material accumulations. As several teachers and staff wowed the audience with beautiful poetry and song, including original compositions accompanied by piano and guitar, I was struck with how self-satisfied each appeared. Despite modest salaries and little public acclaim, these dedicated mentors and educators displayed a sense of personal contentment rarely seen in the corporate world.

Those who need validation from status symbols and accumulated wealth must often sacrifice a sense of purpose and meaning and personal fulfillment. “Without a clear sense of self, a strong identity, and a community of purpose,” Wallis notes, “our default mode is to identify ourselves by the things we own.” But such an identity is inherently weak and can easily dissolve and be taken away.

For some, the market is sacred and not to be questioned, more sacrosanct than religion. How else to explain a lack of outrage over $20 million severance packages handed out to CEO’s of failing companies, or billions of dollars in bonuses awarded to executives of the very institutions that contributed to our present economic woes, while the jobs of millions of Americans have been eliminated? Where is concern for the common good and a sense of neighborly compassion? Wallis suggests that “a sense of entitlement is not just an attitude we can blanketly attribute to the poor, but is a real problem of many rich people, who believe they are entitled to be treated like kings and queens of old, whether or not they are successful.”

American culture is fascinated with the super rich and the fabulously wealthy; we admire their mansions, covet their fancy cars, emulate their fashion trends and secretly desire invitations to their dinner parties. Our enchantment with wealth causes many of us to buy “things we don’t need with money that we don’t have.” We live in an age of materialism, where mass consumption results in an over emphasis on the clothes we wear, the cars we drive, the houses we own – important sources of identity for many Americans. But what does it say about the ethics and morality of a society that accepts excessive consumerism and gross disparities in income and wealth, while millions of Americans are unemployed, tens of thousands are homeless, millions more are undernourished and uninsured, and half the world lives in extreme poverty?

In the Theory of the Leisure Class, the classic 1899 treatise on wealth, Thorstein Veblen coined the phrase “conspicuous consumption” to describe the lavish excesses of the Gilded Age. He explained that, for a certain segment of the upper class, wasteful luxury and extravagance helped to demonstrate one’s wealth and status. Since Veblen’s day, these excesses have become more prevalent, and at times more profuse. In Richistan: A Journey Through the American Wealth Boom and the Lives of the New Rich (Three Rivers Press, 2007), Robert Frank describes the modern-day practitioners of conspicuous consumption. In one chapter, he examines the super-rich yacht culture, where 100-foot yachts are considered tiny and unimpressive, as 300, 400, and even 500-foot vessels are required to keep pace in this status conscious crowd. In a world where half the global population still lives in extreme poverty, paying upwards of $100 million for a boat seems morally unconscionable.

The gap between rich and poor – indeed, between rich and everyone else – is on the rise. In 1965, the ratio of CEO salaries to average worker pay was 24-to-1. By 2004, that same ratio had risen to 431-to-1. The family of Walmart’s founder, Sam Walton, has an estimated net worth of $90 billion, which translates into one American family with a net worth roughly equivalent to the combined net worth of the bottom 40% of Americans, or 120 million people. And while the CEO of Walmart makes 900 times the salary of the company's average employee, his $17.5 million salary is nothing compared to the salaries paid to CEOs of some of the big financial institutions. In 2005, Richard Fairbanks of Capital One Financial received compensation of $249.4 million. In 2006, Angelo Mosilo, the CEO of Countrywide Financial, which led the way in subprime mortgages and dishonest lending practices, “earned” $141.98 million, ranking him seventh on the Forbes list of best-paid CEOs.

Does anybody really believe that this is a good thing? Does society benefit from such gross income disparities? Wallis argues that “when wealth becomes more and more concentrated, bad things begin to happen to us: social bonds begin to unravel, societal morale erodes, and resentment sets in when we perceive great unfairness.” As I wrote in “Is This Guy Really Worth a Billion Dollars?”, a certain amount of income inequality is a good thing, necessary to promote efficiency, to provide appropriate incentives for hard work and productivity. However, some CEO salaries and wage disparities are simply not justified, and they represent a moral and spiritual failure of our corporate and economic structures. The survival-of-the-fittest mentality, that greed is good and self-interest a necessary force for a sound economy – the notion that, if left to its own devices, the market will work itself out – are concepts that have failed a great many people, even as a select few have prospered. Is it any surprise that the two years in which income inequality was at its highest in this country – 1928 and 2007 – were years that preceded economic collapses?

Some believe that economic inequality is a reflection of one’s value to society, and that those who are rich are deservedly so, while those who are poor have simply not tried hard enough, or have done something wrong. It is easy for many people to forget that wealth is not a reflection of self-worth, or one’s value to humanity, and that much of life’s riches are distributed to those who, through a combination of many complex factors – hard work (up to a point), chance, circumstance, opportunity, and luck – determines one’s fate in life. King Solomon, a man of great wealth in his day, recognized this in the book of Ecclesiastes:

The race is not to the swift or the battle to the strong, nor does food come to the wise or wealth to the brilliant or favor to the learned; but time and chance happen to them all.

Recognizing that financial and economic success is not strictly or always the result of hard work, ingenuity, and merit – and that not all who fail to achieve great wealth are somehow less worthy human beings – is a first step in creating a more compassionate society. Somewhere along the way, we seem to have lost sight of the common good; we have failed to recognize that the human race is in dire need of a helping hand, some understanding, and kindness, and that we are all in this journey together. Perhaps a search for meaning and purpose, in our work, in our relationships, in our lives, will lead the way to creating a more just and compassionate world, and an economic system that rewards hard work and success without leaving all others behind.

Winter Recess 1977: Stop the Boat, I Want to Get Off

Accompanying the youthful exuberance of departing for college is the belief in limitless possibilities, the sense that life has expanded beyond the mundane existence of suburban New Jersey. I had just completed my first semester at Wittenberg and was home for Winter Recess, disappointingly bored with my hometown after three months of independence, new friendships, beckoning adulthood, and a fresh understanding of life and the world. I had a restless heart, otherwise known as the perilous existence of an 18-year old male with time on his hands. Although I had been looking forward to Christmas and catching up with my parents, reaffirming my affections for Lady, the family dog, and reacquainting with old friends, I soon experienced the routine normalcy of pre-college home life.

With gratitude, therefore, I accompanied my parents to Florida after Christmas to visit my mother’s brother, Norm, and his third wife, Mary. My Florida relatives – two uncles and a grandmother, all on my Mom’s side – always promised fresh perspectives and a few good laughs. My grandmother had recently buried her fifth husband and, before the glue dried on the coffin, rejected marriage proposals and the courtship of two men vying for her affections at the youthful age of 75. She explained later that Frank drank too much, while Bob was too religious and thus a touch boring. Anyone who spent a little time with my grandmother was sure to leave with a story. A woman of grand contradictions, she was both a fundamentalist Christian and a staunch Democrat who carried a bottle of whiskey marked “medicine” in her glove compartment. Although she would live to be 100, she had already lived an interesting, if difficult life, holding two jobs into her seventies and struggling always to make ends meet.

Next in line was my Uncle Billy. Approachable as a teddy bear, loved by all, one never saw Billy without a beer in one hand and a cigarette in the other, the time of day notwithstanding. In some ways, Billy had lived a charmed life. He was married to my Aunt Shirley, a woman of class and grace and wholesome good looks; much too classy for Billy, she remained, somehow, beholden to his sentimental charm. An uneducated man with few accomplishments, Billy was nevertheless my grandfather’s favorite son, having remained in Ohio for many years to help train racehorses, while the other children – Norm and my mother – departed the Akron hillsides and chose to live apart from Grandpa’s narrow confines. Billy had never really worked an honest day in his life – he spent many of his days drinking, gambling, and hanging out in bars – yet it was impossible to become angry with Billy, for he had such sad, droopy eyes, the kind that made people melt like putty in his hands. A flawed man with a huge heart and a generous spirit, he adored Shirley, took care of my grandmother, and was always good to my Mom, so Billy was all right in my book. Although he was not much of a role model, certainly not someone you wished to emulate, we eagerly sought and anticipated his company.

Perhaps the most normal of the bunch was my Uncle Norm – though the benchmark for normalcy on this side of the family was a red flag in itself. Norm was the educated, seemingly wise one, the oldest brother; he had served in the military, earned a Ph.D. in psychology from Case Western Reserve University, and possessed a sharp wit, deep intellect, and liberal politics (completely the opposite of Billy and my grandfather). Though he made his living as a clinical psychologist – we jokingly dubbed him a cynical psychopath – he had wide and varied interests, each usually accompanied by a stiff drink and a good joke.

One of Norm’s interests was boating, for which he spoke like an old Navy man who had heroically sailed the high seas and successfully navigated the oceans in demanding conditions. Eager to display his nautical skills, Norm offered to take us out in his new boat the morning after we arrived. Looking for adventure and possessed of an undeveloped sense of wisdom and incapacity to understand the limits of my mortality, I eagerly accepted. My father would go along for the ride, as would my Aunt Mary. My mother, in her typical display of foresightedness, declined.

“Are you sure the weather is alright to go boating?” my mother asked as we walked out the door.

“Nothing to worry about, Janie,” replied Norm, “if the boat capsizes we’ll tread water and down a few slugs of whiskey.” Norm looked at me with a devilish grin and one raised eyebrow, satisfied that his sister would worry in vain the rest of the day.

Norm’s boat was a small, modest, motor-powered vessel, not likely to be on display at the annual Yacht Show. As we left for the dock, I noticed that the sky had become dark gray, the air damp and chilly, with the wind growing progressively stronger. Mary turned on the radio, which broadcast official sounding, stern warnings for all boats to stay out of the Gulf of Mexico. Norm was not easily dissuaded, however, believing that the forces of nature did not apply to him; a skeptic to his core, he rejected any perceived or imagined signs from God. Norm was used to dealing on life’s margins; a pathological risk taker and non-believer on matters of religion, he liked to drink, smoke, chase women, and have fun. My father, risk averse and devoutly religious, considered Norm a suicidal maniac.

Figuring that Norm was an experienced boatman, we hopped aboard and set for sail. The water below was choppier than I had expected, but being a novice in oceanic travels, I protested not. As the wind grew stronger, the clouds darkened and hovered ominously above us. When we finally reached the Gulf, the waters had become rough and storm worthy, the wind blowing in our faces with an unwelcome fierceness. The environment had turned cold and harsh.

“What do you think, Norm?” my father queried.

“Don’t worry about a thing, Eddie; the water’s not that deep. Pour yourself a drink.” Norm laughed as if half-crazed, happily engrossed at the thought of venturing into rugged waters in storm-threatening weather with a boat the size of a bathtub. My father looked at me with a hesitant grin, shaking his head as if to say, “This crazy family I married into.” I suddenly missed the boredom of central New Jersey.

As we ventured further out into the Gulf, I noticed to my increasing dismay that not another boat was in sight. The shoreline became a mere speck on the horizon, uncomfortably distant. My father and I sat in the stern, watching anxiously as Norm frantically steered over and around each wave, intermittently joking about the perils of boating and laughing hysterically, steering wheel in one hand, gin and tonic in the other.

With swells of water crashing down on the hull and gusts of wind pushing us erratically in multiple directions, our little vessel rocked violently back and forth. Soaked from head to toe with the taste of seawater in my mouth, I was unprepared for this particular adventure, wearing nothing but a loose fitting windbreaker over a tee shirt, jeans and sneakers. Holding intently onto the grab rails as Norm forced the boat into the eye of the wind, somehow managing to stay afloat and keeping the boat on course, I had visions of sharks and eels feeding on us when we capsized.

After what seemed like an eternity, our planned destination, a small island with a dock and a restaurant – a sliver of civilization in a desert of rocky waters – appeared as an oasis in the distance. Little did I know, however, that maneuvering the boat to shore was going to be difficult and dangerous. The trick was to prevent the boat from being caught sideways by a breaking wave, for this boat could easily capsize. Mary delicately navigated Norm over and around each passing wave. My father kept a watchful eye on waves approaching from the rear, sticking his leg in the air when one came too close. I am uncertain from where he learned the ritual – perhaps divinity school – but it seemed to work.

Then, as we moved closer to shore, I turned to my left and felt a vast rush of water, as a large, monstrous wave approached us from portside. I looked in Norm’s direction, but quickly discovered that no one else was aware of the impending danger. A scene from the Poseidon Adventure flashed before me, the oncoming rush of water about to swallow our little boat and send us into the deep, cold waters of the Gulf.

“Look out!” I yelled, frantically pointing at the advancing onslaught, my blood anxiously rushing to my head. My father looked behind him, staring back at me with panic-ridden eyes. He stuck his foot out in a desperate, final effort to alter nature’s course, but his foot was no match for the fierce pounding of the Gulf’s fast moving swell of water. The wave crashed down on us, knocking the boat off course; Norm steered instinctively, rapidly, fueled by adrenaline and gin, as the boat dodged and weaved along the break line. By some work of magic, divine intervention, or both, we managed to stay afloat.

“That was a close one. How y’all doing back there?” Norm looked back as he broke into a large grin, unable to resist delirious laughter. “Isn’t this fun, Mark?”

“Barrel of laughs,” I replied, to which Norm inexplicably broke out into renewed hysterical peals.

Cold and wet, we docked the boat and quickly advanced to the restaurant, where we drank and ate and drank some more, laughing about our great adventure, with Norm and Mary sharing stories of previous perilous undertakings. I drank to celebrate life, Norm to recognize a good time. Happy to be on land again, we sat and relished the morning’s experience, failing to consider that we had yet to return from whence we came.

In Search of an American Hero: The Mixed Legacy of Ralph Nader

I recently attended a lecture by Ralph Nader at the Free Library of Philadelphia. Ever since I first saw him speak at Wittenberg University in 1979, I have enjoyed listening to Nader. It is hard not to admire his fierce commitment to the public interest, one motivated by an adherence, not to a rigid ideology or political philosophy, but to a passion for right and wrong, a sense of justice, and a commitment to the facts. Love him or hate him, he speaks truth to power and backs it up with research, factual data, and hard work. Before dirtying himself in presidential politics, he was Sir Ralph, patron saint of the American consumer, spokesman for the public interest, a watchdog for the little guy. He has devoted his life to making the American economy safer, healthier, more competitive, more informed, and more open. A man of immense intellect – possessed of a near genius-level IQ, most people who have worked for Nader consider him the single most intelligent man they ever met – he has the ability to consume huge amounts of information and retain every word with near-encyclopedic accuracy. Not surprisingly, his positions and arguments are backed by extensive research and analysis.

Inspired by his talk, last week I watched An Unreasonable Man, a well crafted, entertaining documentary produced in 2007, which revealed Nader in all his complexity. Although part of me remains angry at Nader for costing Al Gore the presidency in 2000 (Nader received over 97,000 votes in Florida, a state Gore lost by 537 votes), the film helped resurrect my earlier view of Nader, the one that sees him not as presidential spoiler and naive politician, but as the citizen crusader. Unafraid of challenging wrongs perpetrated by the largest, most powerful institutions of American society, Nader has done battle with General Motors, the nuclear power industry, Congress, government bureaucracies, corporate fat cats, corrupt trade unions, huge media conglomerates, and both major political parties.

What makes Nader so endearing is his complete embrace of American virtues and founding principles. More than any other social critic and political activist in my lifetime, Nader believes uniquely in America’s most deeply treasured values – free enterprise, the genius of small business, competition, openness in government, the free flow of information. He has devoted his life to increasing citizen participation, advancing democracy, and laying the foundation for an informed consumer. Big business claims to favor free enterprise, but Nader fights for laws and regulations – and, where needed, a lack of regulation – that promote competition. Thus, where laissez faire policies fail to adequately protect the consumer, or all citizens, he advocates increased regulation that addresses the shortcomings of capitalism. Left to their own devices, corporate interests will not incur added costs to avoid polluting the air and water, or to provide a safe workplace or a safe product; only if forced to do so – by threat of lawsuits, or pursuant to regulation and law – will it happen. Conversely, where economic regulation of markets has artificially limited competition, such as occurred in the airline and trucking industries in the 1970’s, Nader was instrumental in achieving deregulation, thus enhancing price competition in industries that had become too cozy.

In 1965, Nader published Unsafe at Any Speed, a fact-based, thoroughly researched book which exposed the careless and negligent operation of the U.S. automobile industry. Nader demonstrated that the auto manufacturers, in the interest of mass production and increased sales, designed cars with an eye on style, cost, and performance with little regard for safety. To the (mostly) men in the C-suites, it seemed not to matter that every year cars were involved in five million accidents, 40,000 deaths, 110,000 permanent disabilities, and 1.5 million injuries on America’s roads and highways. Nader proved that auto crashes need not be deadly and that many injuries could easily be avoided by minor and inexpensive design changes. In the beginning, Nader was virtually alone in addressing the issue and, despite the best efforts of General Motors (whose covert efforts to dig up dirt on Nader failed miserably), he proved that one person, acting intelligently, honestly, armed with facts and persistence, can make a difference.

When Nader took on the U.S. auto industry in the early 1960’s, it was not to dismantle capitalism or the American corporation, but to make it better. He recognized that corporate decisions were made with an exclusive focus on the bottom line – profits – and that spending money on safety and health was treated as an expense that produced no revenue. Why would any rational businessman, motivated by the desire to maximize profits, spend money on safety or clean air unless required by law to do so? Nader’s self-avowed agenda was to bring about the “qualitative reform of the Industrial Revolution,” not to harm American economic enterprise, but to improve it, by making it more competitive and responsive to the consumer. Nader understood that safety was something consumers clearly wanted but were not offered, in part due to a lack of competition (in the 1960’s, the auto industry was dominated by the Big Three – General Motors, Ford, and Chrysler – for which competition in the true sense was mostly non-existent). As a result of Nader’s persistence and growing influence, motor vehicle safety laws were enacted that required seat belts and, eventually, air bags; shatterproof windshields; safer steering wheel designs; softer, more flexible visors; and many other safety features now taken for granted. Virtually every car on the market today – domestic and foreign – includes in its marketing efforts an emphasis on safety, as car manufacturers compete not just over price and design, but safety and crash worthiness as well. The auto industry fought Nader every step of the way, but in 1977, Henry Ford II conceded on Meet the Press, “We wouldn’t have the kinds of safety built into automobiles that we have had unless there had been a federal law.”

Following his success in transforming the American auto industry, Nader focused his attention on other forms of corporate abuse, from hazardous drugs to deceptive advertising, price fixing to product obsolescence, energy wasting appliances to unsafe food additives; the list goes on and on. Although his name is rarely uttered with glee in the C-suites and boardrooms of American corporations, Nader’s positive influence on corporate governance and responsible corporate citizenship is undeniable. Today, the concept of corporate social responsibility is a part of every major American business.

Nader by all accounts has led a priestly life. His personal life, if he has one, is secondary. He demands complete loyalty to his causes, most of which do not pay well. Yet he continues to have many devoted followers who greatly admire his ethical purity, independence, and commitment to justice. He bases his arguments and tactics on hard facts, solid research, and rational, sound arguments. This is why he has been so effective – no one questions his motives, or whether he possesses some hidden financial objective or conflict of interest.

Yet I cannot help but wonder if Nader is blinded by his purity. When he insisted on running for President in 2000 – costing the Democrats the White House – and then feebly repeating his mistake in 2004 – he did much damage to his reputation and his causes. The cadre of public interest organizations that he created, funded, and helped give wings to, were greatly harmed when he chose to muddy himself in the political arena. For regardless of the issues he hoped to advance, and the causes he espoused, he appeared to be advancing Ralph Nader at the expense of America; his independence and selfless sacrifices for justice were no longer his compelling traits. Although it is difficult to come up with a political position he took, or a statement he made, to which I vehemently disagreed, his mere presence in the political arena caused great, and very predictable damage. Some of his most loyal, dedicated public interest employees resigned, the influence of his many public interest organizations weakened, and funding dried up.

Most importantly, his candidacy made likely – some would say inevitable – exactly what he had spent his whole life fighting against, as he filtered votes away from the Democrats, helping Bush win in 2000. If not for Nader’s candidacy, the argument goes, we would not have had the War in Iraq, the degradation of the constitution, the ballooning federal deficits, the abuses at Guantanamo Bay. But to this day, Nader is unrepentant. He correctly notes that Gore failed to carry even his home state of Tennessee, and that his censorship of Bill Clinton contributed to his loss of Arkansas (had Gore won either of those states, he would have won the election). In An Unreasonable Man, Nader contends that Gore (and Bush) needed to earn their votes, and that Gore, by moderating his views on certain key issues and catering to the corporate interests so dominant in the Democratic Party today, became virtually indistinguishable from Bush. Gore lost on his own far more votes than Nader could possibly have taken from him.

Nader correctly notes that Gore ran a poor campaign, but to suggest there was no difference between the two candidates, and to take no responsibility for Bush’s win in Florida, is to ignore reality. As intelligent and ethical a man as Ralph Nader is, his insistence on democratic purity and saintliness harmed the nation. Nader insists that his running for president was not to advance his reputation or public profile – in fact, it had the opposite effect – but to pressure the two major parties to discuss the real issues that needed addressing. His fault lie not in his motives, but in his naive belief that it was his place to do so.

Politics is often referred to as the Art of the Possible. Compromise and negotiation are ever present; principles abide only so long as winning does not get in the way. For the Democrats, this usually means suppressing the advocacy of effective gun control laws, compromising on national health insurance or its lesser component, the public option, and failing to insist on fundamental principles of economic and social justice in the tax code and the allocation of federal resources. This is to avoid offending swing voters, investment bankers, and corporate contributors. Although frustrating, in the real world of American politics, it is a necessary component of a winning formula. As a Democrat, I accept that compromise and the bending of principle is necessary to win elections and govern; it is part of the process. If you disregard pragmatism, you risk losing and accomplishing nothing. Some principles – fundamental human rights, the pursuit of peace and security – cannot be compromised, but there are many others that, in the day-to-day reality of political life, require flexibility and accepting less than the ideal.

For Nader, however, principle is everything – the cause is what matters, and anything or anybody that stands in the way of advancing the cause is to be defeated, even at the expense of smaller advancements. American society – all societies – need their share of Ralph Naders, those who provide an independent and powerful voice for citizens who, for lack of money, power, and access, are dismissed as irrelevant. Nader has certainly left his mark on American society. He not only created the consumer movement in this country, attracting a large following without any significant organization, but he also inspired the creation of similar movements in many countries around the world. He is not, and never has been, a man of privilege; his father was an immigrant and self-made man, an entrepreneur, small businessman, one who embraced and was driven by the American work ethic. Nader embraced the values of his father. He is the ultimate altruist, humble, self-sacrificing, possessed of an arrogance that permits him not to care about what others think of him. Nader is a man of consistency, one who acts for what he believes to be the greater good with little concern for how others perceive him. In this and many ways, he is an unusual man. His legacy will endure in the everyday improvements he has made to American life, law, and public policy. But his insistence on saintly purity in the elections of 2000 and 2004, and possibly in ways yet to be determined, will forever taint that legacy.