The vast majority of political observers and “experts” – if pressed, and sometimes even when not – will generally admit that the American political climate is becoming ever more polarized, with the far right and the far left refusing to compromise on much of anything.  For months now, the Republican party in the U.S. Senate has said “No!” to anything of substance proposed by the Democratic leadership, and in the health care legislation, for example, the Democrats effectively avoided dealing with any of the issues of interest to the Republicans, some of which, such as medical malpractice claims reform, have considerable merit.

Yet, if one looks at public opinion polls, most Americans aren’t nearly so radical as the parties that supposedly represent them, although recently that has begun to change, not surprisingly, given the continual public pressure created by the tendency of media news outlets to simplify all issues to black and white… and then to generate conflict, presumably to increase ratings.

Add to this the extreme media pressure placed on any politician who seeks a compromise or another approach outside of either party positions or his or her own past pronouncements, and we have a predictable outcome – polarization and stalemate.

There are times when stalemate may be preferable to ill-considered political action, but at present, there are a number of areas affecting the United States where some sort of action is and has been necessary.  A relative of mine just got her latest health insurance bill – over $1,000 a month for single-party coverage – and this wasn’t a gold-plated health plan by any means.  For two people, the premium would have been over $1,600 monthly, or over $19,000 a year.  Now… the median family income in the United States runs around $50,000 at present, and a $1,600 a month health insurance bill is over 35% of that – and doesn’t include deductibles and co-payments.  Single parent households have a median family income of  roughly $35,000, and $1,000 a month is more than a third of before-tax income.  These figures do tend to suggest that some sort of action on health care insurance was necessary, but the vast majority of one party effectively declared that they weren’t interested in anything proposed by the majority party, and the majority party effectively refused to consider any major issues brought to the table by the minority.  By parliamentary maneuvers, the majority slid through legislation thoroughly opposed by the overwhelming majority of the minority – and further increased the political polarization in Washington.

Similar polarization can be seen on other major issues, from immigration to energy policy and climate change legislation, and, of course, taxation.   One party wants to soak those who have any income of substance, and the other wants to reduce taxes so much that we’ll never dig our way out of the deficit.  Those who would suffer the greatest taxation don’t have enough to cover the deficit, and cutting or eliminating taxes, as some have proposed, would destroy us as a nation.

Tell me… exactly how does this polarization resolve anything?

In response to one comment on a recent blog, I noted that vocal music had changed over the last forty years, and another commenter made the point that languages evolve… both of which raised in my mind the question of the role art plays in societal evolution. Put bluntly, does art lead such transformations, or does it merely reflect them?  Or is it the usual mix of a little leading, and a great deal of reflection?

While I’m no art historian, it does appear to me that changes in the predominant or critically acclaimed styles of painting do not follow a pattern of gradual change, but occur irregularly, and at times, at least, preceded significant societal changes, as in the case of the rise of the impressionists, or the modern art movement of the 1950s.  Such changes also do not appear to be primarily gradualistic.

Music historians have placed classical music into periods, but how does one analyze the changes from one period to the next?  Were giants such as Bach and Mozart so dominant in their mastery that they forced the composers who followed them to innovate?  Beethoven’s great Ninth Symphony, which is unlike any other of its time and, for that matter, unlike any of quality any time soon thereafter, was composed at a time when the “old order” had been restored.  Was he reacting to the currents of past revolution, or anticipating the changes to come?  It’s easy enough to say that such questions were irrelevant to Beethoven, except that it’s unlikely that any creative soul is impervious to the environment, especially in Beethoven’s case, since the currents of politics swirled around Vienna during the period, especially after 1800, when his most daring works were composed.

Popular music, especially in the United States, underwent radical changes in the 1960s, and significant societal changes also occurred.  Did they occur in tandem, or did the music reinforce the impetus for change?  Can anyone truly say?

Science fiction aficionados often like to claim that SF leads the way into the future, but does it?  Isaac Asimov did foresee the pocket calculator, but the success record of the genre is pretty weak, either in predicting or inspiring social and technological changes.  Almost 40 years ago, in my very first story, I predicted computer analysis and economic modeling, somewhat accurately, as it turned out, and cybercrime as well, and while cybercrime has indeed become a feature of current society, I never predicted the most predominant type.  I did predict institutional cybercrime of the general type that caused the last economic meltdown, and, so far as I can tell, that story was one of the first, if not the first, to suggest that type of crime, but… somehow… I don’t think my little story inspired it.  I just saw where technology and trends might lead.

But, of course, that leaves open the question… how much do the arts influence the future?

Several pieces of archeological “trivia” clicked together for me the other day.   First was an event in the early history of the United States, during the time period when the Indians had had enough and decided to push the English out of New England – in a conflict known as King Philip’s War, named for the young chief of the Wampanoag Indian tribe. Despite differing religious beliefs, the English colonists were united, while the Indians were fragmented into more than half a dozen local tribes, two of which, the Pequot and the Mohegan, supported the English.  On top of that, at a point when the English colonists were having great difficulty, the neighboring Mohawk tribe, rather than support King Philip, attacked the Wampanoag.

The second piece of informational trivia was the recollection that one of the contributing reasons for the Spanish success against the Aztecs was that tribes conquered by the Aztecs united with the Spaniards.  The third was an article in Archeology revealing recent discoveries about the ancient Etruscans, one of which was that, despite their initial control of the central Italian peninsula and a higher level of technology than the Romans, in the end Rome triumphed, largely because the Etruscan cities could never form a truly unified nation.  Greece is another example.  The ancient Greek city-states never could form a unified nation – except briefly in short-lived alliances and then under the iron fist of Alexander and, despite their comparatively advanced technology and civilization, ended up dominated by the Romans.

The largest single difference between a nation and a collection of tribes is that a nation is held together by an overriding set of common beliefs.  The United States began as a “tribal” confederation, but succeeded in unifying what amounted to regional tribes through the idea and principles of a federal republic… for a period of little more than sixty years before the beliefs of the southern “tribes” resulted in rebellion.  One of the contributing factors to the defeat of the South was the lack of cohesion between the “tribal states” of the southern confederacy, a lack exemplified by the fact that some southern railways had different gauge track systems from others – and it does get hard to move supplies when you have fewer railways and they don’t interconnect.

While history does not repeat itself in any exact fashion, patterns and “echoes” do, and one of the patterns of history is that large and unified countries almost always triumph over nations that are or resemble tribal confederations or over smaller nations.  Another pattern is that confederations or unions seldom endure.  They either merge into a nation of shared values, as did the United States, or they fragment, as did the former USSR.

The problem facing the United States, and the world, today is that tribalism is again becoming rampant, if more in the form of values, largely religious, that are increasingly intolerant of those with other values.  This tribalism, instead of seeking common ethical and practical grounds, manifests itself in demanding that those with other beliefs be repudiated, if not exiled or exterminated, and often demonizes those with comparatively minor differences in beliefs.

More than a few political scientists have theorized that this trend could conceivably, if unchecked, result in the political fragmentation of the United States into several nations.  While I’m not that skeptical, I do see that this tribalization has resulted in a growing failure of society and government and an increasing inability to deal with critical national problems, ranging from failing infrastructure to financial overcommitment and endless wars around the globe.

And… as another symptom… is it that surprising that one of the top-rated media shows is the “tribally-based” Survivor series?  More tribalism, anyone?

Superficially, human beings differ to some degree, with variations in hair, eye, and skin color, as well as moderately differing musculature and size, but those external differentiations are as nothing compared to the differences in what we believe.  Here, too, there are degrees of variation, generally, but not always, based on culture.  That is, for example and for the most part, belief structures within Anglo-American culture fall along a certain spectrum, while those in Middle-Eastern Islamic cultures fall along another, while belief structures in East Asian cultures follow another general spectrum.  Obviously, the beliefs of any given individual may be wildly at variance with the culture spectrum or norms of where that person lives, but by definition, as a result of cultural development, in most cases either a majority or, where no majority culture exists, either the largest or the most powerful minority tends to dictate cultural norms and beliefs.

One area of belief in which there is little variation among human beings is the belief that “what I believe is the ‘right’ belief, and everyone else should believe as I do.”  There is little variation in this internal dictum because thinking organisms who do not innately have such a guide tend to die out quickly.  The difference among humans does not lie in the first part of that dictum, but in the second, in how much tolerance an individual or a culture has for the beliefs of others.

Now… obviously for any society to survive, there has to be a shared set of values… or chaos and societal dissolution, or revolt and disaster, will soon follow. But the question facing any society is what values are absolutely necessary to be shared and how will that sharing be enforced. Historically, such “belief” domination/values sharing has been established not just through cultural and religious pressure, but through force, including, but not limited to, war; genocide; economic, political, legal, and social discrimination.

In addition, those groups who see their values threatened have a tendency to protest and oppose the loss of such values, often with great violence.  Today, much of the Islamic Middle East feels enormously threatened by the secularistic, less-gender-role-driven, and materialistic western European value structure. In the United States, in particular, fundamentalist Christian faiths clearly feel threatened and angered by beliefs that run counter to their views on such issues as abortion and marriage, and one well-known writer has gone as far as to suggest he will oppose any U.S. government that creates a legal definition of marriage counter to the “traditional” one of a man and a woman.

This “need” for values domination has often been carried to extremes by individuals, groups, and even governments who have happened to believe that the world only belongs to the “chosen people” or  “the master race” or “those who can afford it” or some other exclusive definition… almost always with disastrous results and extremely high loss of life.

Enter technology.  Technology requires certain shared values.  It also creates great dissemination of knowledge, as well as being an extremely effective tool for indoctrination and communication.  These factors, as well as a number of others, threaten many “traditional” values.  At the same time, the higher the level of technology, the greater the need for certain core shared values, that is, if one wants to keep that technology operational in a world that is getting smaller and smaller.

The additional problem today is that, like it or not, small groups, and even individuals, and certainly governments all have the power to create large-scale disasters, with violent societal and physical disruptions, either to impose their values, or to rebel against the imposition of other beliefs and values.  Moreover, as recent studies have begun to indicate, as such disruptions escalate, another group of individuals enters the dynamic, what one might best call “opportunistic terrorists,” who either use similar tactics for commercial profit, such as the Latin and South American drug cartels, or for personal fame or just because they enjoy the acts of terrorism.

In my view, and it is only my opinion, human society as a whole faces three possible futures:  (1) technological collapse because the values conflicts cannot be resolved; (2) the gradual imposition of  shared values through indoctrination and commercial and political pressure, as is happening in China today, and to a lesser degree in western cultures; or (3) greater understanding and cooperation in working out a “core values” framework that will allow a range of differing beliefs around the world.

The way matters are going right now, it appears options one and two are fighting it out, because no one wants to compromise enough to give option three a chance.

The other day I was reading a well-known “literary” periodical with large circulation… and I noticed something… and then I read another periodical of the same ilk – and I noticed the same thing.  So I went back, both through the various magazines, as well as my memory, and realized that, no indeed, my memory was not playing tricks on me.

And what was it that I noticed?  I’ll get to that… in a moment.

But first… poetry.  According to A Handbook to Literature, “The first characteristic of poetry, from the standpoint of form, is rhythm…”  The rather lengthy definition also notes that poetry is “characterized by compactness, intense unity, and a climactic order,” expressed with the vital element of concreteness and noting that one of the strengths of Shakespeare’s poetry is that almost every line “presents a concrete image.”

Many years ago, both when I studied poetry and later published some in long-vanished small magazines, there were still poets who believed and worked along those lines, who regularly wrote sonnets, sestinas, villanelles, and other strict poetic forms and who understood and could work with a range of metric forms and rhythms.  And because I tend to appreciate the beauty of language and form, those are the poets whom I read and praise… and the kind that I still seek and seldom find.

That most of what is published as poetry today, even by many publications with literary credentials and pretensions, is what one critic [whose name I can’t recall, or I’d cite him or her] called “greeting card free verse,”  devoid of strict (or even loose) metrics.  And much of the popularity of current so-called poetry rests on the spoken presentation of the work, rather than upon the structure and the words themselves.  Great poetry should not require a great speaker, but should sound great and shake the mind when recited by anyone of average intelligence and speech.

This trend toward greeting card verse and emphasis on presentation rather than substance is certainly why I take out my well-worn copies of William Butler Yeats, T.S. Eliot, Wallace Stevens, W.H. Auden, Dylan Thomas, and William Shakespeare, among others, when I wish to read poetry.  And yes, when I go to various bookstores, I do browse through the “current” poetry sections… and carefully replace the books I’ve perused on the shelves.  Now… I won’t claim that there’s no one out there who’s actually writing full-fledged poetry, but I will claim that, based on a fairly wide reading habit, there certainly aren’t many “poets” who are published today that merit the title in terms of the standards of the past.

As for what I noticed in those “literary” publications… it was that none of what was published as poetry in the issues I read or could find in recent months would have been called poetry until the last half century or so.  Robert Frost once made the observation that writing so-called free verse was like playing tennis with the net down.  Almost anyone could do it and call themselves a poet.

And that is why I praise the great poets who could and can encapsulate vivid images and meaning in rhythmic, rhymed forms without sounding stilted or forced and with words whose sounds, allusions, and connotations stir the mind and soul.

Those who can do all that… they are true poets.