You know what our motto is here at camp. Hubris or Ennui, take your pick.

The Two Great Greek Sins

Since Trump has pulled us out of the Paris Accord, I've read at least two analyses of why the GOP has abandoned its once firm belief in climate change.  The articles attributed the position change to massive amounts of money coming from fossil fuel champions like the Koch brothers and also to "Democratic hubris."

According to these articles, it was hubris that led President Obama to issue a flurry of executive orders that recognized the threat of climate change to our planet and future generations and attempted to put in place policies that would ameliorate that threat.  So what happened was that even though the majority of Republicans are aware of man's role in climate change, they reflexively blocked any legislative attempt to get it under control because those attempts were Obama initiatives.  Voting for ANYTHING Obama wanted was, in effect, treason against Republicanism.

So, in his second term and saddled with a Congress completely under Republican control, Obama abandoned any hopes for partisan consensus in the legislature and started issuing orders.  Now the Republicans had another reason to block any attempts at climate change mitigation:  They were standing firm against Obama's hubris and by extension the arrogance of the Democratic Party on all issues relating to the environment.

We can take that a step further and look at the plethora of Trump's executive orders as a "Fuck You" to anything Obama accomplished.  It makes no difference, for instance,  that Obama's recent detente with Cuba has injected billions of extra dollars into our economy--dollars that mostly help out farmers mind you--has helped normalize relations with one of our neighbors, and has helped the living conditions of Cubans.  Forget all that.  Detente with Cuba was an Obama thing.  Let's dismantle it.  Paris was an Obama thing.  Let's dismantle it.  Clean air and water is an Obama thing.  Let's get some good old American brown clouds back, just like the good old days when America was great.  Obama pissed off middle eastern powers by pointing out their records on human rights, let's stop that right now and assure Saudi Arabia that they can do whatever they want to their people because we won't lecture them anymore, especially if they give tons of money to Trump's going concerns.  We will, however, lecture our allies in NATO.  We will, however, be horrified at Cuba's human rights violations (of course, we have to find some first).  Let's make sure everything we do teaches Obama a lesson for having hubris.

My question is that in the face of the GOP's inflexible position on every issue, is there anything Obama, or any Democrat, could say or do that would not have FoxNews yelling "hubris?"  When confronted with an individual or a group willing to reject fact, logic, and the underpinnings of western civilization if they get paid enough, shouldn't we attempt to fight back?  Climate change is real.  Fully 95% of the scientific community understand it is real.  They have the data to prove that it is real.  And because they have that data, that proof, they tend to scoff at the notion that climate change is a hoax perpetrated on the world by the Chinese in order to get an economic advantage over the US.  That doesn't strike me as hubris.  It seems more like realism.

I've got two YMCA stories to illustrate this point.

A few years ago, right after Al Gore stormed the country with "An Inconvenient Truth," Dennis, a FoxNews Republican and small time entrepreneur, walked up to me as I was getting dressed after my shower, and told me that Al Gore and his push for climate change awareness was the biggest threat to American sovereignty.  It was undermining a healthy business community, costing jobs, making us less competitive with China, etc.  He further said that "An Inconvenient Truth," both the book and the film, were examples of communism at work.  I, of course, asked him if he had read or seen either version.  Guess what his answer was?  He certainly was not going to waste his time reading liberal spin.

"C'mon, Jim, don't you know you can spin anything?"  His tone was almost fatherly.

"Yes.  All I have to do is watch FoxNews to know that," I answered.  That was the end of our conversation for that day.  We would have more.  Was my flippant dismissal of a FoxNews speaking point an example of my hubris?  I don't think so.  It was almost nothing like Oedipus' refusal to give way at the place where three roads meet.

Another time.  Dennis again.  He came up to me while I was getting dressed (I can only assume that FoxNews Republicans like confronting people just when they're stepping into their shorts.) and asked me if I wanted Socialism (insert Gasp).  I laughed and said no.  I think capitalism works, but like the Pope, I think the excesses of capitalism, something that our (ahem) exceptional country is so good at, are evil.  Yes.  Evil.  I then asked him to give me an example of something, anything, that Obama had instituted that constituted Socialism.

"Well, everything," he fired back.

"That's no answer," I said.  "Give me one thing that in your opinion is creeping Socialism."

"Opening the borders," he instantly responded.

I finished up packing my stuff and slung my backpack over my shoulder and started walking out of the locker room.  Just as I was about to turn the corner, I went back (I couldn't help myself) and said to Dennis and the other FoxNews types gathered there in various stages of undress, "That's why I envy conservatives.  You get to believe anything you want.  You never let facts and logic get in the way.  Oh, and have a nice day."

I'll bet Dennis and the rest checked my comment off as just another elite liberal arrogantly telling everyone else what to believe.  If I had pointed out that Obama had not, in fact, opened borders and furthermore, opening borders has at best a tenuous link to Socialism, would I have been even more arrogant, more filled with hubris?

The alternative to hubris is ennui, a listlessness bred by indifference.  The constant lies, the misinformed certainties, the worship of the bottom line over anything else, all those things are designed to create indifference, ennui.  Everything is so up in the air that any reaction other than indifference is too depressing, too infuriating.  I can see the whole country slowly settling in for the "banality of evil" that Hannah Arendt described so eloquently.

If Obama's executive orders, if things like the recent Women's Marches all over the country, if our shared outrage is hubris, thank god for it.

It might be our only hope.