The Tree of Failure???

An acquaintance of mine, whom I visit on Facebook had an editorial from the New York Times, entitled The Tree of  Failure (http://www.nytimes.com/2011/01/14/opinion/14brooks.html?_r=2&src=me&ref=general) following President Obama's speech in Tuscon soon after the shootings by a young man. 

In the article, author David Brooks, an editor of the NYTimes, says, "Civility is a tree with deep roots, and without the roots, it can’t last. So what are those roots? They are failure, sin, weakness and ignorance."   

He later says, "So this is where civility comes from — from a sense of personal modesty and from the ensuing gratitude for the political process. Civility is the natural state for people who know how limited their own individual powers are and know, too, that they need the conversation." 

And later, "The problem is that over the past 40 years or so we have gone from a culture that reminds people of their own limitations to a culture that encourages people to think highly of themselves." 
And, "So, of course, you get narcissists...." 

And,  "Beneath all the other things that have contributed to polarization and the loss of civility, the most important is this: The roots of modesty have been carved away." 

I felt as though I were back in church, confused by all the mixing of metaphors, but so all pumped up by the preacher's passionate spew that I had to write a letter to the editor.  It wasn't published. So I'm publishing it here.


Dear Editor -- I would like to comment on David Brook's "Tree of Failure", January 13, 2011. Mr. Brooks, I found your opinion most exhilarating! I wonder if civility is a tree or an emotion, a feeling. Does it involve respect and maybe kindness? If it is a tree, and its roots are failure, sin, weakness and ignorance, no tree I know would grow in such a situation. If the root is no good, neither is the tree. But if civility is a feeling and intelligence, warmth, confidence and responsible cooperation might be its roots then I can see my civility in President Obama and his quiet, firm human display of composure as well as in your passionate outcry. Perhaps, the tree of civility has its roots in the idea Reinhold Niebuhr suggested: love, hope and tolerance, or, as he believed, rooted in the human spirit itself. May I invite you to try an experiment in self-civility? Re-read your opinion piece and put the word "my" in front of every noun. Notice how the naming power of words takes on new force when we take self-responsibility for them. Emotional continence, in my belief, begins in self awareness, self-sovereignty, and self-responsibility, which are its roots. All government is self-government. I like these words and their power in my mind.


“The dogmas of the quiet past are inadequate to the stormy present. The occasion is piled high with difficulty, and we must rise with the occasion. As our case is new, so must we think anew and act anew. We must disenthrall ourselves.” - Abraham Lincoln

“But I wish to be distinctly understood on one point. Americanism is a question of spirit, convictions and purpose, not of creed or birthplace. – Theodore Roosevelt

“A nation, as a society, forms a moral person, and every member of it is personally responsible for his society. - Thomas Jefferson, Founding Father and third U.S. president

Best to you, Rob Craig