“It is what it is”

May 2011

Part of the way dogma or doctrine explains the world to us is by supplying meaning for seemingly random, usually bad events. The fact that Rabbi Kushner’s When Bad Things Happen to Good People became a best-seller speaks to our need for explanation or meaning. With two serious illnesses in a family of three in less than five months, people are often strained to comment or respond to the situation, and I see and feel that movement toward meaning in people’s comments.

The Christians say God doesn’t give you more than you can bear — mild comfort there I suppose. Those who follow Nietzsche are apt to say that whatever doesn’t kill you makes you stronger — again small comfort. The interesting thing about that phrase even though he wrote those lines in 1888 at least 50 years prior to the development of modern chemotherapy is that it might well be the guiding principle of medical oncologists as they drip their efficacious poisons into your veins

But what we hear the most is: It is what it is.* A useful phrase and one that has echoes of the wisdom of the East and acceptance of reality as one of the first steps toward waking up. It is not meant as an explanation or as comfort and often signals a person’s reluctance to pursue a difficult, painful and frightening subject. I’ve heard the phrase used enough that it floats about in my head though I stop myself when I’m moved to utter it. Something about it always bothers me a little. This morning when a warm and humane oncologist uttered it I finally figured out what disturbed me.

I’m not sure it should be applied, as it sometimes is, to things or situations under human control. The danger is that if you repeat it enough you may apply it inappropriately and it may forestall positive acts of change. If it had been the prevailing philosophy or mantra among young people in Cairo we would not be witnessing the cascade of interesting events in the Middle East. Sometimes the “what is” can be changed for the better and must be.

I’m sure that is the motive behind at least the non-corporate sponsored wings of the Tea Party though their movement seems regressive and based upon fear. Events in the Middle East have made me focus again on the strength of the regressive movements in this country versus the seeming impotence of the progressives. What happened in 2010 to the voters who came out for Obama in 2008? Did they all just go back to business as usual while their president began to wrestle with the Gordian knots of governing? I’m sure the pundits have any number of cogent pulled-out-of-a-hat-by polling answers to that question, but I just wonder about our collective life as a people together in this country.

Paul Krugman’s column in the NYTs today ("Wisconsin Power Play," 2/21/11) was about the union busting efforts afoot in some of the states with new Republican governors. He went on to talk about the dangers of the US turning into an oligarchy and said that the real issues behind the anti-union efforts were not the deficits or the budgets or even the unions. The issue is, as it almost is, power and the imbalances we see in the country today. Power aligns with money almost exclusively. Even moral power or the bully pulpit seems to be associated with money. Note the prominent preachers so often called upon by politicians. Almost always they are the ones with large congregations i.e. deep pockets and many votes.

Krugman’s column made me think about the rise of unions in this country and what their purpose was. They came into being, of course, to balance the overreaching of the golden age of the Robber Barons by giving workers some rights and remedies. The Muckrakers and other journalists helped bring the situation to light and move public sentiment. I wonder if the rise and saturation of new media will be as effective in bringing imbalances to light so they can be addressed. We live in such a fog of information these days that it can be difficult to make your way through it even if you know where you are headed. And I’m never sure the imbalances are noted for what they are when we spend more time thinking about Obama’s birth certificate (Is Hawaii really part of this country? Since when?) than we do pondering the ability of a guy in the Hamptons who bought a house for 45 million dollars then tore it down because it was too small.

Russia comes to mind with the word oligarchy. Russia took a page from our free market playbook but blended the idea of Robber Barons with the remnants of their former totalitarian state. The conversion of a managed economy to a market economy created a wealth of opportunity for those in favor with the State. One can argue about the necessity of continued state control or involvement in a transition economy and perhaps it is necessary but fairness and freedom never seem to fare too well when phased in.

Perhaps as Russia moves in a mad dash toward late-stage capitalism the workers revolution will finally arise as it could not because of the level of economic development after the October Revolution of 1917. It would surely be amazing to have real communism in Russia after the hideous and failed totalitarianism that sullied Marx’s name and cost millions of lives over the course of the “experiment.” Doubtful of course but who knows if the revolutionary democratic examples elsewhere are powerful enough to stand up to the police state tactics and the soporific effects of what consumer capitalism the Russians currently enjoy and aspire to. The balance of power never favors progressive change and what is happening in Russia may be exactly what has to happen and the best solution for the Russian people.

But to wander back to Krugman and this country. Our revered founding fathers spent an inordinate amount of time setting up a system with checks and balances — creating a balance of power between branches of government. Balance of power is an important and dynamic concept. One thing that can throw the balance out of whack is undue influence or even the “appearance of impropriety” as they say. Such things as Justices Thomas and Scalia being the drawing card for an event designed to attract donors to the Koch brothers various regressive causes, not to mention the activities of Justice Thomas’s wife. Or the Judge in WV who refused to recuse himself in a case involving a coal company that had spent millions of dollars getting him elected.

These things are troublesome and dangerous. But the most troubling manifestation of unchecked/unbalanced is the amount of money corporations are allowed to throw at elections especially since “Citizens United” gave them the right to exercise that aspect of their so-called First Amendment rights.

Corporations no matter their good works and charitable foundations have a single mission, a single goal, making a profit. Profit is of course good and necessary to sustain life as we know it but there are some aspects of maximizing profit that do violence to the body politic long or short term — outsourcing overseas for one, certain forms of “increasing productivity” for another, not to mention GE’s famous Tax department. Corporations don’t seem to operate with balance except perhaps when they balance potential exposure or liability with profit. I’m sure there are plenty of human concerns expressed in board rooms but the ultimate concern is the growth and profitability of the corporation which assures its survival. There are of course exceptions to this.

So when we allow these unbalanced single-focus entities to pump money into elections as well as employ lobbyists we throw the system itself out of balance. There is no counterweight speaking for the worker or even for voters without a stock portfolio (good for Wall Street may be bad for Main Street). No equivalent to the dissident stockholder at an annual meeting — especially since the money those we elected to represent us used to get elected comes from the very people we may need to be protected from. And that sense the founding fathers had of the delicate balance necessary for a democracy to evolve and sustain itself in the face of human frailties is thrown out as well. It is what it is, I suppose.

The former CEO and Founder of the Vanguard Group, John C. Bogle, wrote a very encouraging op-ed in the 5/14/2011 New York Times. Bogle talks about a move to allow shareholders (including institutional shareholders) to vote on how the company’s they “own” spend their political contributions. Evidentially such a vote is on the agenda for Home Depot’s Shareholders Meeting. If it becomes a trend it will be a move toward restoring balance and transparency.


*As I was finishing this piece I got an email from my sister with a link to an article by Eckert Tolle. I like Tolle very much though I haven’t read his newer stuff. He has a way of putting eternal truths and practices into very accessible language — no mystical fogbanks, no intercession by holders of the sacred flame. He just tells you what you have to do and why. Not that it makes it any easier to be sure.

The article was called “Finding Balance” and is good reading but I was quite moved by one section about peace in the face of adversity.

“When something drastic happens, if you can learn to accept it, a little bit of spaciousness comes into your life. You say, “this is what is”. A little bit of space just opened up, and you’re no longer just a resisting entity.”

The difference between saying “this is what is” and “it is what it is” is remarkable. If I utter the former I feel an expansion, an opening not the contraction and resigned finality of the latter. Tolle goes on:

“Then, you realize that you are essentially formless space. In other words, you find inner peace. At first it is very gentle in the background, in the midst of any situation. That peace is powerful. It can become so powerful, that it obliterates almost anything. Peace is the formless in you. By accepting the form, the formless within you opens up. This is how something seemingly bad – a limitation – becomes an opening for realization of who you truly are.”