Annals Of Liberalism - The Folly Of A Man Who Actually Believed He Could 'Make A Difference'

Bob Arthur had always wanted to do good.  As a little boy growing up in Great Neck he was the one who sheltered stray cats, befriended spiders, and saved earthworms from the spade.  Goodness was in his heart, but the world was not a good place, and somehow Bob knew that his destiny was to try to make it so, to make a difference. 

'Come in out of the rain', shouted Bob's mother to him, watching him standing in a downpour holding his jacket over a nest of baby robins that had fallen from a tree. 'You'll catch your death of cold', but Bob wasn't listening, so intent was he on protecting the littlest of God's creatures.  The rain running down his face mixed with tears of happiness - this, he knew, was his anointed work. 

The Arthur boy was a common sight feeding the pigeons in the park or walking as carefully as a Jain on city sidewalks so as not to crush any insects in his path, so sacred was all life.  As a young teenager he volunteered at soup kitchens, handed out old clothing to the homeless, and worked tirelessly at the dog pound.

 

'Why, Bobby', said Mrs. Crandall, owner of the notions shop on the corner where the boy stopped in for candy after he had finished volunteering for the day, 'don't you have a girlfriend?'.  Even to this nice old lady, there was something peculiar about a boy dipping into the worst that New Brighton had to offer rather than take from its bounty - the beautiful girls of Mooreland Hill.  'Any one of them would be just delighted to be asked out by you', she said; but Bob's mind was elsewhere, on Ol' Henry, the stooped and shambling black man who slept under the eaves of the local library and was getting too old to even beg. 

'Oh, I'm fine', Mrs. Crandall. 'Fine indeed', although in moments of privacy he wondered what images of a naked Nancy Bridges were doing in his eleemosynary world view especially since he couldn't shake them, and every time he saw her in the hallways, he wanted to turn around and...and what? Here he was befuddled, for so long had he been immune to or immured against diversionary interests; but Nancy was more than a diversionary interest.  Those breasts, those lips, that scent that filled the room as she walked in!

'Sharpen up, son', said Bob's father.  'Get yourself some decent clothes and a haircut.  Stop looking like a bum', advice from the town sharper, man about town, New Brighton's boulevardier,  a snappy dresser and attentive to the ladies; but Bob's train was travelling on a single track, no loose shunting. What he was about could have no distractions.  Sharpening up as his father said would only cause unnecessary distortion and disruption of his plans.

Freshman year at Yale was epiphanic, for it was then that he met the Reverend Brockton Peters, chaplain of the university, tireless advocate for the black man, peace advocate, and social reformer.  Peters had spent most of tenure in Jim Crow Mississippi and Alabama, returning to New Haven bruised and bloodied but the happiest man on campus, proud and secure that he had done the right thing, that he had done good.  

Bob was immediately taken by Peters' piety and his commitment and offered to volunteer his time in the service of the Reverend's many social causes.  The two were inseparable, guru and chela, priest and disciple.  They marched on Washington, stood at the Berkeley barricades, and chained themselves to Pentagon pillars to demand disarmament. 

After four years of this hallowed engagement Bob was a bit fearful of the future.  He had never been a confident boy, was rather timorous at times, hesitant and cautious at others; but he knew that jumping in the deep end was a necessary next step.  

The ensuing years can be collapsed into one long, insistent journey - doing good - and making a difference was his ethos, his raison d'etre, and his mission in life.  Nothing stands out, for to the outside objective observer, Bob was just one of the many men and women convened in a welcoming jamboree of causes - world peace, women, gays, the environment, and economic equality - a big tent welcoming all who had one thing in common, changing the world. 

For them, despite history's clear and unmistakable record of wars, civil conflict, and territorialism, things could change for the better. If only people tried harder, worked harder, invested more, believed more, the world could indeed be the peaceful, verdant, congenial place they dreamed of. 

No one could say that Bob didn't do his best, try harder than anyone, and stand firmly for justice and peace; and so he couldn't be called out for the failure of progressivism - or rather the disappointing lack of progress in any of its endeavors.  Racial harmony and integration had been long consigned to an airy-fairy pipe dream, and only nasty racial animus, bad attitude, and a self-serving hatred of the white man remained.  Bling not Brooks Brothers was still the ghetto meme, and prisons were overflowing with black men. 

The world was not incinerating, warnings of a climate Armageddon were summarily dismissed. American society was reverting to an African tribalism - divided, divisive, and hopelessly dismissive of ethos, centrality, and commonality.  Febrile, outlandish, bizarre notions of sexuality were becoming current and political currency - truly Baroque with wigs, flounces, powdered makeup, leggings, and gold buckles. 

 

Not only had the country - or the world for that matter - not progressed over the centuries, it had gotten worse. The brutality of the Twentieth Century - Hitler, Stalin, Mao, and Pol Pot - seemed destined to continue for another hundred years. Hegemony, empire, and territorialism were routine.  The place was a mess. 

Or was it? If the world had not changed in millennia, then this is the way it was destined to be.  Evolution is not a pretty affair and the survival of the fittest still plays out as it did 100 million years ago.  The constant squabbles, turf battles, Hatfield and McCoy feuds, political chicanery, economic ups and downs, scientific discoveries and debunked theories are not new news.  They are the way the world is.  There is no point to it all, and any attempt to deflect its inertial path is folly. 

Bobby Arthur never learned his lesson, and he was last seen still attending women's conferences, speaking to sparse crowds in Chillicothe about the gay man, raking his lawn, masking up, turning the thermostat down, and wearing sensible shoes.  Why should anyone expect him to change?  This kind of true belief is an instinctive, innate optimism in the face of contrary facts. 

An old Jewish joke says it best.  A pessimist and an optimist meet after temple.  The pessimist says, 'Things couldn't be worse', to which the optimist replies, 'Yes, they could'.