Personal Ruminations on this Controversy

July 4, 2012

My personal website is simply AlRodbell.blogspot. com, which links to this one on the Soledad Cross. A bit of irony is that most of the traffic to that site seems to come from those interested in my video essay of the trip to Mexico I made with Tom Cantor.  While I'm on the side of the atheists, those who opposed to this Cross, Cantor is a man who is dedicating his life to bringing people to Christianity, the most literal creationist version of it.  Yet, we have an emotional connection that transcends this vast chasm, which I describe in that essay.

I've had some cursory response from the main petitioners in the recent case, ACLU and lawyer for the associate of Phil Paulson, the man who started it all.  But,  my attempt to ferret out the back scenes activity,  to know whether there was any attempt at compromise from either side, has had limited success.  The lawyers running the show keep a tight ship.  Until the property was transfered to the federal government, this was a local issue, mostly lead by Paulson and his lawyer.   When the Jewish War Veterans (JWV) joined the case in response to the federal takeover, it was opposed by the local branch of the JWV, and probably still is.

 Ironically, the decision of the Ninth circuit court will allow this memorial to retain its religious identity as it specifically said that it may include a cross, which implies that it must include other religious symbols.  This, in the aggregate may still send a message of official monotheistic support.  The new court-defined memorial then could become a representation of "one nation under God" as in the section of the Pledge of Allegiance that had been ruled unconstitutional by the same court of appeals in 2002.

Most people choose to not to become involved in this issue, and I can't blame them. Compared to other pressing public issues such as fiscal viability,  health care and our war on drugs,  this is a sideshow.  Since going into the jurisprudence, the long line of precedent, along with the complex history of this particular case , I have been having some personal thoughts on the meaning of this at different levels.  I do have the links for those who may be interested in these traditional academic approaches on my introduction, and I have edited for clarification the extensive history of this on the wikipedia site, Soledad Cross Controversy.

I have to wonder if the Soledad Cross has a value as a controversy as being more than the sum of its parts, more than the newspaper headlines can capture.  Just as in England two soccer teams have a long running battle that sometimes becomes deadly---real hatred between fans that can lead to deadly consequences;  perhaps the defenders of the cross, the politicians and newspapers who foster this primal emotion, are giving people a purpose, a focus for primal instincts that we share with beings lower on the phylogenic scale.   The first chapter of Mark Pagal's "Wired For Culture" gives examples of how such warlike hatred between "tribes"seems to be found in all societies, taking many forms.

It seems that we need to have such strong emotios, made stronger by confrontation, even hatred of those who are identified as the enemy. My seeking to find the common thread of reason, of humanity, that will transcend this is probably going against a rather powerful part of our human nature, how we are wired to survive.  It's no accident that this part of our nature is not more widely recognized, or when it is, it is seen as pathological, an aberration of how most of us conduct our lives.  Part of the hallmark of our species is the ability to communicate,  which requires a shared idea, or ideal, of rationality, of fairness, that allows us to transcend these more primal aspects.

On May 26, 1963 (date confirmed by N.Y. Times archives)  I experienced this.  It was on Second Avenue in a Manhattan community, Yorkville, that twenty five years before had been the center of the Nazi Bund in America, and still with a strong German tradition.  I tell the story about a conversation at a cafeteria in the neighborhood, pointing out to the server what I wanted,  "There that one, the kaiser roll." And to this day, I remember her wistful response. as with a fleeting smile she was back in Germany, "Ahh, the Kaiser...." expressing a sweet memory from her childhood.

But on this day it wasn't so nostalgic, as a group of neo Nazis had chosen this spot to exercise their constitutionally guaranteed freedom of assembly and speech. It seemed like half the New York police department were interposed between the hastily erected stands and the procession of the group in full Nazi garb carrying an American Flag to protect them from the rage they knew was coming. As the leader started to speak, the crowd reacted, but this time I wasn't the defender of constitutional rights, but a Jew who was enraged by these people.

The electricity was palpable, and I was a part of it, feeling it, gaining strength from the crowd, that now was becoming a mob. A few people broke through the police cordon and tore the flag away from the speaker, striking a cop who was trying to intervene with it.  It was all over in a flash as the police arrested the man who had wielded their flag, and escorted the speakers away to safety . The mob, my mob, one that I felt a rare pleasure of belonging to, had denied these citizens of their Supreme Court affirmed constitutional rights.  And I was elated.

To those who see the cross as an affirmation of their being part of something that  provides them strength and solace, a protection from the very human dread of isolation--as deeply rooted as when such isolation meant being vulnerable prey.   In this drama over the cross, with some prodding, it was the atheists who are transformed as the primal enemy,  as those with the swastikas were to me.  My reaction then,  as with those who will fight to the death to keep their cross now,  may be beyond the reach of the kind of discourse found in legal briefs.   

God, for those who believe, provides something we rarely think about as expressed in this quotation:


"The sacred rights of mankind are not to me rummaged for among old parchments, or musty records. They are written, as with a sunbeam in the whole volume of human nature, by the hand of divinity itself: and can never be erased or obscured by mortal power"

These are the words of Alexander Hamilton, and while not part of the U.S. Constitution, it is in the inside cover in to the most widely circulated version, the one printed in the millions that is handed out by elected officials and political candidates.  "Old parchments and musty records" mean laws, constitutions, like the one that he helped write and signed on to.  Yet, he subordinates it to "human nature that is the work of divinity" that takes priority over such documents.

Few secularists would contest Hamilton's sentiment when "deity" and "human nature"-- are seen as something different, as deep forces of evolution that we never can quite codify into "old parchments or musty records." "Sacred rights" just may not be amenable to codification by statute or legal precedent by mortal power, even if its wearing supreme court robes.

Yet, the reality is that all we can do is try. In the words of a man who, unlike Hamilton did make it to the presidency before being killed, "Knowing that here on earth God's work must surely be our own" These final words are from JFK's inaugural address, yet they reflect the hope of the major figures of his era.  That speech also expressed the need to keep trying transcend our instincts to war, whether among nations, ideologies or religions. It is a call for dialogue and reaching out and not resorting to violence if one's view does not prevail.

And so the pageant of humanity continues to play itself out.