I am struck, given the historical and political moment (in the US especially but also in the capitals of at least three major European powers), by the tributes to Jimmy Carter following his death, age 100, this past Sunday. By turns nostalgic and generous, they portray a man of deep faith who, especially after his luckless one-term stint as the US's 39th President — with the notable exception of the Camp David Accords — never stopped working for what he felt needed fixin'. And this went well beyond clearing fields and tending to stands of pine on his land in Plains, Georgia. Carter was active into his nineties, domestically and internationally. He was known to wield a hammer (literally), but when behind a lectern or when interviewed he could address controversial issues in plain talk that was bracing in its honesty. The first of the above-linked tributes goes as far as characterizing Carter as the "closest approximation in public life to an American saint" (Lawrence Wright writing in The New Yorker).
As readers of this blog might expect, though hardly saintly myself, I found a lot to admire in Carter. Not given to grandstanding or bluster, he was the opposite of what seems to excite Western electorates these days. True, in my previous post I praised one such populist leader, Italy's own Giorgia Meloni. But context is important. I've been impressed by Meloni's staying power in the self-serving, back-stabbing train wreck that is Italian national politics, as well as by her tacking center relative to positions she espoused as an activist and then as a candidate, prior to ascending to the international stage. In Carter's case, my respect is far deeper and more extended, recognizing an entire life, in and out of politics, lived with integrity and an abiding care for his fellow men (and women). My father, who grew up in post-war and post-fascist Italy, comes to mind. Although he had little of Carter's piousness or sense of charity he was fundamentally honest, fair-minded and optimistic about humanity's progress towards a less brutish future. He would often say that an important measure of a society's advancement was how it met the needs of its least fortunate members. Mr Carter might have nodded in assent.
But where Giovanni Battista Subrizi and James Earl Carter Jr would really have aligned was on each man's deep belief that religion should be held and felt privately, as a space for solace and peace, as a reservoir of grace and compassion, and emphatically not as a banner under which to march against (or upon) others, and least of all an ideology tied to political / geostrategic / military initiatives. Jimmy Carter was deeply religious, my father was a secular humanist. Yet both had noted, in their private lives and in the course of history, the capacity of religious affiliation and religious feeling to fuel violence and hatred. This may have been one reason Carter never invited Billy Graham (at the time of Carter's presidency America's most famous evangelical Christian) to the White House. This 2018 New York Times article elaborates well on the differences between religion as personal faith (Carter) and religion as ideology (Graham), as manifested in two very different men.
Back for a moment to this post's title: Plain talk. Since starting this blog a few years ago, I've expressed some opinions regarding topics or events that divide people. As an example, my post about the conflict in Gaza concludes with the idea that Israel cannot, as a religious state, peacefully co-exist with its neighbors (I say the same thing about the Islamic Republic of Iran) or even hope for enduring peace within its own borders. I was not thinking of either my dad or Jimmy Carter when I wrote that, but I can't deny those men informed my thinking. Point is, the opinions I express in this blog are personal. Some friends have questioned the wisdom of situating a personal blog that occasionally discusses politics within the website of a hospitality business. They have a point. But I want, if not dialogue, then at least the possibility of sharing my land and my homes with folks who see the world differently to me, each of us knowing that difference is there. If someone books a stay and is a climate change denier (check) or a fervent Zionist (again, check) or a political nativist or MAGA devotee (yep, hosted them too) they are — obviously — entirely welcome, all the more so if they've read this blog. The world needs more people, I believe, walking and talking while holding different opinions. Where things go sideways is when one or another of a disagreeing dyad feels compelled to crush the other. That's something Jimmy Carter might have wanted us to remember. R.I.P.
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