Notre-Dame and What We Owe Our Children

The inferno in Paris looked worse than was feared by the thousands of onlookers stationed on either side of the River Seine and by the hundreds of millions watching live-streamed and time-stamped images on their screens.

The April 15 fire ravaged the great Cathedral of Notre-Dame, the heart of the City of Lights, where we romanticize French culture in a blend of love, sex, food, faith and art. Tears were shed and prayers were said as Parisians watched Our Lady burn and mourned the loss.

But as church and government officials assess the extent of the destruction, the 850-year-old church appears to have another 850 years ahead of it, barring any unforeseen damage the intense heat may have done to undermine the massive structure’s stone construction. 

The attic “forest,” which fueled the fire, is, relatively speaking, easily replaceable. With modern technological advances in building materials, the reconstruction debate won’t be about the cost – more than $1 billion raised so far and counting – but what material to use in the rebuilding. 

Purists will want to replace the attic forest with wood, but the oak that burned came from primeval forests that no longer exist. Will they agree to sprinklers, firewalls and electric wiring for smoke detectors, of which the cathedral had none to preserve its historic nature?

The French government owns Notre-Dame, but permits the Catholic Church to preside and worship there in perpetuity. How politically skillful church and state leaders are in negotiating and executing the rebuilding will determine how long the effort takes, hopefully not the nearly two centuries it took to build the cathedral. 

While the world took a moment to lament the French Gothic structure’s loss, it’s interesting to ask what we hold dear in a medieval building that comparably few people in the world will ever visit. It’s the loss of familiarity, perhaps, of the comforting permanence such an iconic structure has in our subconscious. Notre-Dame has withstood wars, plagues as well as social, political and religious upheavals, not to mention degradations other than fire. 

Historically (and why lack of wiring and sprinklers is understandable but no longer practical), the cathedral is a connection to the past. Touching its stone walls and floors, peering up at its soaring stone vaulted ceilings, and marveling at its massive rose windows of stained glass assure us of the past and reassure us of the future.

Yet, in 2019, when scientists have warned the dangers of climate change are closing in unless we address the issue immediately, the future is uncertain. This is especially so for the children of the world who want the same chance to become productive adults as their parents, grandparents and great grandparents.

If a burning church built nine centuries ago can immediately move humanity to collectively help preserve it, then can we also move with the same urgency to address the man-made pollution that is threatening the existence of the cathedral known as earth? 

We owe it to our children.   

The Big Con: Everyone is in on It

Other than perhaps the red MAGA-hat wearing folks that show up at President Donald Trump’s it’s-all-about-me rallies, the recent congressional testimony by Trump’s former lawyer, Michael Cohen, that his former boss is “a con man” was of little revelation to most of the world.

Even those who believe he’s “not a politician,” “not beholden to special interests,” “is a businessman,” “telling it like it is,” “conservative,” and other hard-felt reasons know he’s conning them.

But then, they think that about every politician. However, there is a difference between a politician persuadingyou, and a politician conningyou. 

For a voter to know the difference is a matter of being truly honest; it isn’t enough to just say, “yeah, I know he’s a jerk, but so was Obama,” or as some evangelical conservatives like Jerry Falwell Jr. reason, “We’re never going to have a perfect candidate unless Jesus Christ is on the ballot.” That reasoning means your fine with things, no matter how bad, just as long as your self-interests are protected.

More illustrative is Robert Jeffress, pastor at the First Baptist Church in Dallas and a member of Trump’s Faith Advisory Group. In August 2018, after Cohen confirmed that in 2016 candidate Trump directed him to pay hush money to keep porn start Stormy Daniels quiet about her 2006 affair with Trump, Jeffress said this to Fox News:

“I know a lot of people are still perplexed — why are Christians so supportive of Donald Trump? Well, it’s really not that hard to figure out when you realize he is the most pro-life, pro-religious liberty, pro-conservative judiciary [president] in history and that includes either Bush or Ronald Reagan. I think that is why evangelicals remain committed to this president and they are not going to turn away from him soon.”

Evangelical opportunists like Lynch and Jeffress don’t buy Trump’s con, they just factor it into the calculus for moving their agenda. That’s why they supported Trump in 2016. In a way, they have become the very devil they’ve made a pact with.

For Trump, as long as he gains from championing the evangelical Christian interest, he’ll do their bidding, and they, at least most of them, will support him.

But evangelicals are not alone in cold-hearted calculating to have their myopic self-interest served, regardless of whether it damages society and the nation.

U.S. Sen. Mitch McConnell, Republican majority leader, is unapologetic about it. A few weeks before Election Day in 2016, Democratic President Barrack Obama convened the legislative leaders from both parties to tell them about Russian interference in the elections. McConnell refused to sign a bipartisan statement condemning Vladimir Putin’s government. 

Former Vice President Joe Biden told the Council on Foreign Relations in January 2018 that McConnell "wanted no part of having a bipartisan commitment saying, essentially, 'Russia's doing this. Stop.' " Biden realized then that “the die had been cast … this was all about the political play.”

For conservative Republicans, who rejected Trump until he vanquished their candidates in the GOP primary, the political play is partisan self-interest—stacking the appellate courts and the U.S. Supreme Court with conservative judges. 

Unable to sway voters against typically Democratic-authored, legislation, i.e. affordable care act, common-sense gun regulations such as universal background checks and voting reforms that ensure every voter can cast a vote, Republicans want Trump-appointed judges to strike down moderate legislative initiatives not based on conservative interpretations of the Constitution—exactly what McConnell and Republicans falsely accuse Democratic-appointed judges of doing.

Certainly, McConnell and Republicans know Trump is a con artist, but until he stops serving their purpose – tax cuts for the wealthy, conservative judge appointments, abolishing consumer and environmental protections – they are content. For McConnell, it’s also personal: Trump appointed the senator’s wife, Elaine Chao, U.S. Transportation Secretary.

What helped the Big Con most, and where Russia contributed spectacularly, is social media—the gateway for disinformation (more so than even Fox News), misinformation, lies, falsehoods and the herding of voters into partisan corrals where many users of Facebook, Twitter, et al undiscerningly grab at whatever piece of information confirms their biased world views. 

Trump is a con artist, but most everyone is in on his con. Tens of millions of voters pulled the lever for someone they, in the not too distant past, would have otherwise rejected—an unprincipled, authoritarian, real estate developer who thinks not terms of serving the people or of meaningful programs to help people; not even in terms of actual negotiation, but in simple transaction: what can you do for me?

As Danish writer Hans Christen Andersen warned in the 19^thcentury, nearly half of American voters today choose to believe the naked Emperor wears fine new clothes rather than admit the Emperor wears no clothes.