my president

The past year I've been especially moved by speeches by Al Gore for MoveOn. Freed from the necessity of blandness all campaigners must adopt for broad televisual acceptance, he has been passionate, outraged, eloquent. A recent article in The New Yorker exemplifies the traits about him I admire.

“One consequence is that there is an emergent triumphalism among market fundamentalists that has assumed an attitude of infallibility and arrogance that has led its adherents to be dismissive and contemptuous of values that are not monetized if they don’t fit into their ideology.”

What’s missing? I asked.

“Families, the environment, communities, the beauty of life, the arts. Abraham Maslow, best known for his hierarchy of needs, had a dictum that if the only tool you use is a hammer, then every problem begins to look like a nail. Translating that into this discussion: If the only tool you use for measuring value is a price tag or monetization, then those values that are not easily monetized begin to look like they have no value. And so there’s an easy contempt, which they summon on a moment’s notice for tree-huggers or people concerned about global warming.”

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