About ten years ago, I wrote an article titled Garbage Rises with which I meant to discuss the god awful reality of so-called American meritocracy. Risking repetition, I wrote another piece in the same vein, recently. But jeeez, our times have put such an exclamation mark on the observation that “garbage rises” that I find warranted yet a third rumination on human garbage in America. 

The backdrop is that we in America have as a new watchword not the rule of law, but the rule of garbage. So I thought I would revisit the general observation from ten years back, and then get explicit about the particular garbage that has most recently risen to rule America.

So, first consider the general point. A famous American baseball manager. Leo Durocher once said “Nice guys finish last.” He was referring to Mel Ott, who was, I guess, a nice guy who was then the manager of baseball’s NY Giants who were at the time mired in last place. It is striking that nowadays deep down everyone knows what the phrase means. We smile and say “how clever.” However, few of us explicitly acknowledge the obvious implication that Durocher may not have quite had foremost in mind. To observe that nice induces defeat says the environment that we Americans find ourselves in tends to punish generosity, solidarity, and humanity. To succeed, nay even just to survive, we have to be nasty or at the very least to turn a blind eye to nastiness. If we challenge nastiness with solidarity, we fall behind. We even finish last. If we are or we at least abide much less teach nastiness, then we have a shot at winning. Everything is broken. Everything breaks us. Isn’t that a devastating indictment of our society?

We may say have a nice day a dozen or more times between when we wake up and we later sleep again. Simultaneously while smiling we might trample whatever is in our way. We might ignore suffering that is easily discernible around us. Walk by the homeless guy. Curse those below. We might ignore the oppressive conditions and circumstances of those who provide what we need or who use what we provide. We may deem a ten year old bully a nasty thug in making, or just a bit rambunctious, depending on the color of her skin or style of his clothes. But we consider a highly civilized supremely educated, finely dressed “twenty, thirty, forty, fifty, or sixty something adult who pursues a personally lucrative life path that ignores the horrors it inflicts on others a citizen in good standing. We consider the big time smiling bully natural, unimpeachable, perhaps even a mayor, CEO, Senator, or Mr. President. Typically, if we are properly oblivious to others’ pain or even more if we impose it, we may advance. If we are too nice and concerned about others’ pain, and we seek to reduce it, we will likely lag behind. Garbage wins the race.

Many factors compel these outcomes but at or near the top are authoritative decision making plus market competition. Taken together these two characteristics of contemporary daily life impose an almost insurmountable pressure for predation. Of course tribal loyalty—gender, racial, national, whatever—weighs in as well. One’s gotta be true to one’s team, doesn’t one?

Way back when I first heard it, I found Leo Durocher’s quip highly amusing. It was cleverly cute. Later there came a time when I grew to feel that “nice guys finish last” had become too tame a formulation to properly characterize the gilded viper pit we all must constantly navigate. I wondered, does some other one liner go even further than Durocher’s, and, in so doing, achieve greater clarity. And I found one. It is not even a one liner. It is a two worder: “Garbage Rises.”

We don’t live in a meritocracy. Genius doesn’t rise. Compassion doesn’t rise. Garbage rises. If you take orders with a smile and you reflexively offer a good day greeting to others, above and below, or if you give orders with a growl oblivious to your impact on those you boss around or intentionally putting them in their lowly place, then even if you would rather not be doing such things—so long as you keep your dissent from your given role a secret—you may rise, especially in the latter case. If lies come naturally and easily, if you can swivel your head from reality to delusion without developing a pain in the neck, if you will steal advantage at every opportunity and then defend it by whatever means present themselves—even if you go home and feel guilty about your choices—you will likely rise. But if you look out for others, then you can forget about rising. You will get trampled.

Of course this doesn’t happen a hundred percent of the time. But not too far off. And it isn’t just about becoming a chief negotiator, CEO, the Chief of police, a Senator, or President. It happens too where you might least expect it, in schools, homes, ballparks, churches, kitchens, bedrooms, and all over the damn place. Without charting all the variants and degrees, we know it of course also happens when it is me or thee. We compete with our eyes only on our costs and benefits, not on the others’ costs and benefits. Hooray for my side, or sometimes for our side. We cheer on, or partake of, or at least abide a small and sometimes a really large war of each against all.

And what makes this multi faceted rat race particularly devastating is that we all know it exists. Of course we know. There is no point denying it. We can binge a few films featuring plenty of hate and much carnage, or, occasionally, even a little goodness. We construct our taste to enjoy what’s plentifully available. We call it entertainment. The whole point is that to know or not to know what is really going on doesn’t matter. Either way the viper pit we live in pulls and pushes us to try to rise and look down on those who get left behind even if we also silently hate those above—and all too often we tend to comply.

But why does this happen? Is it because human beings are vipers? We can certainly behave like vipers (assuming they behave abysmally). But that doesn’t mean we must behave thusly. Yes, we must breathe. We must eat, drink, sleep. We must do many things, but we don’t have to be viper like. That is a social possibility which, however, needs causes to make it occur. And its causes are not in our DNA. Nor in our stars. Its causes are, instead, all around us in the institutions we relate to.

If Joe is in jail and Joe doesn’t see the sun each day, or eat well, and so on – we don’t say, it is due to Joe’s inner nature. We say it is due to the jail he is in. How simple. How obvious. Anyone can see it. Anyone can understand it. In contrast, how incredible is it that we can hide from ourselves that our being viper-like—or poor, or rich, or pretty much anything else—is like Joe lacking a sunburn. We too are confined.

Joe’s jail is the one whose bars he stares at each morning, noon, and night. Our jail is the institutions we act within to fulfill its dictates morning, noon, and night to get through each day and get some benefits along the way. Our jail is our role at work. Our role in our family. Our role in our school, church, team, tribe. It is the requirements of staying alive much less climbing in the viper-pit rat race that is dictated not by our genes but by our surroundings and the baggage they have saddled us with. If you think that instead of being socially coerced, we are viper-like because it is in our DNA, fine. Either kill yourself, or nurture your viper-ism sufficiently that you at least have a nice house to live in. And then be nice to someone and try to explain where the niceness came from.

If you think, instead, we are viper-like because the social institutions we daily relate to require viper-ism from us if we are to rise instead of finish last, again, kill yourself, or play the game as prescribed by your position. Look out for number one, or for your family, or your tribe, Or—whoa—consider this, you could flat out reject all poisonous choices. You don’t want door a or door b, you want to opt for a new situation. You seek changed relations in the present, but, much more to the point, changed relations in the future. Yes, there it is. You can be revolutionary. And it really is true, with eyes open whatever gloss we give it, whatever names we call it, if garbage rises we must be suicidally resigned, cynically or even apologetically viper-ish, or intentionally revolutionary. Take your pick! One of those isn’t poison.

Okay, that deals albeit a bit dramatically with the phrase “garbage rises,” at least as I mean it and in the abstract. It deals with its general logic and its broad implications, not fine details. But, in the real world, where is all this supposed garbage? 

Well, on a small scale, with a little “g” it is you and me. But big time, it turns out that we live in a special moment because America has a kind of Garbage Olympics underway. Due to Trumpism, we get to witness a Cabinet not of Curiosities, but a Cabinet of grandiose Garbage. And within that elite assembly, like when viewing the finals of a race, we also get to witness who rises highest. In our case, we witness a spectacle of the worst of the worst. We see the world’s richest greed machine, Elon anti-social Musk and the world’s most powerful politico, Donald bully-boy Trump face off. Who will rise higher? We don’t yet know. But we do know they are each incredibly worthy of the sodden garbage crown. And coming up on the outside, not to forget, we also have RFK Jr. the anti-medical medical man, Pete Hegseth the sadistic anti peace Secretary of Defense, and a small coterie of other social degenerates, as well, together on top and yet nipping at each other as well. Really, has there ever been such an assemblage of moral rot and mental decay in a single high level assemblage able to impose its will before in history? It is truly astounding, and it has been other times, as well. Pick randomly among the elite figures in charge and you can’t miss. You will have a handful of the most vile garbage. 

Yes, I know, I haven’t listed their ills. More important, I haven’t detailed the institutional dynamics. And still worse, the first part of this essay implied that the garbage that rises does so in response to incredible institutional pressures and so its members ought not be viewed as themselves vermin, as themselves devils. I have said it over and over elsewhere. Don’t call cops pigs. Don’t call Trump’s voters little Trumps. And yet, there is an exception to most rules and these current alpha guys, I swear, they have got to be an exception to that part of the rule of garbage. I can’t help but think these guys must really be bad to the bone. You may see Trump, Musk, et. al., as intrinsically born that way. Or you may see them like pretty much the rest of us as socially propelled to be what they now are. Either way, our task is to reverse their ascent until they endure a deep dive back down. And to also take on the institutions that produce and elevate all of us to be, let’s call it, less than our optimal selves. Our task is not to dodge but to smash society’s pliers.

So what am I saying? It is good, it is even exalted to condemn perverse institutions and be charitable toward those who the institutions bend toward evil, ourselves included. But, if you feel hostile to Trump and Co., if you feel downright hateful, vengeful, violent and whatever other nasty feelings toward Trump and his minions, I get it. Me too. Maybe to feel thusly isn’t optimally perfect but I suspect even Jesus would have trouble breaking bread with these particular two legged monsters. The institutions of our time have so warped them, our current society’s pliers have so bent them out of human shape, that it is hard not to want to dance on their graves. And yet, even while to hate them is warranted, we do have to watch out lest we become our own enemy in the instant that we deny others’ humanity. So let’s get militant, seriously militant, but let’s keep our aim true. 

Demonstrate April 5. Loudly. Militantly. But also hold on to our humanity. Wherever you live, learn, work, pray, or play, now is the time to disobey. April 6 onward, we must not bend ourselves to fit their design for us. We must not bow down. To avoid their control, we must not control ourselves. Now is our time. We must rise, resist, throw out the garbage and continue on to ensure that down the road compassionate wisdom, not garbage rises. All for one and one for all. 

Is this too rah rah for you? No problem. Chuck the rhetoric. But hold on to the sentiment. Is this too tame for you? No problem. Kick it up a notch or three. But hold on to the sentiment. Disobedience Now.

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