So much of my mental energy these days lives in the future. It’s a case of hoping for the best: hope that encampments will disappear. Hope that crime will diminish. Hope that we fire the recalcitrant leftists on the City Council—yes, the ones responsible for getting us into this situation in the first place. Hope that Oakland recovers from the destruction wrought upon it by the pandemic and economic collapse. Hope that the anti-police forces wither up and go away. Hope for better times for us all.
It’s a schizy position. On the one hand, we’re all forced to live in Oakland as it is now, with its many infirmities and insults. On the other hand, we’re constructed—unlike animals—to anticipate a future that is not written in stone, a future that can be anything we collectively desire it to be. One measure of how alive a person is, I think, is the degree to which she remains optimistic. I think of those boys who were trapped in the flooded cave in Thailand in 2018, and whose tale is told in the superb new movie, Thirteen Lives. Facing utter catastrophe, they never gave up hope. They kept their arms around each other, confident that whatever gods they believed in would come to their rescue. And that is what happened: they were saved.
We can be saved too. I realize that in this blog I speak to many people who consider themselves progressive (and I loved Pramila Jayapal’s definition of progressive as “people who are the first ones to think of the best solutions to our problems”). I “get” progressive approaches to race and homelessness and policing and crime. But I would ask you to look around Oakland and see where progressive politics have gotten us. For decades (and I’ve lived here since 1987), progressives have heavily dominated our City Council. And yet—let’s be honest—Oakland is one of the worst big cities in America. You know it, I know it, everybody knows it. Oakland is a calamity. Despite the wonderful presence here of artists, musicians, poets, dancers and other creatives, our city is increasingly unlivable. And I, for one, blame these decades of progressive politics for it. For all its pie-in-the-sky idealism, progressivism is unworkable, for it does not take human nature into account. The damage progressive has wreaked upon Oakland is evident: just take a walk around Lake Merritt, or through downtown, or along Wood Street, or the Fruitvale, or the 580 and 880 underpasses. This is a corpse of a city.
Being anti-progressive doesn’t mean being anti-liberal. It doesn’t mean abandoning the poor and the mentally ill to their fates. There are things that society can do, and has done since the New Deal, to alleviate the suffering of others. But society can’t guarantee everybody a decent life. People have choices—and it’s our contention that too many people in Oakland have made bad life choices and are now suffering the consequences. Life used to be much harsher than it is now: societies established norms, or mores, and expected everyone to abide by them. Those who did not were shunned, a form of tough love by which, it was hoped, they would return to the fold, where they would find renewed acceptance, provided they stuck to the script.
I read, in yesterday’s Chronicle, the front page story on a homeless man who has been evicted from multiple shelters. The story was largely sympathetic to him, which was predictable for the Chronicle. Yet even the reporter had to tell about the repeated instances of this man’s erratic and forbidden behavior in the shelters: getting into fights, reports of drug dealing, refusing to clean his room, violating no-visitor rules, and other violations of shelter policy. I read that story, not feeling sorry for the man, but thinking what an asshole he is. If he’s back on the streets, he has no one to blame but himself.
This is what personal responsibility comes down to: playing by the rules. If you can’t do it, then please don’t expect society to reward you for your insolence. When your tent blows down and the rain batters you next winter, take the time to reflect on your past, and find remorse. You knew the rules; you chose to trash them. But together, we—housed and unhoused, criminal and lawful—can hope for a future in which everybody chooses to live harmoniously, with respect to the rules of respect for others that govern collective living, always have and always will.
Steve Heimoff