Changemakers, Troublemakers, Courtiers and Clowns

(Below is an open letter to Tracy Gary, who asked how, beyond my dismal professional bio, she should introducing me to her progressive funder friends.)

Dear Tracy,

Yup, been thinking because you asked, about how I see myself beyond my corporate self. The answer is not "financial advisor," nor "trusted advisor," but teacher in a certain very specific tradition. Education comes from "educere" to lead out. Socrates saying that he was (incongruously) the "midwife" to his interlocutors, helping them (male though all were) give birth to what is already within them, latent. Also, as model (in humility) I follow the Trickster Jesus of the Gospels. And also, Diogenes, the naked man in the barrel who accosted the wealthy of his day, including Alexander the Great, and helped them, as would a Zen monk, to awaken, often by setting them paradoxes, or rousing them to fury just short of violence. I do not believe any more than you do that philanthropy will save democracy. It cannot, obviously. The rich are blessed in their own way, but the truly gifted/accursed are the artists, the poets, the prophets, the holy fools. That is the role to which I most deeply aspire, or better yet, am most deeply stuck with. So, I play the fool and the courtier both. But the fool is for keeps. The courtier  "financial services professional" is an IQ Test for the client, my various bosses, and colleagues. Most flunk. Diogenes naked in the streets with his lantern in broad daylight, seeking the honest wealth holder, the honest power broker, a "trusted advisor." That is me. The Trickster who teaches by getting the other off balance. Beware. Of course, I do know sprezzatura, the style you suggested some well bred donors expect. (You know it is from Castiglione's Book of the Courtier? A handbook on how to prosper at Court among the knaves?) I will be as gracious and deferential with your friends as would any courtier to Queen or King. But you asked for an account of who I am. That is it: Troublemaker, as Peter Karoff once said to me. Troublemaker for democracy, maybe not unlike you and your cousin George Pillsbury when you were then as I am now, just a beginner. Haymarket - wasn't that a labor riot?

As an ex-college professor, let alone a financial services trainer, I am reconciled to misreading. Even at Yale many a future ruler of the universe could not follow an agile writer. So, instead of being hard to read, I am very easy. As easy as a billboard or a children's sock puppet. Unless you understand me. At which point I am nothing but trouble. In me as in a raven is the grapeseed. Shat out, it grows to the intransigent vine of Dionysus and democracy. The red wine of the grape, spilled from the Cross, drunk as blood from a chalice - believe me, I meditate on that, as a good lapsed Catholic with a humane education. I have about as much choice in this as does a man or woman in being gay. I can be in or out as one called to foolishness in the public square, but I can't change, only be broken. With you, and through your example, I am finding the courage to be my strange self, Harlequin in patches, "a Socrates gone mad," as Diogenes said. Philanthropy is teaching, but the payoff is activism. For me that means the liberal arts, the arts of freedom, not a passive thing to watch and admire, but to imitate, among the Pharisees, in the public square. What stands a chance of saving us is someone like Martin Luther Kind or Vaclav Havel.  And people like that are not waiting around for permission or a grant. Some of us aren't even waiting for real artists. We just shit out what we can and pray that it contains here and there a fertile seed amidst the dung. You know all this. Or are the carrier of it. It is not a blessing, but a calling. And the call is not to peace of mind. The reason you can't shake my support is that I was going where you are going long before we met. You are an optimist by temperament; I consider that wisdom and caritas come with "brokenness and surrender." You and your cousin George have learned moderation in maturity. I have been driven half mad.

We inherit a tradition, and we pass it on. It no more cares whether we live or die than do our genes. We are the carriers, the dead husk; the living germ courses through us.  We pass it on as we received it, as a gift, the dangerous gift of knowledge, the apple Eve gave Adam. We spit the seed from our mouth. Hence the orchard. The garden run always to weeds. We live among snakes. And the fool should be as wise as the serpent.

Extinct? Not yet. Nor Born Again, but Rapture Ready.

Be well!

Phil

Comments

[Jean Russell]

Cheerleader, Clown, Troublemaker, or Fool by whatever name you call yourself and others call you; you still sound so sweet.

The role does not make the man, through a roll can fill his belly.

With masterful use of language like yours, surely you can play a little game with words and give someone an excuse to use your talent. In the end it does not change the essence of who you are even if it tarnishes the outside a bit.

Let's plant some seeds and see what comes of it. I like a big beautiful garden. I even like some weeds -- for what to some are weeds are to others flowers.

Give me a big bright yellow dandelion. Let it flourish so I can blow the seeds gently into the wind and watch them dance and twirl till they land and make more.

Whoever you are, whatever you are, you are serving a purpose. Is it your purpose?

Philanthropy, democracy, and capitalism can't care or not care about you and your purpose. They have no consciousness, poor things. It is up to you and I and all that we can reach to move these monoliths and ancient stones of our society.

Do you have a hammer? A pulley? A lever? Let's see what CAN be done.

[Phil]

I have at best the grape seed. Some day will come the vintage?

[Jean Russell]

With much work and some time.

We spit the hybridseeds on good soil to make a great and delicious crop. We won't know exactly how good for many years to come.

Hopefully the current drought will make them strong and ardent.

[Phil]

Grafting is another good metaphor, from Derrida, thinking of how he was grafting French thought onto the Anglo-American rootstock. The result did prove fertile, I suppose. Can we do the same with forprofit and nonprofit alliances? I think it can be done. Maybe the best analogy is inter-marriage of tribes long kept separate, and now mutually suspicious or even hostile. But broadening the gene pool would be good for all.

[Phil A.]

This is a wonderful self-portrait, Phil. It's also rare in philanthropy. What did you teach and where?

[Phil]

English lit at Birmingham-Southern College, briefly, before going into financial services.