Jane Goodall's advice on this Substack last March taught us how to fight Big Lies / Plus - Thoughts on Gaza
Goodall stated: “Don’t call them fascists, as it implies that they have power. Express disgust, but don’t engage; refer to their claims as tantrums and rages. Keep it simple, shout it loud and often.”
The sad passing of Jane Goodall last week hit home for me, especially as comments she made last March in an interview for Netflix - intended to be released posthumously - became public. Around the same time she did that interview, in March, she commented on a Substack posting of mine. I now wonder whether she was trying to make her political opinions known because she knew her remaining time was finite and was in legacy-messaging mode.
Her Netflix interview contains many nuggets of wisdom, and among them were some sharp political barbs.
This was not the first time she expressed dismay over Trump’s behavior - she once even compared him to a chimpanzee,1 I don’t doubt for a minute that she wanted to send him along with authoritarian cronies up on one of Elon Musk’s spaceships on a one-way trip.
Her comments on my post could not be verified at the time since there are a few people listed as “Jane Goodall” on Substack, but giving the timing, tone and substance of the Netflix interview, I feel confident that the real Jane Goodall is the one who left the comments here. And I feel confident that she wanted people to know that she condemned strongly Trump’s actions and was advocating pointed, coordinated responses to his lies.
Here is the heading of my posting of March 6:
Here is the (edited) section from the piece that she was most directly responding to.
We are not the sufferers of Trump Derangement Syndrome; we are the cure.
And the cure is for the message to be repeated, with urgency and conviction, again and again.
For most of us, Trump’s rant in front of Zelensky in the Oval Office sounded like the screams of a lunatic. But for his followers, it was comfort food, and it reinforced his lies about Ukraine and Russia. For them, it was not the irrational outburst of a crazy person, it was one more confirmation that Trump and Putin are the real victims and Ukraine is a country filled with corrupt moochers.
When he continues to spout Big Lies, we need to rant about Big Truths.
We need to take our truths and, in the spirit of the founders, hold these truths until they are self-evident. We hold them by repeating them.
There can be no doubt of their veracity. We’re no longer merely in the persuasion business. We are in the business of turning facts into Self-Evident Truths.
When someone expresses doubt that Ukraine was attacked by Russia, we can’t just patiently correct that person. We should get angry. And then repeat the truth, again and again. - because it is an utter distortion of history to even suggest that Ukraine is responsible for this attack on itself, for the atrocities at Bucha, for the drones, the missiles, for Mariupol. For all of it.
Ukraine denial is the 21st century version of Holocaust denial. It can’t be allowed to stand.
Of course one way to propagate a Big Truth is to share posts and articles that contain them. Normally, for fair-minded proponents of democracy like me, tolerance of opposing views is important, whether in water cooler conversation or on op-ed pages of newspapers that aren’t The Washington Post. I like to be challenged by opposing views. It’s the Talmudist in me. But some facts are immutable. Some things are beyond debate. And we need to gather our facts and shout them out from the highest hilltops.
If Big Truths are self-evident, like the ones the founders held, we need to defend them as fiercely as they were defended at Iwo Jima, Yorktown and Gettysburg
We need to fight every Big Lie with a volley of Truths.
Russia Russia Russia! - TYRANT, TYRANT, TYRANT
January 6 was a love fest! - TREASON, TREASON, TREASON!
We have the best economy! - EGGS, EGGS, EGGS!
Condoms for Hamas? Massive Social Security fraud? - LIES, LIES, LIES!
As Churchill didn’t say, “One man with conviction will overwhelm a hundred who have only opinions.”
We need to bury the Big Lies, and bury them with conviction.
So that’s what I wrote.
Here was Jane’s first comment followed by my reply to her:
Goodall’s playful outspokenness echoes both the intent of my essay and the tone of her Netflix interview, but her final words here carry a most serious instruction:
“Avoid truth/lies calls because they just reverse them. Focus on how they behave, not what they say. Go for their lack of dignity, their nastiness, their grossness.”
And then, soon after, she responds to me, returning to my page with an additional comment that serves as a clarion call to all of us:
Jane Goodall2 recognized the potency of choosing just the right modes of communication and the role of such communication in restoring hope and empowering those whose weakness with words - or lack of them entirely - leaves them vulnerable to those who feast on Big Lies.
Back in 2005, she told Forbes why words hurt.
“When humans get these sudden outbursts of anger, we add words to the mix... Words can be said in bitterness and anger, and often there seems to be an element of truth in the nastiness... Words don’t go away, they just echo around. So even if you can make up, the words come back.”
When she chose to respond to my posting last March, right when she was immersed in an interview intended for posthumous publication, I wonder if she also wanted her advice here to be amplified after her death.
Repeating her call to verbal battle is the least I can do.
Gaza: The Shared Catastrophe
Two years and one day after the devastation of October 7, the Gaza War seems about to end, though after so many disappointments, I’m not making any assumptions. What we know for sure is that the landscape of the Middle East is littered with shattered lives - and that while the suffering cannot be quantified and the scope of the damage to one side be compared to the other, one thing rings true for Israel. While it emerges from the rubble of the past two years in a vastly improved strategic position in the region, the scars on its society will take decades to heal - generations - if they ever do.
And the same time frame holds true for innocent Gazans.
As for Hamas, I hope it never heals.
This war was a shared catastrophe, a Double Nakba, if you will, or using the Hebrew word for epic destruction, a Hurban. And maybe the shared sense of utter loss and exhaustion can be a first step toward a regional healing. We must make sure the extremists don’t mess this up. If healing is allowed to proceed, elections will happen soon in Israel, and a new temporary administrative government will be assembled in Gaza, and hopefully a new era can begin.
As we hopefully now can put a final bookend on this war, I share below a digest of links to my postings from its first two months. I posted daily for several weeks after the attack on October 7. Sometimes it helps to regain perspective when we look back and sense the immediacy of events as they unfolded.
But before that, here is a link to the audio, subtitled video and selected screengrabs from Tuesday night’s emotional national memorial and vigil in Tel Aviv. No government representatives spoke. Israelis are seeking respite, internal reconciliation, leadership and responsibility. As one speaker said, “In the name of those who can still be saved - we don’t seek revenge. We seek healing!”
Let’s hope that, on all sides, the healing can now begin.
Archived Digest of “In This Moment” for Oct. and Nov. 2023
Earliest Dates at Bottom, beginning with October 7 itself
“In This Moment” for October, 2023:
NOTES
“In many ways the performances of Donald Trump remind me of male chimpanzees and their dominance rituals,” Goodall told The Atlantic in 2016.
Goodall also understood that deception is not unique to humans, that while hips don’t lie, chimps do.
Good morning Rabbi,
I was enchanted by Jane Goodall from the time I was a young woman. In 1987 I went with a couple of friends and my 12 year old son to see her and hear her speak. I still have her signed poster, that I got framed, on my wall. At that time she had been with the chimpanzees for 26 years.
Dame Jane Goodall was a fantastic role model and all around a good, loving person. I am glad that she recognized you as being worthy to contact to help convey her message.
In 2022 Barbie did a series of dolls, one of which was Jane Goodall. I bought one for my young grand daughter as well as a children's book about her. I gave my GD the doll and she says something like "I don't play with dolls". I told her that I knew that, it was for her to keep. Her mother chimed in that it was a collectable. My GD knew what a collectable was and said "Will it be worth a million dollars"? LOL I told her that I doubted it would be worth that much money and told her to read the book as I would be quizzing her about it. Needless to say my GD was not impressed by my gift.
My son surprised me by saying " I remember that you took me to see her." :-)
KISS is very good advice.
An insult to chimpanzees….