Hendrick Goltzius: Those who litigate must be shameless, patient and rich (1597)

Gallery Notes:
A litigating man (Litigator) walks up a staircase with two things in his hands and behind him three women carrying bags with the inscriptions 'Shamelessness', 'Patience' and 'Money' in Latin. Extensive caption in Dutch, German and Latin. This print is part of a series of eight prints about greed, deception and litigation.

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" … we pride ourselves on being a decent people …"

Our current incumbent began waging a senseless war on decency from his first hour in office. He focused upon a modest-seeming target: recent attempts to codify decency into law. The overriding Law of Unintended Consequences might have gotten involved because quite a constituency had accreted around the idea that equality constituted an intolerable insult to the polity. They described it as Reverse Descrimination. From a zero-sum mindset, I suspect this logic might make close to perfect sense, for within that worldview, any gain by anyone else constitutes a loss for the home team. Consequently, they sense their historical and, therefore, sacred boundaries eroding. Further, such insistences become intolerable when any law commands that people treat everybody decently, for only some seem more deserving. Besides, the subtext screams that we were here first, so our rights and privileges must be superior, even though we don't believe we are in any way privileged.

The concept had been shorthanded into the label DEI, or Diversity, Equity, and Inclusion. The intention sought to encourage more diverse representation within occupations, to, for instance, reach out to historically under-represented minorities and help them gain access. This concept wasn't only focused on different races but also genders, sexualities, and preferences. It shouldn't matter whether you identify as female, queer, or goth when considering which college you hope to attend or what profession you want to engage in. Historically, decency hadn't always entered into these sorts of decisions, so over recent decades, much headway had been made toward welcoming broader diversity into almost everything. White supremacists interpreted this as a government-fueled infringement upon their historical right to be bigoted. They didn't want any authority telling them who they had to hire or who they couldn't fire regardless of cause. How were they supposed to safeguard their historical boundaries with the government promoting diversity upon their insular communities?

Equity and Inclusion were supposed to work similarly, with issues like equal pay for equal work moving closer to an expected rather than an exception. Equal Rights, too, were sometimes seen as an inequality when they threatened some preconception or a deeply entrenched status quo. Those touting traditional values often oppose even the most well-intended decency, if only because it seems too different, by which I mean any different at all. Conservative comes in innumerable flavors, but each appears to tenaciously hold onto historical values, even the more indecent ones. Attempting to legislate common sense would likely encounter similar encumbrances, for even common sense comes in innumerable colors. Perhaps the most prominent aspect of common-ness might be its rareness. We speak as if certain values are universal, but they never have been in practice. E Pluribus Unum does not suggest that we spring from anything like the same rootstock. We don't.

Our incumbent saw an opening to endear himself to a few so-called social conservatives and threw them a bone. He proclaimed, even though the very act of proclaiming tends to make him look and sound absurd, like a cartoon king, that henceforth DEI would be illegal. This began the latest war on decency or DEIcency. The entire inventory of Federal documents was summarily scoured over the following weeks to physically delete every mention of DEI. This proclamation was illegal since those letters had been included under the law, and presidential proclamations have no standing when opposing an actual act of legislation. Dutiful executive branch employees, suddenly fearful for their jobs, proceeded to fulfill his wish as if a few edits might somehow erase such decent intentions. He also published a handy list of several dozen terms he henceforth forbade from appearing in federally-produced documents. That list included such common words as "women" but, curiously, not "men."

The InDEIcency amounts to a federally-enforced game of Pretend. Lawsuits have been filed and federal funding illegally withheld when the administration accused people or institutions of violating the illegal proclamation. This is how inDEIcency works. It begins with an insistence of questionable authority, often a lie. It tries to persist through sheer repetition, hoping, I suspect, to instill a fresh pattern. It can seem like too much trouble to try to counter these measures. Most people would really rather just get along, even if getting along involves something everyone knows is wrong. The War On DEIcency will continue until it fails, which it ultimately must, if only because we pride ourselves upon our decency, however mythical that sometimes seems. We do not seek to embarrass ourselves publicly and will do almost anything to avoid it. Institutions, initially mute or complacent, have begun refusing to submit.

Just this morning, an NYTimes headline screamed: "New York Warns Trump It Will Not Comply With Public School D.E.I. Order." Further, "Daniel Morton-Bentley, the deputy commissioner for legal affairs at the state education agency in New York, wrote in a letter to federal education officials that “we understand that the current administration seeks to censor anything it deems ‘diversity, equity & inclusion.’ But there are no federal or state laws prohibiting the principles of D.E.I.,” Mr. Morton-Bentley wrote, adding that the federal government has not defined what practices it believes violate civil rights protections."

The War On InDEIcency will continue until it eventually wins, because we pride ourselves on being a decent people, even when, perhaps especially when, our decency temporarily goes missing, which it sometimes does.

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