Pedro Lilienfeld

Once upon a time, half a century ago, I had a colleague, a collaborator, with whom I had the pleasure of working on various interesting projects. He was very bright and knowledgable. He had a physics PhD from one of the most prestigious academic institutions in the world. Our interactions were very constructive and rewarding. I will, however, refrain from naming him in order to protect his privacy. Forthwith, I will refer to him by a pseudonym, Virgil.

After working in my group, Virgil departed for various reasons that I no longer remember. I do recall that he relocated from Massachusetts to somewhere else in the East. Thereafter, regrettably, I lost all contact with Virgil.

In my later years, I have attempted to reconnect with old acquaintances. This effort, however, has too often revealed, sadly, that they no longer are alive or, able or willing to reengage.

Among those that I recalled fondly was Virgil and I endeavored to contact him, assuming that he was alive, remembered me, and was interested in corresponding with me. Fortuitously, I saw his name on LinkedIn and was able to reconnect after which we exchanged our personal email addresses.

Virgil wrote to me that he was delighted to reconnect and affirmed that “I have always respected you and your abilities…”. I was equally delighted to reestablish my connection to my ex-colleague.

We proceed to exchange several emails wherein we informed each other about our lives, and the respective losses of our spouses. I learned that his  companion had succumbed after many years of her illness during which Virgil took loving care of her.

We compared our lives finding interesting parallels ranging from our respective blogs to our love of dogs. I was thoroughly elated by this stimulating reconnection.

Then came the thunderclap. Virgil concluded one of his emails as follows:

“Fun to reconnect. We can probably have an enjoyable correspondence if we avoid politics, as I am a libertarian-conservative Republican supporter of Trump. Liberals have no time for me, and I agree”. I was devastated and deeply disappointed. I responded stating that “There is a lot I want to address in your answer. I will do so in a few days…”. To which I get the following response: “…I hope it is not political, as the division in this country has become so toxic that each side has a negative caricature view of the other…I’d love to hear that you are a free-market individualist, as I am, but that is statistically unlikely here in the Northeast. As you read (his writing) my book, you can decide whether your preconceptions are confirmed! Or you can decide that people who vote the way I do are beyond the Pale and not waste your time”.

To the above, I responded, in part, as follows: “After some tortured reflections about your political views I have decided against engaging in any argumentations on that subject. I want to continue being your friend and thus prefer to ignore what I find utterly incomprehensible. Let us concentrate on loftier and less confrontational matters of mutual interest”.

And here, the final shock answer from Virgil:

“…I understand your comment about ‘utterly incomprehensible’. Because that is true, I’ll say goodbye”.

End of interaction with Virgil!

To put it mildly, I was distraught. I had extended a friendly hand willing to set aside our ideological differences and proceed with our friendship based on our common interests. He chose to reject that gesture, although

he had previously proposed to “have an enjoyable correspondence if we avoid politics…”. But not so, upon his further reflection.

I have since overcome my letdown and made an, perhaps vain, attempt at comprehending Virgil’s politics and his unwillingness to overlook our differences.

Foremost, I wish I could dig deep into his early phases of upbringing. What was his family background? What influences did he experience? I do remember that his reactionary views were already embedded at the time of our professional partnership and that we then avoided debating politics.

To me, Virgil embodies a deep paradox. He is, quite obviously, a very sensitive person having dedicated almost two decades of his life to the loving care of his ailing spouse, and to write and publish what, in essence, is a homage to her. How to square such feelings with the social brutality and inhumanity of trumpism? Is there a religious component affecting his views? He hinted at such in reacting to my essay on extraterrestrial intelligence in my blog: “…As for sentient life elsewhere: it is too hard to get there by accident; the Big Bang seems the Act of Creation; God is benevolent…” Religion, in my opinion, has the nefarious potential to distort the thinking of even the brightest among us.

The fact that trumpism is embraced by the less educated in this country is, perhaps, not surprising, but that it should permeate into the upper intellectual stratum as well is, to put it mildly, very disturbing.

Some months ago, around the time of the last presidential elections, I penned an essay entitled “Reflections on America” where I bemoaned the triumph of Trump which I attributed to an uninformed and undereducated electorate. That characterization does not apply to my colleague Virgil. There is, apparently, an educated elite among us who has been attracted by the siren call of the purported libertarian conservatism of a cabal headed up by an utterly amoral and immoral authoritarian miscreant. How is that possible? I can think of at least one 20th century precedent which, although not ideologically similar, is worth referring to: 1930s Soviet communism. Many elite intellectuals were lulled into accepting, and attracted by, the purported egalitarianism of that regime. The list of those enticed by that ideology is long and distinguished: Pablo Picasso, Louis Aragon, André Breton, Jean-Paul Sartre, Eric Satie, Simone Weil, César Vallejo, Pablo Neruda, etc. One who “saw the light”, after having initially embraced communism, was the author Arthur Koestler who turned aggressively against stalinism in the 1940s.

In the case of Virgil, I can only surmise that his position stems from an early parental mind conditioning (I prefer that to the usual ‘brainwashing’) that remained embedded in his psyche. His infatuation with trumpism obviously preceded trumpism. He was fertile ground for a right wing authoritarian. A sad loss to rationality.