They Both Did Fine
Crispin Sartwell
There was no physical altercation. Each of them, the young man and the old, exercised his right to be there and express his political and religious beliefs peacefully. Nicholas Sandmann and Nathan Phillips both did just fine.
As I absorbed the invective coming from both sides, or watched the interviews and different slices of the videos, my sympathy wavered from one protagonist to the other. Slowly it dawned on me: I don't think either of them did anything wrong. Not in the slightest, really. It would not take much to re-see this event as something squarely and decently American.
As many have observed, the steps of the Lincoln Memorial are an iconic public space, and you have the right to assemble there and express yourself, so long as you do so peacefully - that is, without physical violence. You have the right to wear a MAGA hat there, or to beat a drum. You have the right to express the traditional spirituality of your group, whether it is a group of Native Americans or of Roman Catholics. You have a right to move around, and you have a right to stand still. You have a right to chant, and a right to smile.
I think Phillips found the MAGA hats of the callow youth offensive, and I think he conceived of his rhythmic response as a way to teach a lesson or even bring healing. I think Sandmann thought that if he just stood there smiling, Phillips would not experience him as threatening. Together, they might have prevented a bit of a wider melee: I see the pair of them as the still eye of the conflict, drawing everyone's attention, and serving in part to keep the various hostile groups apart.
Now, perhaps this is too generous an interpretation, and as many have remarked - and as Phillips and Sandmann have remarked about each other - it is hard to know what is in someone else's heart, harder still on video, harder still after everyone has expressed an opinion about it. But finally it doesn't matter what was in their hearts: they behaved peacefully and expressed themselves directly. One could conceive that simply as a matter of decent citizenship or as healthy public discourse, conducted by drum and by hat.
We should all pity both Sandmann and Phillips for the firestorm they are reaping now. In the familiar fashion of the internet-to-cable-news sensation, their lives are getting ripped apart; they're liable to be more or less in hiding, along with their families and friends. Any discreditable thing that either has done or said is liable to be laid open to scrutiny. The sensation has narrowed both lives down to the image of the stand-off, which everyone reads for their own purposes. Phillips and Sandmann are being used, and perhaps used up.
One of the most frightening things about our ever-growing political polarization is that it limits and shapes our empathies. One side can't possibly sympathize with what Nicholas Sandmann is going through. The other can't possibly sympathize with Phillips. That is an arbitrary and irrational limitation on the humanity of the partisans, and a premonition of future oppressions.
I hope they do get a chance to meet and talk, which they've both indicated a willingness or even a desire to do. Or on the other hand, if they want never to think about this thing again, I understand that too. Meanwhile, we former Americans seem to be scared of political expression, even as we engage in it maximally. People are confused as between hats and weapons, smiles and violence. I'm not sure how you'd make a mistake like that, but I do know why you'd make a mistake like that: just yapping in unison with your demographic, for no discernible reason, toward no constructive goal, bashing your opponents with fiction.
Nathan Phillips and Nicholas Sandmann did better.
Crispin Sartwell teaches philosophy at Dickinson College in Carlisle, PA.
