EAI president’s introduction at recent dinner explains much about Robert Kennedy Jr.

The Ethan Allen Institute invited Robert F. Kennedy, Jr. to participate in the Gen. John Stark Lectures and address the topic, “Climate, Free Markets, and Economic Fairness.” Myers Mermel, the President of the Institute, offered the following introduction at the Doubletree in South Burlington on the evening of June 21^st before a sold-out audience of 300 people. 

by Myers Mermel

Before I begin with my introduction of Robert F. Kennedy Jr., I would like to thank the person who helped make this event possible. That person was Frederick J Bailey the former President of the City Council of Burlington. Thank you Fred. As an aside –Fred’s lasting legislative accomplishment is that he had a sandwich named after him at Halverson’s –it’s still on the menu. It’s called the Bailey Melt. But don’t order one, your arteries will never recover. 

Robert F. Kennedy Jr. is a noted author, attorney, public intellectual, environmentalist, and public health expert. 

His books include among other titles: The Real Anthony Fauci: Bill Gates, Big Pharma, and the Global War on Democracy and Public Health; Vax-Unvax: Let the Science Speak; A Letter to Liberals: Censorship and COVID: An Attack on Science and American Ideals; American Values: Lessons I learned from My Family; Climate in Crisis: Who’s Causing It, Who’s Fighting It, and How We Can Reverse It Before It’s Too Late; and, lastly, Saint Francis of Assisi: A Life of Joy. 

His career is marked by the environmental movement he created and his decades long successful pursuit to clean up the Hudson River.  He attended Sidwell Friends, Georgetown Prep, and Millbrook. He received an A.B. from Harvard and a J.D. from the University of Virginia 

If a man’s resume is the sum of his being you have just heard it. But we know from looking at other public figures that accomplishments alone are a poor lens through which to view character. We need a better introduction, I believe. 

The best introduction of Robert is the one he gives about himself. It is a story he tells frequently about his character, but no one as far as I know has yet unpacked it. He told the story recently to journalist David Samuels who briefly touched it, and he told it to Joe Rogan who only danced around it like a puppy in spring flowers and didn’t get near it. 

To really understand RFK Jr., to make this introduction worthy, we should listen to him and unpack his explanation of his own character. Remember that character in our republic used to be the defining aspect of an individual. Before Washington’s Cincinnatus moment, then the apogee of good character, and the consequent rise of political parties, voters selected candidates not on the basis of issue positions they held, but on the basis of character alone.  Voting on the basis of issues was vulgar because it elevated the interests of self over the interests of the community as a whole. 

As Robert tells the story, his father, two weeks before his tragic death, gave him a copy of The Plague by Albert Camus. His father had read the book during a period of reflection, following President Kennedy’s assassination, in which he addressed his relationship with God, and while he continued to embrace the Catholic Church, he looked to other areas for meaning, as part of that he had found a connection with existentialism. Camus was a post-war philosopher and existentialist, though he denied it, and The Plague was one of his three most important novels. Robert’s father with a “particular intensity” directed Robert to read the book, and Robert says he read it three times to decipher the message.

In the book, a doctor confronts the reality that his walled city has been infected by an unknown plague. He has no ability to stop the destructive effects of the plague. This initially leads him to stay inside since going out among the sick would lead to no cure, only his own destruction.  Ultimately the doctor, however, does go out. His response is to comfort those who are suffering around him. Robert points out that the existentialists were legatees of the Greek school of philosophy known as Stoicism.  Robert suggests that Camus’ doctor had brought order to the chaos created by the plague, by doing his own duty, and performing service at great sacrifice to himself.  

Camus, an existentialist, saw in the doctor’s actions a reflection of the efforts of Sisyphus, the iconic model of Stoicism.  Sisyphus was an ancient Homeric figure who performed a great service to mankind by capturing death and chaining him up. Zeus punished Sisyphus by condemning him to roll a boulder up a hill for eternity. Yet, every time Sisyphus would near the top of the hill, the boulder would roll back down. 

According to Robert, through a stoic cosmology, Camus saw Sisyphus as a happy man because he put his shoulder to the stone. Sisyphus was given a duty and he did his duty. This self-sacrifice by Sisyphus brought order to a chaotic universe. Robert suggests that our universe is chaotic and that he can bring order to it by the performance of his own duty. 

That’s a lot to take in. You can see why Rogan passed on it. But what does this mean? He introduces four parts. He goes from (1) existentialism with Camu– to (2) stoicism with Sisyphus– to (3) the exercise of duty– to (4) ordering of the universe. There are large steps between the parts and it’s not easy to follow. What is that Robert telling us about who he is?

For Camus, existentialism was the project through which he analyzed questions of responsibility, innocence, and guilt. Camus saw the futile actions of Sisyphus as absurd, but Camus believed Sisyphus accepted his fate and therefore was happy with it.

But let’s test this metaphor of Sisyphus a little bit further. Sisyphus was active, in motion, yes. He was a man under responsibility. But despite his duty– his actions were always futile. The endless repetition of his actions signaled no progress. But let’s consider this. Without progress there could be no Hegelian dialectic. So, Sisyphus was in essence the end of the dialectic. And the end of dialectic suggests it would have been the end of history. Haven’t we heard about the end of history recently under another public figure somewhere else before?

You know they made a movie about Sisyphus. You probably saw it. It was called Ground Hog Day with Bill Murray. In the movie, every day is a repetition of the last and no matter what happens during the day, Bill Murray’s character Phil Connors, ends up in Punxsutawney Pennsylvania getting awakened by the same clock at the same time. And, in the day that follows, Phil Connors and his metaphysical boulder roll down the hill. Phil Connors is trapped until the point when he realizes he is powerless in the face of life. When the old vagrant dies and Phil Connors cannot stop the vagrant’s death — that is the moment when Phil Connors becomes a Stoic. Once he accepts things that he can’t change, he immediately breaks out of the Sisyphean cycle. He then realizes he personally has a duty to care for others. Albert Camus and RFK Sr. probably would have loved Ground Hog Day. 

But Robert’s ideas about Sisyphus are slightly different. From Robert’s description there is no breakthrough moment like the one Phil Connors enjoys.  For Robert continued service is the breakthrough moment because service itself is the expression of virtue. And Stoics believe virtue is the summum bonum -the highest good—and from it derives all happiness. 

Yet if all the actions of Sisyphus result in failure, why should we commend Robert’s character if he believes he can only fail—that cosmology sounds vaguely Calvinistic with double predestination – where God chooses who to save and God chooses who to damn. Didn’t we switch out of this line of deterministic thought with the Enlightenment? Is Robert telling us to keep trying despite the fact that we will also ultimately fail in our aims? That we should all engage in repetitive failure? No, he’s not focused on the repetitive action, the work we do, Robert explains that fulfillment of duty is the goal. He believes his duty of service is paramount to his character. It is the Rosetta Stone through which we can understand him.

In concept it is vaguely reminiscent of the “ask not what your country can do for you” type of call to duty. And most would agree that we as a society need to find our way back to communities full of people willing to serve. In his own way, Robert is offering himself as something akin to the Halfway Covenant of 1662. He is offering a way to bind the present to the very best parts of the past. In that sense Robert is telling us that he sees himself as an interlocutor of the past as it becomes our American future. Given the current state of censorship a trusted interlocutor could be a very good thing indeed. That all is worth deep consideration. 

But one last thing. How does everyone doing their duty of service –actually result in “bringing order to the universe”? I mean if everyone was doing their duty of service, then everyone would be virtuous, and I thought wholly virtuous societies were composed only of angels not people born of Adam.

The “bringing order to the universe concept” is a philosophic curveball. It’s not a Stoic idea. Stoics accept the universe as it is and order their lives to it, not the reverse. They accepted the vicissitudes of life, through providence, much as eastern philosophies caution the same response. They didn’t try to subordinate the world to themselves.

Why does Robert believe order is important? Perhaps because Robert knows society seeks order in this current time of chaos. But Stoicism doesn’t bring or impose order. In the metaphysical clock of Stoicism, virtue is the counterweight to entropy which remains the heavy pendulum of our temporal existence.  The desire for order ontologically arises elsewhere. 

Where does the desire to bring order come from? It is a Reformation impulse. An attempt to mold the temporal world to resemble the supernatural. It is Utopianism. It is evanescent. It too is doomed to failure. However, Utopianism is one of the most significant impulses behind the idea of this Republic. While in places it can wear the cloak of exceptionalism, it is the quest to use socio-political and economic reforms to build a society where all citizens live in peace and harmony, like the image which Quaker Edward Hicks painted of his Peaceable Kingdom. While not consistent with Stoicism, this telos, this end, imbues his character with a deeply American spirit. This utopian American spirit is uniting; it binds our individual dreams and desires for a better life with his collective desire for a better society. 

Our speaker tells us his character is formed out of a desire to do his duty, to be of service to others. He asks us to follow his example. He wants us to join him in his happy work. His career history tells us that his work is not futile. For many years, his primary occupation was cleaning up the Hudson. For decades he did the work rolling the boulder up the hill on the Hudson cleanup. But he eventually got the boulder over the top. The Hudson, and many other waters, are much cleaner now than they were when he began, demonstrably cleaner. His efforts were not futile there. 

In summary, not many people understand what motivates them or can describe it clearly. Robert has given us insights into his character which can help us understand his worldview. He stands alone on our public stage today with his desire to explore difficult areas, to find meaning, and to perform the duty of virtuous service. I present to you Robert F Kennedy Jr..