I’ve been in Washington D.C. for the past few days, marking the Rosh Hashanah holiday with the Kabbalah Centre. We had planned to return to Los Angeles today, but our flights got cancelled and rearranged, and we’re now heading out to California tomorrow. I am very sorry about needing to miss another day of class, but will be back at PCC Tuesday morning.
My wife and I had lunch downtown today and went through some of the museums. When we hit the national mall, we were confronted by a small ocean of Tea Party activists, who’ve been holding yet another rally in the capital. I confess that the first words out of my mouth were less than charitable, tinged as much with classist contempt for the dress code among the tea people as ideological objection to their principles. After one particularly unfortunate remark crossed my lips (focusing on the inexplicable fondness for denim shorts among the overwhelmingly white crowd of rallyers) my wife shot me a look that suggested that I needed to remember the spirit of Rosh Hashanah and the rapidly approaching Yom Kippur. If there’s one aspect of my character I really dislike, it’s a smug elitism and pomposity that can show up in both my spoken and written words. I may in many ways be the walking embodiment of the comfortable urban liberal so despised by the political right, but I can do better than to play the part to the hilt by being snobby and unkind. I need to remember that when my brother and I came up with the OKOP/NOKOP expression more than twenty years ago, we were trying to poke fun at classism, not reinforce it. I do too little of the former and too much of the latter.
When the climate is charged and the stakes are high, it’s hard to be kind to those on the other side, at least those whom one does not know. I’ve written of how much I dislike the rhetoric of “the summer of hate.” I’m used to being called “unpatriotic”, “unAmerican”, and an “effete elitist left-winger” — and worse. The temptation to respond in kind, even if only with the common epithet “teabagger,” is overwhelming. But I remember the words of the man whose monument is my favorite spot in this city, upon the steps of which I run at dawn as often as I can: I want to let the better angels of my nature govern the words that tumble from my lips and pour forth from my fingertips. I can do better.
At the drugstore a little while ago, I stood in line and chatted with a few of the Tea Partiers. They were in from Pennsylvania, buying drinks and snacks before the long bus ride home. We didn’t talk politics, but chatted about the weather (thunderstorms this morning over the District) and the traffic. They smiled at the box of pantiliners in my hand. I smiled at their interesting headgear. None of the smiles were unkind. We were simply ordinary people, passing the time in a queue, with different visions of America and a shared vision — or at least what I cannot help but hope is a shared vision — of basic decency.
Try living here 24/7…sigh.
It is difficult to temper one’s words, but only pride makes it difficult to be kind.
Pride or good sense, Toysoldier. Right now, the Tea Party isn’t nearly as virulent as its Orthogonian predecessors that put Nixon in the Oval Office. But that’s now. Who knows what the future will wrest? Their predecessors gleefully commited violence and vandalism in the name of “limited government”. Should that be repeated, nasty words will be the least of their problems.
What on earth could you possibly have against denim shorts? ‘Tis summer.
“We are not enemies, but friends. We must not be enemies. Though passion may have strained it must not break our bonds of affection. The mystic chords of memory, stretching from every battlefield and patriot grave to every living heart and hearthstone all over this broad land, will yet swell the chorus of the Union, when again touched, as surely they will be, by the better angels of our nature.”
Denim shorts are so last year – last decade actually – and that was a very good way to make his point about classism.
Hugo, don’t think that your gestures went unnoticed. The Teabaggers (and I don’t think they realty resent that term enough not to use it themselves) are running on deep sense of alienation, and when someone makes an effort to reach across, they notice. One gesture doesn’t change the world, but enough will dilute and maybe finally erode that sense of exclusion they feel. It’s fine to scoff at the idea of white people feeling excluded and marginalized in America, but it’s also really uninformed. In the end we either have to live with these people or force them all the way out. I know which I prefer.
Ah… FWC got there firstest with the mostest.
Another Civil War quote for you.
Jim, thank you. I forgot to put in the quote’s author, Abraham Lincoln in his inaugural address. Although, I have to say, knowing its context almost ruins the quote. Obviously, it didn’t work out as Lincoln had hoped. Hugo reminded me of the “better angels of our nature†and it sounds like he was able to enlist those better angels in his DC encounter. Although, it sounds as if the angels had a little help from Hugo’s wife.
I hope to find the better angels of my nature here soon, but I am not counting on it. I have this mental image of a cupid-like better angel of my nature approaching me on gossamer wings. I am completely oblivious to the little fella and happen to let loose with one of my rants just as he is flying in front of me. A few of my choice words hit him, and he sort of explodes into silver glitter and feathers. And there goes my better nature, looking like the road kill.
Fashion critics really hack me off. I’m not into denim shorts myself but if I was, I’d not have any patience with someone who tried to tell me it was out of style. Who makes up those silly rules anyway, and why didn’t they have the sense to ask me?? How did we give them that much power, and how can we take it back? If it works, it works, any year. Haven’t people got enough to worry about–classism, viciousness, etc.–without fussing about someone’s @#$%^&! clothes, for crying out loud?
I suspect that whoever declares this or that to be out of style is doing so just to drive up the market for something new, to separate us from our money. It fosters wastefulness and snobbery instead of creativity, and I would advise anyone to think twice about either believing or spreading it.
Wear what you please, everyone, and tell the fashion industry and its petty enforcers to get stuffed.
FWC, if you are seeing your better angels as Cupids on gossamer wings, maybe you need a more useful image. As tolkien points out, whenever angels show up in the Bible, half the time the first thing out of thier mouths is “Fear not” because the mortlas they are appearing to are groveling in terror. Think http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/File:Human_headed_winged_bull_facing.jpg
Better nature – supposedly Luther once saisd thata human soul is really a pile fo cowshit, and the good deeds are just snowflakes landing for a short moment now and then. I have often thought that the best symbol of the Incarnation is the pure lotus rising out of the septic muck. For the gardner in me, this is a very rich image.
“It fosters wastefulness and snobbery instead of creativity”
As if the wastefulness weren’t bad enough, the snobbery and exclusion it entails are where the real damage takes place.
Angiportus: “I suspect that whoever declares this or that to be out of style is doing so just to drive up the market for something new, to separate us from our money. It fosters wastefulness and snobbery instead of creativity, and I would advise anyone to think twice about either believing or spreading it.
Wear what you please, everyone, and tell the fashion industry and its petty enforcers to get stuffed.”
“Fashion” is a scam to get the last hundred dollars away from gullible people, yes.
What should alwasys be considered “out,” though, is referring to grass-roots organizations with homophobic slurs, and I’m glad Hugo groups that in with all the other thoughtless, petty name-calling both sides are guilty of.
@catullus
I am reminded of Benjamin Franklin’s words: “Pride that dines on vanity, sups on contempt.” As troublesome as some Tea Party members are, they are no worse than troublesome groups on the left. The difference lies in whether one agrees with their general positions. So if a radical feminist attacked the character of a male feminist who teaches women’s studies, that person might respond to the radical feminist cordially. However, if a non-feminist questioned the same feminist’s position on sexual violence against boys, that person might respond to the non-feminist less cordially. The issue rests not on anyone’s behavior, but on the value people place on their own views and those who share them.