What's the difference between things liberal and things radical? Notice I'm using the L word and the R word as adjectives; it's hard to do away with nouns altogether. If it's possible to avoid the derogatory or laudatory sense, I think it's more than a difference of degree. It has something to do with whether we resist things like war, cruelty, lies, and greed, or just oppose them. My friend Tom didn't just oppose the draft, he resisted it and paid the consequences. Anybody can oppose bad stuff, and most of us do, most of the time, because it's so easy. Do I resist the Patriot Act, for example, or just oppose it?
This is all nicely theoretical. But as I wrapped up a short work-week and prepared for a couple of paid holidays at home with my family, I am looking forward to celebrating with plenty of food and drink and conversation at leisure. Repeat: paid, home, plenty, leisure. I'm not feeling guilty for these pleasures; life is sweet, so why not enjoy and indulge? But other than my daily struggle to build a better paragraph, and thus make the world safe for social studies, I'm not doing anything to right any wrongs.
Okay, that was last week. After retreating to hearth and home, I got a call Thursday afternoon from the son on the road in central Pennsylvania. Long story short, we met at the Greyhound station in Pittsburgh and talked all the way home about his adventures in NYC - bicycles, wiring, neighborhoods. Friday, joined by the daughter home from school, we picked up where we left off - grammar, dialects, hierarchies. Then, at Stauf's after seeing "I (heart) Huckabess," the wife who worries joined the conversation. There is much to agree and disagree about, much to be concerned about, much to vent and process.
All of this, including Abe's radical education, Zoe's art education, Gwen's experiential education, is part of my extended liberal education, learning things not originally in the curriculum.
To be continued.
Monday, November 29, 2004
Monday, November 22, 2004
literal liberal
When Lulu kindly invited me and the other liberals over for dinner the weekend after the election, I began to feel better already. The lighten-up/act-up party seemed like the perfect antidote to that bitter pill. Yet something in me reacted to the 'liberal' label. You are known by your deeds, I told myself, so I guess that's probably what I am, myself answered. Anyway I genuinely looked forward to hanging out with birds of a feather, whatever species name they're called.
The weekend got complicated, and I ended up not going to the party, for reasons having nothing to do with being - or not being - a liberal. But the epithet still stuck in my craw. I used to know what 'liberal' meant (favoring change, the opposite of 'conservative', blah blah blah), but it has become such an attack word - not unlike 'communist' was back in the days when commies were the enemy of choice - that all meaning had been drained from it by overuse and misuse. Liberal education, liberal capitalism, liberal religion, etc., used to have meanings apart from ravings about the liberal media and other liberal conspiracies. In short, I decided to take Lulu's off-hand remark way too seriously.
The plot thickened when a really cool book by Peter Coyote showed up on my desk, again thanks to Lulu, and grabbed me by the throat with provocative political, artistic, and social criticism. At one point in his personal narrative, Coyote describes liberalism as "the generosity toward others that is predicated on first sustaining one's own privilege." Ouch - a touch, a palpable touch. The more radical view suffusing his account of his adventures in street theater, experimental community-building, and serious partying cut through the usual rhetoric about liberal this and liberal that and accurately nailed liberalISM.
This felt like a challenge, so I put it before my weekly group of spiritual fellow-travelers to help me define what 'liberal' means. No surprises there. With the utmost sincerity and conviction, they countered Coyote's challenge with reasoned, open-minded, sometimes scholarly, always self-deprecating and honestly curious responses to my question. Reassured by my liberal support group that it was once again okay to be liberal, I returned to my house in the suburbs, walked the dog, and relaxed with a dark beer and a nice piece of literary fiction.
But the irritation didn't go away, and the best I could do was to resolve not to use 'liberal' as a noun. There is no such thing as A LIBERAL (editors note: except in the upper-case sense, a member of the Liberal Party), although there are lots of liberal actions, policies, approaches, sentiments, strategies, interpretations, you get the drift. Now, in all fairness (which would be the liberal way), shouldn't I apply the same principle to adjectives like 'conservative' and 'radical' and 'reactionary'? Maybe I'll just stop using nouns altogether. Wouldn't that be liberating.
The weekend got complicated, and I ended up not going to the party, for reasons having nothing to do with being - or not being - a liberal. But the epithet still stuck in my craw. I used to know what 'liberal' meant (favoring change, the opposite of 'conservative', blah blah blah), but it has become such an attack word - not unlike 'communist' was back in the days when commies were the enemy of choice - that all meaning had been drained from it by overuse and misuse. Liberal education, liberal capitalism, liberal religion, etc., used to have meanings apart from ravings about the liberal media and other liberal conspiracies. In short, I decided to take Lulu's off-hand remark way too seriously.
The plot thickened when a really cool book by Peter Coyote showed up on my desk, again thanks to Lulu, and grabbed me by the throat with provocative political, artistic, and social criticism. At one point in his personal narrative, Coyote describes liberalism as "the generosity toward others that is predicated on first sustaining one's own privilege." Ouch - a touch, a palpable touch. The more radical view suffusing his account of his adventures in street theater, experimental community-building, and serious partying cut through the usual rhetoric about liberal this and liberal that and accurately nailed liberalISM.
This felt like a challenge, so I put it before my weekly group of spiritual fellow-travelers to help me define what 'liberal' means. No surprises there. With the utmost sincerity and conviction, they countered Coyote's challenge with reasoned, open-minded, sometimes scholarly, always self-deprecating and honestly curious responses to my question. Reassured by my liberal support group that it was once again okay to be liberal, I returned to my house in the suburbs, walked the dog, and relaxed with a dark beer and a nice piece of literary fiction.
But the irritation didn't go away, and the best I could do was to resolve not to use 'liberal' as a noun. There is no such thing as A LIBERAL (editors note: except in the upper-case sense, a member of the Liberal Party), although there are lots of liberal actions, policies, approaches, sentiments, strategies, interpretations, you get the drift. Now, in all fairness (which would be the liberal way), shouldn't I apply the same principle to adjectives like 'conservative' and 'radical' and 'reactionary'? Maybe I'll just stop using nouns altogether. Wouldn't that be liberating.
Tuesday, November 16, 2004
Two weeks and counting
It's been two weeks now, are we over it? Hell no, but we're getting there, and I don't mean the prescribed "healing" is happening. The initial wailing and gnashing of teeth have given way to finding ways to do things differently, which in turn start to narrow down fairly quickly. Work and family and other everyday obligations have a way of dousing ideas of turning over a new leaf, picketing the statehouse, moving to Halifax, tattooing the Bill of Rights to my chest.
The "liberation" of Fallujah, timed conveniently on the heels of the slim victory by the presidential incumbent (what does that mean? ME fr. L "to lie down on"; akin to cubare, "to lie"; hmmm) casts a grim shadow on the whole process. I choose to think of this as NOT an apocalyptic moment in U.S. history or in my life, and I/we will deal with it. Which is easier while sitting in a warm, dry room eating a bowl of pasta and not fearing for my life at the moment.
It reminds me of an argument I had with a friend of a friend at a party in Indianapolis in 1976. Nice enough guy, he was working on a doctorate in political science; his wife worked at a bank; we were talking about ultimates - always dangerous ground - and he contended that EVERYTHING comes down to politics. I had recently started studying yoga and tried to play the pluralist, contending that for a lot of people spiritual matters override politics. He wasn't buying it.
I still believe what I argued seven elections ago. To some it's the economy, stupid, and to others it's the Bible, stupid, and so on. But it's easier to believe it in my privileged, Midwestern, employed state than it would be in Fallujah or Darfur or Hebron, I'm guessing. I never saw that guy again, don't know if he finished that doctorate, if he and his banker wife are still together, or exactly how each of us will cope with the present situation. How does one deal with an authoritarian takeover? Maybe the First Amendment tattoo after all.
The "liberation" of Fallujah, timed conveniently on the heels of the slim victory by the presidential incumbent (what does that mean? ME fr. L "to lie down on"; akin to cubare, "to lie"; hmmm) casts a grim shadow on the whole process. I choose to think of this as NOT an apocalyptic moment in U.S. history or in my life, and I/we will deal with it. Which is easier while sitting in a warm, dry room eating a bowl of pasta and not fearing for my life at the moment.
It reminds me of an argument I had with a friend of a friend at a party in Indianapolis in 1976. Nice enough guy, he was working on a doctorate in political science; his wife worked at a bank; we were talking about ultimates - always dangerous ground - and he contended that EVERYTHING comes down to politics. I had recently started studying yoga and tried to play the pluralist, contending that for a lot of people spiritual matters override politics. He wasn't buying it.
I still believe what I argued seven elections ago. To some it's the economy, stupid, and to others it's the Bible, stupid, and so on. But it's easier to believe it in my privileged, Midwestern, employed state than it would be in Fallujah or Darfur or Hebron, I'm guessing. I never saw that guy again, don't know if he finished that doctorate, if he and his banker wife are still together, or exactly how each of us will cope with the present situation. How does one deal with an authoritarian takeover? Maybe the First Amendment tattoo after all.
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