Have you ever felt as if you’re running for the various roles and responsibilities of your life in the same way that a politician perpetually glad-hands the constituency? I have.
As of my half-century mark, I have colluded for the offices of dutiful child, renegade teenager, reckless college student, prospective clergy-person, actual clergy-person, spouse, parent, wannabe-scholar, poet, professor and now this: a blogger with SpokaneFAVS.
And what, you might ask at the press-conference, am I hoping to achieve by serving the public in this auspicious way? What’s my angle? Are there any certainties that I can promise and then break before my second term? Of course, the cynical impression of most bloggers is that they post more portentious polemicism than they do honest self-reflection and sincere critique of the social contract (gone awry) in which they are themselves complicit. Moreover, when I consider the prevailing celebrity of everyone with the proverbial 15 minutes to spare — everyone from Adolf Hitler to Zach Galifianakis, or even Zac Efron — I cannot imagine a writer who isn’t thankful for the asinine activities of her subject matter. And yet, is that all we talking about?
Subject matter is one thing, especially when the verbiage amounts to trashing the mysterious human being as if he or she were an object-matter. An object that’s at our disposal. An object, under our vicarious scrutiny, who can’t escape our objectifying gaze. An object that’s tantamount to our domesticated canine or feline… or even a simulated stuffed-version of the same. And just think about that: the illusion is that we thrive. We all thrive because we’re busy and have many things to do, and yes, among those things to do is to absorb the latest and greatest guffaw of a gregarious personage of fame. And how sad we are, or threaten to be, when that personage, or that persona, turns out to be a desperate and vulnerable person after all is said and done.
Clearly, however much this illusion dictates the on-line agenda, the alternative aspiration of a blogger like me is one of throwing in the towel. That is, I’m tired of running for office. (Aren’t you?) That is, I want to dig around in the corners like a hockey player who forechecks his opponent into submission. And I may, on occasion, drop the gloves and fight tooth and nail with the guy who wants to intimidate, rather than play the game I want to struggle with the bullying powers that be. But it’s awkward to admit that every laudable attempt to win the public-relations grudge-match, either as a liberal or as a conservative (which I am not), traffics in the same adversarial dynamics that caused these collisions to begin with.
Listen here! Religion rocks, and atheism has its authentic moments in the sun. Progressives progress in some profound and creative ways; voices previously unheard in the mainstream now make waves. Likewise, conservatives conserve some treasured values; words like monogamy and loyalty ought to be loosed from their museum displays and exchanged as more than inauthentic cliches. And, you see, I’m wondering what it would mean if we stopped compulsively checking out what others thought or what others felt, and started to explore what it is we actually think and feel and will commit to do. I’m wondering if we might even confess how we have failed to do what we so fervently set out to do.
In the classic film, “The Big Kahuna,” there’s a line that has haunted me as both a pastor in the Reformed Tradition and now as an adjunct instructor in higher education. It’s delivered by a character by the name of Phil Cooper, who is played adeptly by Danny Devito, and it comes at the end of a fantastic argument between two businessmen. Says Phil, “as soon as you lay your hands on a conversation to steer it, it’s not a conversation anymore; it’s a pitch. And you’re not a human being; you’re a marketing rep.”
Attention: the election is over at last, and you’ve won in a landslide. You are a human being. All marketing representatives, with ideological axes to grind, have been voted out. Congratulations!
Scott, welcome! For your first article you have given us a lot to think about, so, congrats!
I have often, in the heat of discussion with someone so bent on voicing their viewpoints that they cannot even hear mine, have wanted to shout, “Calm down! It’s OK if we disagree! No one is trying to steal your god!” But that would only serve to steer the conversation in an rather more combative direction. Ah well.
I look forward to reading more of what you bring to us. 🙂