|
the vitriol i've definitely noticed. from all sides. my impression is that the root cause is that there's no agreement about premises, so there's little in the way of discussion, much less debate. it turns out that i haven't found much of anything compelling from cookie-cutter conservatism--but i know a bunch of folk who are conservatives with whom it's possible to have lovely conversations about any number of things including political questions. and i know alot of left people who are assholes.
in my experience, i've found it much harder to have a conversation with the more limbaugh-influenced conservatives that i know. there seems to be less room for integration of, say, personal experience or history and political viewpoints when folk adopt--it's more about repetition. you learn the script it seems. sometimes i listen to conservative talking heads for a while if i know i'm going to see any of these folk because i'm interested in the extent to which i will end up having already heard the conversation i'm in before it starts. it usually works out that i've heard quite alot of it. i find that depressing, and not just because i disagree with the politics. it's the lack of imagination that bugs me, really. that in a world as complicated as this you'd settle for that sort of thinking. i don't get it.
messageboard politics discussions can be interesting for the information and sometimes for what folk say, but at the same time i think they're spaces for folk to try things out at times--you know, float a line see what happens. so they can be pretty grim. especially if there's a contentious issue at hand and the discussion isn't going anywhere. and i'm not as into the game as i once was.
as for ted---i should say that i am among those people who personally isn't terribly moved one way or another about his death. i never had a particular interest in or committment to him as an image or person. i just didn't. chappaquidick didn't surprise or disillusion me--it's self-evident that there is a law for the wealthy and a law for everyone else. so it was an example amongst any number of them. around here, alot of folk really admired kennedy, shared alot of his views, thought he was a great senator. again, i was never particularly interested. call it a quirk.
at the same time, it's way way too easy to rehearse all the Officially Sanctioned Reasons Why Ted Kennedy Was A Bad Person. alot of the conservative talking heads that benumb these days got their start contributing to the construction of him as pinata for rightwingers.
it's tiresome.
it's offensive because it's tiresome.
and you couldn't do that nonsense around here because there are many folk around who knew the guy.
i was not one of them.
__________________
a gramophone its corrugated trumpet silver handle
spinning dog. such faithfulness it hear
it make you sick.
-kamau brathwaite
|