Sneer, Divide, Conquer.
Wednesday, I went with my friend Erin of LiP Magazine to a reading at City Lights bookstore from Roxanne Dunbar-Ortiz‘ memoir of the Contra War Blood on the Border. Dunbar-Ortiz was a member of the American Indian Movement and has been a feminist and anti-war activist. Blood on the Border is her third memoir, following Red Dirt: Growing Up Okie and Outlaw Woman: A Memoir of the War Years, 1960-1975. I have read none of these books.
Dunbar-Ortiz is a good reader and a good speaker. She seems warm and human, and engages the audience on an individual level. She dealt with the inevitable ‘Yeah, but what do you think about [irrelevant recent event]?’ and ‘What’s your opinion on [topic regarding which the speaker would have no reason to have any expertise]?’ questions with a good deal of grace, and she came across as being as involved with her audience as they were with her. And yet, even with a good speaker like Dunbar-Ortiz, I always hate these events. The stupid-questions people — always wanting to spout the latest (or sometimes not even the latest!) conspiracy theory, or yammer about one of the kaleidoscopic personal issues that characterise the Left, today — are a big part of it, but there’s something else. Something worse.
There are all those chuckleheads who snicker and snort. The formula for these performances goes something like this:
| Speaker: | Of course, what Reagan/Ashcroft/Negroponte said was that gibble-gobble neemer-nuck… |
|---|---|
| Audience: | [contemptuous snort] |
It’s a method of distancing. A way of refusing to take the jerks in charge seriously. It’s a gratuitous statement of us-ness — we’re not part of that segment of America that believes what it hears from the scum in Washington. Right, guys? I for one, am not…
And we’re justified. A lot of the people in power are, comme on dit, ass-clowns. I don’t like ‘em. You probably don’t, either. And yet, this sort of middle school contempt does nothing to advance radical or progressive causes, as it’s a direct affront to that half of the country which does take this seriously. This doesn’t imply acceptance of power’s legitimacy; merely respect for that very large segment of the US population (a segment of people who we should seek as allies) that accepts the popular beliefs that power dictates.
Power and seriousness: This has a lot to do with what I wrote about in my yesterday’s post. By not taking seriously, we refuse to engage. By refusing to engage, we fail to take the necessary risk of human interaction which could allow us to change minds, to build alliances, and to perhaps improve our world.
15 November 2005 at 16:53
Someone else said it first (and probably said it better) but: we learn more from talking to those who are not of like mind that we do talking to others whose opinions mirror the ones we already have. But we avoid doing that. It is easy to talk to people when it is easy to talk to them. We take the path of least resistance. Listening to others with significantly different views takes discipline. Speaking your own views to someone with significantly different views takes skill — you learn if you really know your own stuff. When talking to like-minded people, it takes less vigour. You can “get away with more” laziness. We will just be separate tribes inhabiting and defending separate territories if we only talk among ourselves. Less “great divides”. Less anger, fear and loathing. More diplomacy and respect for difference … I say. Which is to say: I agree with what you said