The Personal is the Political

I talk about my personal experiences and inner life not out of self-obsession (OK, not ONLY out of self-obsession). I feel that people in our society cannot hear their inner voices. (Fitzgerald built an entire scene around it in Tender is the Night. The characters all try to decide who is American in a European bar, and the "tell" that lets them know is whether they can sit still.) The reasons why, I will go into later, but here I want to note why I don't write much about "popular" culture and news stories. They are myths. Not in the misunderstanding of that word as meaning "untrue stories." But in its meaning as "stories onto which each person can project their inner feelings." And when you deal with that, you deal with an archetype that is universal and not individual. Any opinion I offer is merely that: an opinion, a yea-or-nay to be shared or not by others. But my THOUGHTS about an event, my FEELINGS about it … those are worth considering because they are individual and arrived it through reflection and articulation. In fact, people hide behind opinions because they shield their feelings and thoughts. Opinions are easier to deal with (psychically).

Also, stories of the day are timely but not timeless. As Oscar Wilde said, "Any ism will soon be a wasm." And Andre Gide called journalism "Anything that will be less interesting tomorrow than it is today."

Ozzie Guillen and Prop 8

Here's something that's timely. (Another problem with blogging while living: things may be timely when written about but not when published if you don't have time to post.)

Ozzie Guillen and Prop 8. Guillen said that Latino baseball players do not get certain perks like Asian players; namely, a personal interpreter. True. The Chicago White Sox (the pro team for whom he coaches) said his views were "incorrect." Maybe politically but not factually It is a simple fact. The man whose name was signed to that institutional press release had never been a major league baseball player, much a less a Latino major league baseball player. So he does not have the experiential knowledge that Ozzie does. But the bigger underlying issue is that Ozzie claims there is a double standard. And there is nothing like pointing out a blatant double standard to make people rally to deny it (and thereby in actuality defend it).

Which is how it relates to the Prop 8 ban on gay marriage being overturned. Another double standard. If we could see the common humanity in each other, rather than the different that makes us uncomfortable about ourselves, then we could eliminate these double standards. However, that is not human nature.

Here's an example that maybe Americans can see because it is once removed. I have a Slovak friend who I visited in Slovakia shortly after The Wall came down. I saw graffiti in a small town saying. "N***er go home." I said I hadn't seen a single person with dark skin. He waved it away with his hand, "That's how the communists worked. They convinced you your troubles were based on your neighbor (even if they didn't really exist), so you fought amongst yourselves and they could keep power. As you know from living in the U.S. Blacks are no different than us. People in other countries can't understand why America is so racist." "But," I wondered about his country's oppressed people, "What about the Roma (gypsies)?" Without beating an eyelash, he monotoned, "But that's different. They're not human. They're animals."

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I had another great experience in Krakow. I was touring the city's old Jewish area and stopped to admire a synagogue. A man approached and said in English but with a Polish accent. "You like?" I did. It turned out he was a local photographer, and he launched into the following story entirely in English. "The other day I saw some kids, skinheads, you know, walking past here and shouting about the Jews. I stopped them. I said, 'Why you look like such sad puppies? Poland's great era was because King Wenceslaus invited the Jews here when no other European countries wanted them. They brought money, arts.'" He shook his head. "'Learn your history,' I told them."

Death and Elevators

I was in the elevator the other day, thinking about death. Not the obvious metaphor of up-and-down or arriving someplace different. I was reading the inspection certificate. If it's not displayed, each day it isn't constitutes a "separate and distinct offense." People don't die just on the day of their death. They die every day afterward.