Florida & ideological violence
Jumping back in time, some thoughts from a few days ago while in Gainesville:
It’s a lovely morning in Florida — yes, I made it safely to my parents’ place! Due to different schedules, it’s currently just me sitting in this nice, cool room and looking out into the lush greenery. The occasional tiny lizard goes skittering by… it’s very peaceful. I’ve greatly enjoyed all my time here with people, as well, though I’m relieved to have finally have gotten enough sleep. Between the changing time zones, being inevitably woken by the dawn while sleeping in Dark Star, and various perfectly valid reasons here in Florida, I was slowly accumulating an impressive sleep deficit! I’m incredibly relieved I’ve finally had a morning where I can catch up. Now that I’m not borderline exhausted all the time, too, some of the thoughts percolating in the back of my head due to the traveling have finally come to the fore. For example, you wouldn’t know just from where I am now that there’s a rather creepy ideological battle going on for the hearts and minds of Floridians.
It would seem to be expressed somewhat in the billboards I passed in Florida on the way here. I wasn’t really surprised to see billboards for “gentlemen’s clubs” in Louisiana, but I was for Florida. I always find those such a cognitive dissonance, too. If these men were really gentlemen, wouldn’t they be more interested in treating women like ladies — rather than like interchangeable and disposable sexual aids? I suspect there’s about as much actual truth in the descriptive of “gentlemen’s clubs” as there is in descriptives like “People’s Republic” or “moral majority.” But I digress.
Along with those billboards are many for ads directed at older people and retirees: house builders, activity clubs, things like that. The people depicted are usually beaming, white-haired and white-skinned, a heterosexual couple, and clearly delighted with whatever it is they’re doing… and then there are the anti-abortion billboards. The most popular is of a lunging Yahweh straight out of Michelangelo’s “Creation of Adam,” pointing an accusing finger at the protruding belly of a young white girl who is smiling and holding a rose. Completely aside from the peculiarity of this graphical juxtaposition, what pregnant girl in her right mind would be simpering down at a flower she’s holding between her breasts? My immediate thought upon seeing this weird billboard was that this girl is too young and stupid for the responsibility of being a mother!
Jumping subjects, one of my commenters on a previous blog mentioned someone who believes ideological violence in the US is inevitable, in order to effect change. I’ve been quietly pondering that in the back of my head for several days now, and I don’t think I completely agree. I remember one of my readings in a sociology class which talked about why people rioted. In a very small nutshell, a modern scientist did some statistical analysis on what caused riots in England during the nineteenth century, and found that they occurred only when the lower classes believed unwritten social rules had been broken. Their rioting was the signal to the powers-that-be of that time and place that redress of some sort was needed, and the rioting invariably continued until the lord in charge of the city had a lit candle put in his window where those on the street could see it. That let the rioters know their grievances would be addressed, and they would stop rioting and go home.
Consequently my thought is that ideological violence is inevitable only when people feel they are not listened to. If we could figure out a means of allowing people to speak and be respectfully heard, and follow that up with reasoned, consensual action to be implemented, then why riot? The question then becomes: how to create such a self-governing body. I would think democracy — especially the version practiced by the Iroquois for longer than our country has been in existence — would be an excellent place to start the discussion. I don’t think it’s the sort of thing that can be created top-down, however — like the true source of power, or the beneficial effects of the Green Party, I suspect it must (so to speak) come from below.
Frankly, I think our culture has a lot of issues to address — that’s just one of the most obvious. Driving on my own across the country as I have been, I realized at some point that I was really missing tactile contact. We are, after all, an extremely social species, but I’d not registered (until that moment) just how much I missed being with people with whom I felt comfortable having physical contact. Our society frowns on that, though, oddly enough, which I realized as I was watching some of my fellow participants in one of the cave tours I’ve taken. There were two older couples, one woman with her two small children, one man accompanied by his two small children and a young man (I don’t know what the relationship was — a son by an earlier marriage, perhaps?), and myself. It was in watching the man hugging his small daughter and son at one point that it hit me: we don’t really have socially acceptable touching (past the occasional hug of greeting) between adults, unless they’re married. Is that why we lavish physical affection on children — because that’s socially acceptable in this culture? Does that lack of sharing touch make us more lonely and reserved than we really need to be with each other? How did we get to this point, and why?
I realized I was missing contact when it registered that I was smiling encouragingly at the children — and I don’t really care for children that much. At that point, however, I’d have gladly accepted a hug from one of them, because I was feeling rather touch-starved and I knew none of the adults were culturally acceptable potential sources of physical contact for me. It was a somewhat disturbing thought, in a way, and led to the following later idle speculation while driving: the Roman Catholic clergy involved in the pederasty scandals are men who have effectively forsworn sexual contact. In order to prevent sexual feelings, it would not surprise me to discover many of these men avoided most physical contact entirely. Could this entire issue of pederasty (both clerical and otherwise) perhaps be at least partially blamed on cultural teachings against physical contact? I don’t know… but I do know that I wish our culture had healthier attitudes about physical contact.
I suspect I should also add that spending a week here in Florida with my sweetie at my parents’ place has taken care of my “touch deprivation.” ;)
On a lighter note, I realized today that I’ve completed another first: I’ve driven across the country, woot! Though I did not plan it so, I figured out at one point that I also had one day where I drove a relatively straight line and managed to pass through five different states! Starting in Texas, I drove through Louisiana, then the little downward coastal bits of Mississippi and Alabama, and on into Florida. For a girl who spent years in geographically big states like Florida, Texas, and California, that’s an entertaining achievement. :)
Hmm. OK, I want to write more about this after some thought. I’ll add it to one of my upcoming postings, ‘k? :)
I think that — especially with the divisiveness being fomented — it is easy for some of us on the ‘progressive’ side of the aisle to say that those of us on the ‘conservative’ side of the aisle are hateful, bigoted, short-sighted, etc. etc. etc.
Those on the religious right (who are honest about their beliefs, and there are some who are mere opportunists) see things like abortion and marriage equality as evils, as markers of a decline of civilization and faith, as our country turning its back on God. On the one hand, I look at that reasoning and shake my head… but on the other hand, I shouldn’t so casually dismiss their beliefs. I think they’re wrong and I’ve not seen anything to convince me otherwise and I firmly believe history and humanity is on my side… but it isn’t a matter of them being stupid or evil or ignorant. (Calling someone ‘ignorant’ is a good way to end the argument right there.) This is their beliefs, and they will hold on to those beliefs, and the more they feel those beliefs are under attack the more they will hold on to them.
I don’t know if there’s any way for ideologies like these to compromise or even coexist. I’m disinclined to compromise on things like pro-choice and marriage equality, just as I’m sure they’re disinclined to compromise on anti-abortion and heteronormative marriage. (And as an ally it’s not for me to compromise on either issue on behalf of the people they directly affect anyway.) It’s not enough for them to be able to accept that they don’t have to get an abortion if they don’t want one, or that their church doesn’t have to have homosexual marriage if they don’t want it. These are seen as signs of degeneracy and the collapse of moral civilization and they’ll fight it tooth and nail. (Just as I like to think that we on the progressive side of things would fight tooth and nail against, for example, the use of the setting of The Handmaid’s Tale as a handbook for society.) The mere existence of abortion or homosexual marriage is a blight; it doesn’t matter if they choose not to, it’s there, out in the world, and they MUST FIGHT IT.
How do you compromise with an ideology that you see as fundamentally wrong? Can there even be compromise?
Hmm. I think the issue, at least in the minds of the conservatives that we’re talking about, is that they believe they are losing something — something they consider precious. I don’t quite know how to quantify it, but I think it has to do with feeling they live in a country in which they are the norm, and therefore rightfully in power — socially, sexually, nationally, racially, and religiously (and that last one is an important one we often forget).
I honestly don’t know how to find a peaceful resolution to this while our media and corporate interests are so invested in creating and fomenting such a divisive and binary social environment. Now that I think about it, I suppose this issue is at least partially behind the impetus for my current dissertation plans, in that I believe we’re desperately in need of a different form of social organization.
Re: what Laura Ingram said
I’ve found it fascinating to watch: This is indeed the line that has been delivered over the past few months. I’ve even heard the term ‘heterophobic’ being used. It would be hilarious, if this weren’t a bunch of reactionaries who seem to be putting on a persecution complex (they’re not really loosing anything at all) and are starting to seem like they’re wanting to actively hurt homosexuals (more) and marriage equality allies. They are on the attack. Witness their reaction to the anti-bullying “Day of Scilence”: the “Day of Dialogue” which was basically telling all good Christian boys and girls to tell their gay and gay-allies friends that gay people are going to hell and are sub-human. Look at that preacher who wanted gays and lesbians to be put in concentration camps and was defended by his congregation and tacitly approved of by the Southern Baptist Convention.
This mindset actually does see ‘1 man, 1 woman, x kids’ (the kids are important) as ‘traditional marriage.’ The Bible says so, therefore it’s true. These are people for whom what they ahve been told is in the Bible is absolutely, inutterably, true, and the Word of God and not to be messed with. They ignore the inconsistences, the alternate interpretations, the ambiguities.
Scofield did Christianity a grave disservice when he made his fundamentalist ‘study Bible.’
Thank you for the clarification on Hartmann’s hypothesis; clearly I misunderstood it. I wonder, if it were “broadened” to include all ideological differences, if it would still have some validity — or would that also require broadening the definition of “violence” to include, say, harsh language? :)
I ask this because I was fascinated to hear Laura Ingram (I think?), a talk show host on the radio in the Texas hill country here, say that believing in traditional marriage got you labeled as a hater now, and that was no way to have a conversation. Completely aside from my curiosity as to how she defined “traditional” marriage (1 husband, 1 wife, multiple courtesans or mistresses? 1 husband, multiple wives, &/or their handmaids? Something else entirely? There aren’t a lot more truly “traditional” versions, after all)… I couldn’t help but wonder if that was really how she saw the “liberal agenda.” Did she not realize we don’t *care* how she marries — we just want to have everyone be able to partner the way they wish to? Or was this just another form of ideological violence? For that matter, what ideological violence have we done to her perceived view of this argument?
Then again, this area really makes my eyebrows go up, especially when I hear an ad where the lawyer explains how to act when pulled over for a probable DWI, and urging folks to put his number on their cell, so he’s available when — not if! — that happens. ;)
Actually, Thom Hartmann’s thesis is that ideological violence is going to be present in some sense or another. It’s not the people versus the system — it’s two or more ideologies facing off against one another. There will be conflict between the two, but unless there are ways to release that conflict in small-scale ways, the pressures between the ideologies will grow and grow — especially when they are being egged on and framed as an irreconcilable conflict by a complicit media — until they burst into large-scale violence. What is inevitable is not the violence; that’s a symptom. What is inevitable is the pressures and frictions between the ideologies involved.
As I said, thought, I’m not entirely certain I buy his thesis, for many of the reasons you note. It requires all parties to be complicit and to want some sort of violent reckoning to take place, and I don’t believe that there are enough people on either side of the progressive-conservative divide who want such violence to bring it about on a large scale.
Now, this being said, I do think that at some point there will be some sort of reckoning between the ‘elites’ and the ‘people.’ I use those terms reservedly; the definitions are fluid and I’m not entirely happy with the at-face definitions of those terms. However, it is worth noting that one of the impetuses for a universal workers’ insurance program established by Bismarck was to convince workers that they didn’t need to join the Communist Party, nor to try to subvert the Empire to bring about a Communist state. It was a self-defense mechanism that Bismarck convinced the Prussian government to enact.
The thing is, with Occupy and other movements, people *are* starting to feel that the ‘ruling elite’ class is not listening to them. For the financial shenanigans that wrecked the economy, nobody has gone to jail or been prosecuted, and the institutions which got us into this situation are still, for the most part, operating. Even outside Occupy, people are speaking out, but they aren’t being heard — or they don’t feel they’re being heard — or answered except with scorn. We’ll see what happens in the months running up to the election.
There is more I’d like to say about ‘touch deprivation’ but that can wait for another time.
I remember we made a straight run through Texas, through Amarillo, on my way to Carson from NYC. (We went south to about Georgia before starting west.) A lot of those days passed in a blur for me, but part of that was the mix of emotions from the move. There really is some magnificent terrain through there, though.