Life in the Overlap

The spirit of national consolidation was extraordinary after 9/11, yet today the split is as bitter and rancourous as anything I’ve seen in my lifetime — from the mutual contempt between the parties to the smallness of the jeering, strident language used by political hacks. People are locked into rigidly polarized political categorizations...Conservatives stereotype liberals as naive, anti-American sentimentalists, and feckless, amoral parasites, while [liberals] stereotype [conservatives] as hard-hearted, racist, gun-toting, money-grubbing, me-first tycoons... It is very difficult to move the country forward when there are such deep schisms. - Camille Paglia, Interview Magazine, February 2006

I like Camille Paglia. I’m a little baffled by her continuing need to reinvent herself — in this article she identifies herself as a Democrat, I always thought she claimed to be Libertarian — but I’ve been impressed by a couple of her books and, because I have spent most of my life as an Independent and a moderate, I appreciate her viewpoint.

In the her current Culture Klatsch column in Interview she says the two words that sum up the world we are living in now are “overlapping realities”. Excellent observation. I try to avoid political discussions in this blog but politics impact culture and that is something even non-political people need to think about. We are getting lost in the blizzard of “realities” and losing touch with what is actually going on.

One of the saddest trends in our media driven culture is the confusion many people get mired in between the magic and the magician. Just because an individual may not live their life in a way that we approve of doesn’t mean that the words they say are any less true. This is the shameful behavior we have adopted as acceptable — whenever someone comes along who is intelligent and capable of making astute observations, rather than argue with the validity of their position, we criticize and trivialize them as individuals. Some of the greatest sages in our history have led less than admirable lives - Thomas Jefferson and Ben Franklin spring to mind. Generations have benefitted from their brilliance unfettered by worrying about whether they misbehaved in their less brilliant moments. It is a sad commentary on us as a culture and is resulting in a political system more driven by gossip than wisdom.

So what does an independent-thinking moderate do these days? It’s tough. Partisan bickering is disgraceful. In reading political blogs and discussion groups one gets the sense that given the choice between eliminating terrorists or the opposing party, lots of hacks would have a hard time making that decision. It is hard to know where to go for unbiased news reports — I wonder if there even are such things. I listen to talk radio a lot during the day as I work and shake my head at how some of these talk-jocks try to reinvent culture by telling us what we think.

Bill O’Reilly obviously comes to mind first. Sometimes I like O’Reilly, sometimes I agree with him. But if you get caught up in O’Reilly worship (from listening to his callers I’m convinced there is a movement out there — Make O’Reilly Our New Savior, or M.O.R.O.N.S.) and don’t pay attention to the issues he is ranting about, you might miss the fact that he is very, very skilled at whipping up a frenzy over non-issues to masquerade issues we should be concerned with. Which is the bigger problem facing our national security, leaks in the CIA/FBI operations or whether people say “Happy Holidays” instead of “Merry Christmas”?

When I was in parochial school we were taught that moderation was a desirable trait. Honestly, I think there are a lot more of us out there than the extremists, it’s just that they are louder and more persistent. Trying to lead a moderate life in this era of political hysterics is like trying to keep squirrels out of your bird feeder — you have a life to lead, the squirrels don’t.

Thanks for reading.