Round Peg in a Square World
Right now I'm reading The Sunday Philosophy Club by Alexander McCall Smith. He's the guy who writes the #1 Ladies' Detective Agency series that takes place in Botswana. So far this one has been pretty good -- the main character is a late-thirties, early-forties single woman living in Scotland (Edinburgh). She's the editor of the Review of Applied Ethics, which means we spend a lot of time in the book thinking about morality. But there was a short paragraph that grabbed me, because it pretty much sums me up when it comes to living in this society:
She must stop this musing on moral imagination, she thought, and concentrate on things of more immediate importance.... But she knew she would never abandon these broader issues; it was her lot. She may as well accept it. She was tuned in to a different station from most people and the tuning dial was broken.
Ain't it the truth, my friends. I wasted so many years trying to dumb myself down so other people wouldn't feel intimidated. Because that's all I'd hear - How did you get so smart? Where did you learn all that Did you really read all these books? I guess when you go to college they teach all those useless things. Just because you're smart doesn't mean you're better than me. So I tried and tried. I tried not to correct grammar or spelling in others' email. I let myself be talked into writing important letters for people (called "helping"), or writing their essays for MBA applications ("proof-reading"), or taking on more difficult projects because I can "handle" it. Not that you get promotions or greater pay because you can handle it, you just get lots of emails about how well the project is going. Who needs money or recognition anyway, right? And the bigger the meeting, the higher up the food chain I started working with, the more I worked on learning not to use words that confused people, not sharing tidbits of interesting information, not revealing that I arrived at this conclusion 10 minutes ago and have already tried explaining it to you. Glad you're here and taking credit for it... Eventually I stopped subscriptions to Discover, Scientific American, The NYT Book Review, even National Geographic.
Part of it was to save myself the frustration, too. Who the hell did I have to talk to about the stuff I learned or questioned? Case in point: I am not a Christian. But I know quite a lot about Christianity, both textually and theologically. We had a born-again contractor/temp here a while ago, and she knew how much I loved to read. Thus was I the lucky recipient of a trilogy of Christian Romance Novels. *Historical* Christian Romance Novels (HCRN). I didn't want to offend her, and I didn't know how to refuse politely... plus Eunice swore her fanfic porn was better than what they'd have in the HCRN. First of all, let me ask when English changed to the point that the Christian God is referred to in text without capitalization? I was floored (and a little confused) the first time it happened, because I thought the woman in the book was thinking these thoughts about the male hero, when it turned out it was "god and his love" she wanted. WTF?
But this isn't the point. Here's the point. This is a woman who professes a deep and serious faith. She talks about her life before saving (or whatever she did) and what a difference God makes in her life blah blah fishcakes. So I say to her that I found myself surprised that these authors did rather mean things to their characters, and how I realized I'd made an unjust assumption -- the assumption that because these were Christian novels there would be a false sense of lightness, that everyone would be sort of cartoon-like Black and White Hats. She immediately points out that no, these HCRNs are about "real life" where bad things happen to good people, but God is looking out for you in the end. To which I reply that, naturally, this brings up the age-old questions of "Can God be truly all just, all powerful and all loving at the same time?" and "What exactly constitutes free will if God has a 'plan' for us?" To which this woman looks shocked, shakes her head and says "Wow. Those are really good questions. *Really* good questions! I've never thought about that."
How??? How can people NOT consider these questions? How can they NOT educate themselves
about subjects that are so important to them? There are people who can quote baseball statistics from 1934 or the discounted pricing schedule of purses at Macy's, but can't properly grasp the basics of our American system of checks and balances. I'm just... shit, it's goddamn depressing. It makes me think the rise of the middle classes may not have been the best socio-economic move in history. Don't get me wrong, I'm all for people making a decent living, not being fucked over by The Man, etc. etc. But the endless willingness to *settle*, to accept mediocrity and then ultimately revel in it, Jesu Domine! It chaps my hide. Our civilization lauds athleticism, violence and hyper-sexuality, at the same time it is essentially hostile toward intellectualism. Note our current Commander in Chief: he is our *president*, holder of the highest office in the land, in charge of this nation's movement through the waters of international politics, trusted with the economic security of our country, and he was elected by a majority. A majority willing to wallow in stupidity. the man is a pud-whacking idiot who can barely communicate in the Only. Language. He. Speaks. Help me, friends. Give me hope that maybe it will get better?
Oh hell. And now I just finished The Sunday Philosophy Club. Ending? Sucked. *sigh*
She must stop this musing on moral imagination, she thought, and concentrate on things of more immediate importance.... But she knew she would never abandon these broader issues; it was her lot. She may as well accept it. She was tuned in to a different station from most people and the tuning dial was broken.
Ain't it the truth, my friends. I wasted so many years trying to dumb myself down so other people wouldn't feel intimidated. Because that's all I'd hear - How did you get so smart? Where did you learn all that Did you really read all these books? I guess when you go to college they teach all those useless things. Just because you're smart doesn't mean you're better than me. So I tried and tried. I tried not to correct grammar or spelling in others' email. I let myself be talked into writing important letters for people (called "helping"), or writing their essays for MBA applications ("proof-reading"), or taking on more difficult projects because I can "handle" it. Not that you get promotions or greater pay because you can handle it, you just get lots of emails about how well the project is going. Who needs money or recognition anyway, right? And the bigger the meeting, the higher up the food chain I started working with, the more I worked on learning not to use words that confused people, not sharing tidbits of interesting information, not revealing that I arrived at this conclusion 10 minutes ago and have already tried explaining it to you. Glad you're here and taking credit for it... Eventually I stopped subscriptions to Discover, Scientific American, The NYT Book Review, even National Geographic.
Part of it was to save myself the frustration, too. Who the hell did I have to talk to about the stuff I learned or questioned? Case in point: I am not a Christian. But I know quite a lot about Christianity, both textually and theologically. We had a born-again contractor/temp here a while ago, and she knew how much I loved to read. Thus was I the lucky recipient of a trilogy of Christian Romance Novels. *Historical* Christian Romance Novels (HCRN). I didn't want to offend her, and I didn't know how to refuse politely... plus Eunice swore her fanfic porn was better than what they'd have in the HCRN. First of all, let me ask when English changed to the point that the Christian God is referred to in text without capitalization? I was floored (and a little confused) the first time it happened, because I thought the woman in the book was thinking these thoughts about the male hero, when it turned out it was "god and his love" she wanted. WTF?
But this isn't the point. Here's the point. This is a woman who professes a deep and serious faith. She talks about her life before saving (or whatever she did) and what a difference God makes in her life blah blah fishcakes. So I say to her that I found myself surprised that these authors did rather mean things to their characters, and how I realized I'd made an unjust assumption -- the assumption that because these were Christian novels there would be a false sense of lightness, that everyone would be sort of cartoon-like Black and White Hats. She immediately points out that no, these HCRNs are about "real life" where bad things happen to good people, but God is looking out for you in the end. To which I reply that, naturally, this brings up the age-old questions of "Can God be truly all just, all powerful and all loving at the same time?" and "What exactly constitutes free will if God has a 'plan' for us?" To which this woman looks shocked, shakes her head and says "Wow. Those are really good questions. *Really* good questions! I've never thought about that."
How??? How can people NOT consider these questions? How can they NOT educate themselves
about subjects that are so important to them? There are people who can quote baseball statistics from 1934 or the discounted pricing schedule of purses at Macy's, but can't properly grasp the basics of our American system of checks and balances. I'm just... shit, it's goddamn depressing. It makes me think the rise of the middle classes may not have been the best socio-economic move in history. Don't get me wrong, I'm all for people making a decent living, not being fucked over by The Man, etc. etc. But the endless willingness to *settle*, to accept mediocrity and then ultimately revel in it, Jesu Domine! It chaps my hide. Our civilization lauds athleticism, violence and hyper-sexuality, at the same time it is essentially hostile toward intellectualism. Note our current Commander in Chief: he is our *president*, holder of the highest office in the land, in charge of this nation's movement through the waters of international politics, trusted with the economic security of our country, and he was elected by a majority. A majority willing to wallow in stupidity. the man is a pud-whacking idiot who can barely communicate in the Only. Language. He. Speaks. Help me, friends. Give me hope that maybe it will get better?
Oh hell. And now I just finished The Sunday Philosophy Club. Ending? Sucked. *sigh*