I think many of us laugh as a defensive mechanism when we come across things that are scary, stupid, or absurd.
I wanted to comment on your last post but comments don't seem to be enabled. So here it goes. I was in Fruita Colorado last month. While there, I fell and broke my wrist. After walking 10 miles in the desert and then driving myself to the hospital, they wrapped up my wrist and told me I needed to get home for surgery. In the meantime, I called my employer for insurance info since I couldn't find my card. The hospital gave me a prescription for pain killer. As I pulled into the drug store my phone rang and it was my employer.
I'll set the scene. The parking lot was about half full with entire sections unoccupied by cars. I pulled in taking up 2 spaces, a little bit out of the way, and answered my phone. My engine was running, and I was behind the wheel. A guy got out of a car and started yelling at me. He said: "if you're going to come to our town, you need to park like normal. Park between the lines". I told him: "I'm not parked". He yelled some more and gave me the finger and eventually left.
This stuck me on a number of levels. I had time to think about it on my 1673 mile drive home. For one thing, this guy, let's call him the parking lot nazi, expressed a belief that either he was speaking for "his town" or had some kind of authority as a resident of the town. I'm not convinced he was acting in an official capacity or delegated authority. I also find the thing about our town vs your town as alien to me, I think I can find something about it in the Constitution.
Another thing that struck me is that I was sitting in a parking lot of a national chain. Does he think the national chain is his or perhaps belongs to his town? He also never even tried to claim he was Mr. Walgreen, or had just purchased the company, nor that he works there. He was a customer. In fact, he was a customer at a store that to my knowledge, is private property. It's not his or his town's at all.
But the one thing that really struck me is the expectation that to be free is to stay between the lines.
If my local school board meets again and my congressman, Madison Cawthorne shows up, I'd like to see a demonstration of how this kind of conversation fares in the face of death threats, screaming, and conspiracy theories.
I admit that what I write often sounds like "other cheek turning." And I'll
probably stop essentially repeating myself. I still think though it is the only way out of this crisis, as it has been in the past, except for the Civil War which should remind us of the stakes that are involved. I have never worked through where I stand vis a vis passivism. I know though I would not shout back. And probably throw gasoline on the fire by responding in such ways as "I'm sure you don't really mean that." I don' know what I'd say, but perhaps the time is coming when I'll find out.
I think that the Eiseley "adolescence" reference is from "Man of the Future," one of the essays in The Immense Journey.
Thanks, Daryl, it is a book I read, so that is very likely the source.
I think many of us laugh as a defensive mechanism when we come across things that are scary, stupid, or absurd.
I wanted to comment on your last post but comments don't seem to be enabled. So here it goes. I was in Fruita Colorado last month. While there, I fell and broke my wrist. After walking 10 miles in the desert and then driving myself to the hospital, they wrapped up my wrist and told me I needed to get home for surgery. In the meantime, I called my employer for insurance info since I couldn't find my card. The hospital gave me a prescription for pain killer. As I pulled into the drug store my phone rang and it was my employer.
I'll set the scene. The parking lot was about half full with entire sections unoccupied by cars. I pulled in taking up 2 spaces, a little bit out of the way, and answered my phone. My engine was running, and I was behind the wheel. A guy got out of a car and started yelling at me. He said: "if you're going to come to our town, you need to park like normal. Park between the lines". I told him: "I'm not parked". He yelled some more and gave me the finger and eventually left.
This stuck me on a number of levels. I had time to think about it on my 1673 mile drive home. For one thing, this guy, let's call him the parking lot nazi, expressed a belief that either he was speaking for "his town" or had some kind of authority as a resident of the town. I'm not convinced he was acting in an official capacity or delegated authority. I also find the thing about our town vs your town as alien to me, I think I can find something about it in the Constitution.
Another thing that struck me is that I was sitting in a parking lot of a national chain. Does he think the national chain is his or perhaps belongs to his town? He also never even tried to claim he was Mr. Walgreen, or had just purchased the company, nor that he works there. He was a customer. In fact, he was a customer at a store that to my knowledge, is private property. It's not his or his town's at all.
But the one thing that really struck me is the expectation that to be free is to stay between the lines.
If my local school board meets again and my congressman, Madison Cawthorne shows up, I'd like to see a demonstration of how this kind of conversation fares in the face of death threats, screaming, and conspiracy theories.
I admit that what I write often sounds like "other cheek turning." And I'll
probably stop essentially repeating myself. I still think though it is the only way out of this crisis, as it has been in the past, except for the Civil War which should remind us of the stakes that are involved. I have never worked through where I stand vis a vis passivism. I know though I would not shout back. And probably throw gasoline on the fire by responding in such ways as "I'm sure you don't really mean that." I don' know what I'd say, but perhaps the time is coming when I'll find out.
Too few consequences for their actions. The vaccine mandate is a start. We have to stop them from running us over.