Beyond Pollyanna

As we reach the threshold of a new era the tendency is to take refuge in Pollyanna and utter denial to avoid going up against "the wall." The so-called "armed lifeboat" syndrome has brought us a new kind of literature, one which goes beyond warnings and denials to state that we must face, what Bill McKibben and many other writers have warned us about. These writings can amount to what Christian Parenti has called "romancing the end times."

Paarenti's book, "Tropic of Chaos," Slavoj Zizek's "Living in the End Times," and Naomi Kline's "The Shock Doctrine" take us to a reality that goes well beyond the fire walls put up and maintained by both apologists and critics of our dire predicaments. This is to be looking at the barrel of a gun, one which is not going to go away with rationalizations and platitudes.

It doesn't matter if your lifeboat has a cross on the bow and the old "red, white & blue" flying on the stern, nor whether you are able to lounge on your bullet and torpedo proof Chris Craft, or kick back in your deeply gated community. Everyone is involved, regardless of their armour or bank accounts. Last evening I hit the bottom of this and it was terrifying. All the best to you.

Redactive

The first hint of this word came with a trip to a library in Los Angeles with my Grandfather. This was the stereotypical Carnegie public library where you had to walk up at least a flight of stairs to enter a portal of heavy wooden doors. There was something very forbidding about the place, it had the shusshing atmosphere, very dark interior, and a no nonsense staff. We were uncomfortable in an environment that my Grandfather had hoped would be a "positive experience."

Its rules counted more than its humanness, and when my Grandfather tried to describe his uneasiness with it he found it hard to describe. Years later I discovered the redactive word, and have found myself in other circumstances which would be well described by it. The dictionary definition of the word is fascinating in that it also relates to collecting, editing and revising.

My present public library is completely the opposite; and I have had the good fortune to work in several libraries during my years of labor as a librarian to work in open, welcoming circumstances, essentially unreactionary in their services and environments. Libraries have changed over the decades and it is tragic to see many library systems being shut down due to financial difficulties and the attitudes of legislatures and institutional hierarchies. "Comes the Revolution."

Civility

To me personal memory about other people's needs is the essence of being human, a hallmark about that is civility. Not that I consider myself a "paragon of virtue," no. But to be thoughtful and courteous is part of the boilerplate of character in my book. My parents and my grandparents did not teach this, they lived it. Now I find that I miss the earlier generations' lives in this regard.

What set this off? Working with a young man this week I found that he threw his pop cans in the back of my pickup truck, and when I got in his car to take a ride to help him with something the floor was strewn with so much debris he had throw some of it over the seat. Now I like this fellow a lot, a very good worker, but I can't handle the situation which puts me at odds with his personal habits.

My Father was an automotive mechanic for many many years and couldn't stand the fact that people did not respect themselves or the cars he was to work on because of the way they brought them in. To him maintenance was critical and for people to expect him to clean up after them before he could solve their mechanical problems was a sign of disrespect. This seems to be an allegorical situation, an uncomfortable one, perhaps a sign of the times.

content

The word "intellectual" is certainly passe, undescribed today. And content (what used to be called intellectual content) is simply not current in today's parlance. I have described earlier what was once an obligatory response mechanism which was expected as part of conversation and idea sharing. Now that there are seemingly no obligations one had better have little or no expectations in this regard.

As I referred to awhile back, my Father would say something to the affect "that the ball is in your court," and he damn sure expected you to bring that ball out. If you missed the ball your obligation was to find out what you missed, clear it up. Now silence rules or obfuscation. Why? From middle age onwards I found that my dear Father had given up on conversation pretty much, controversy was pretty much no where to be found.

Talk shows and NPR prattle take the place of this in our lives I guess. But I miss it, would like to see a resurgence of it before I pass along into whatever incarnation awaits me. I remember fondly the faculty senate debates at the University in Buffalo, and the heated conversation which followed those debates. I remember being invited by an English professor to an afternoon tea in Los Angeles, the expectation was that you would come with ideas and contraversy to mix it up with faculty and students. In graduate school we had a library symposium to take on subjects and opinions seemingly forbidden in the standard curriculum. Why not stir it up, keep the "brain cells" cooking a little?