Your Feelings and Mine

 

Fuck Your Feelings

 

That charming sentiment cropped up frequently in the runup to last year’s election and its immediate aftermath, culminating in the Beer Belly Putsch[1] on January 6^th.  It was meant to signal the defiance of real Americans in the face of political correctness run amok, to show one’s allegiance to the way it’s always been done, to trigger the libs. 

The conceit of this maladroit attempt at in-your-faceness is that liberals and progressives actually care about what the alt-right thinks.  They don’t.  

You see, most people left of center reject the legitimacy of the alt-right’s ideas.  It follows that any ad hominem attacks from them aren’t worth taking seriously.  To cite an admittedly puerile retort from my youth, it’s a case of mind over matter.  I don’t mind, because you don’t matter.  

Time to get serious. As a social scientist, I was taught to be a detached observer.  I trust neither emotions nor intuition.  But I’m fully aware that being human means we can never be fully separated from our sentiments, regardless of where one falls on the political spectrum. 

Let me offer an example.  Just before the Iraq War began, several colleagues in my graduate program and I organized a public forum on its implications.  While generally successful, we experienced a few hiccups.  Our intention was to offer an interdisciplinary discussion, pulling in professors and grad students from several departments.  We envisioned a calm, rational dialogue. 

It was wishful thinking.  Both ends of the political spectrum tightened the rhetorical rope around our necks to further their narrow agendas.  There was the activist group who wanted to not only set up a literature table inside the auditorium but a voice on the panel as well.  We grudgingly granted the first but not the second.  They sulkily accepted the arrangement.  Then there was the news crew from the local Fox affiliate who were there to capture the spectacle of a bunch of snotty, unpatriotic college students telling the world how much they hated America. 

That was galling enough, but there were two incidents at the panel which stand out in my mind nearly twenty years later and help illustrate the point I’m trying to make.  

They came when we opened the discussion to audience questions.  One question was more of a statement from an undergraduate who proclaimed the pending invasion would cause millions to die.  While we had already covered the considerable death toll the coalition had imposed on Iraq through its embargo since the 1991 ceasefire, apparently this wasn’t enough for our interlocutor.  When one of us asked just how she knew this was inevitable she keened, “Because I feel it!”  Much of the audience broke into applause. 

The second was an attempt at distraction from the opposite direction.  A middle-aged woman whom last summer's kids would have labelled a “Karen” stood up next to a young man clad in a collared shirt and khakis.  Karen introduced the young man as her son, a soldier recently returned from our adventure in Afghanistan.  How dare we question his sacrifice?  

Karen missed the point, as Karens often do.  She was trying to flip the script with a bald use of sentimentality to justify decisions at the top regardless of their outcome.  She was manipulating the attendees to shift the focus from a sober weighing of consequences to a visceral patriotism nationalism unfettered by facts. 

Our panel did not question the woman’s righteous indignation.  We most certainly did not say to her, “Fuck your feelings.”  We implicitly understood this was a display of sentimentality mistaken for moral certitude.  

And that is the heart of the issue of feelings with conservatives generally.  Most are so certain of their own inherent virtue that their gut reactions—their feelings—are not recognized as such.  To them, they are unerring truths.  

This certainty of infallibility, albeit arrived at emotionally, creates a condition in which conservatives cannot accommodate ideas at odds with their own.  Consider their reaction if you suggested that public policy should not be guided by their belief in a deity whose existence cannot be empirically proven.  Consider their reaction if you pointed out that gun violence is attributable in part to the widespread and poorly regulated availability of firearms.  You would be met with anger and resentment—an expression of feelings even though they would never think to label them as such. 

This is because feelings to those on the right are experienced only by the weak and inferior.  Their own emotions come from a place of certitude and thus are not “feelings.”  Requests to be mindful of the rights and sensibilities of those historically repressed by people like them fall counter to their truth and are thus to be ignored, and if that doesn’t work, to be mocked.  

The whole eff-your-feelings attitude, then, is merely an exercise in denial and projection on the part of a demographic whose social influence is on borrowed time.  Having invested their identities in a received wisdom, any counternarrative poses an existential threat.  Belittling those posing the counternarrative imparts a sense of security. 

So here we are.  I find myself forcing down my feelings in response to yours, forcing myself to be rational in the face of your irrationality, forcing myself into excessive self-restraint.  Perhaps this is what you mean by  “Fuck your feelings.”  

Returning to the third person, it appears conservatives in general and the alt-right in particular are indulging in a paroxysm of unrestraint as a means of bounding and containing threatening social forces.  Perhaps it is still another example of denying these social forces.  It probably doesn’t matter.  Denial postpones but will not avert the ultimate reckoning.

 

 

© 2021 The Unassuming Scholar

 

 

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[1] Credit to Thomas Knapp for the neologism.

Year Two

 March 13th.  The first day of the second year.

Interface

It has been many weeks since Mr. Bear last strolled the neighborhood.

Mr. Bear is, well, a bear.  I didn’t name him; my neighbor did.  Each visit from Mr. Bear followed the same pattern.  About an hour after dusk, the neighbor’s dog would start barking.  The porch light would come on, and my neighbor would lean over her deck railing shouting, “No! No, Mr. Bear!  Go away!”  The name stuck in my mind.

Bur anthropomorphizing wildlife is problematic.  My mountain community is at the wildland-urban interface, a potential hazard to both existing ecosystems and the humans encroaching upon them.  My neighbors are bemused by the ursine incursions each autumn, and the foraging animals pose little immediate threat aside from the occasional ransacking of an unoccupied vacation cabin or car whose flatlander owners foolishly left food inside.  But the critters are just one cause for concern.

This region is deceptively picturesque.  The legions of tourists who arrive in the wake of every snowfall ski and snowboard with nary a thought of its occasionally brutal natural history.  Less than a mile from where I sit, a wagon train of settlers stranded by an especially harsh winter lost more than forty of their number to starvation and exposure nearly 175 years ago.  But increasingly it’s been the sparseness of snowfall around these parts that has become troublesome.

I’ve lived up here about twenty years.  The first ten winters were fairly predictable. We would get moderate snowfall from late October through late December, with a week or two to recover between storms.  As one might expect, January and February brought more frequent weather systems and heavier snowfall.  March and April would see a tapering off, though snow in May wasn’t unheard of.  We had to cancel final exams and postpone commencement at the end of one spring semester because a storm had made the roads impassable.

What constitutes a normal winter now is hard to describe.  The snowfalls of 2017-2019 were normal; every other year since 2011 has seen drought conditions.  Last winter was comparatively dry, and yet we had light snowfall the first week of June (the Sunday before summer session began).  Even the summers have brought atypical weather, with windstorms, lightning, and the occasional heavy downpour. 

And then there is fire season, which promises to become a year-round thing with the unusual number of dry winters we’ve had.  Even the good winters of late brought ample rainfall at the lower elevations, which in turn provided fuel in the form of vegetation growth.  The 2017 Napa Valley fire and the horrific 2018 Camp Fire are the shape of things to come.  Some of my neighbors’ insurers agree and have refused to renew their home insurance policies.

My town and the surrounding area haven’t experienced a large-scale wildfire in nearly a century.  We’re about due; it’s a matter of time.  The community’s prepared, at least according to plan. 

But plans seldom come off in an actual emergency.  If a wildfire of the scale and speed of that which ravaged Paradise struck my town, we would see a similar outcome.  My homeowner’s association has put together an evacuation plan in conjunction with the local authorities, which is undoubtedly doomed to failure if put to the test.

I know this from an incident a couple of years ago.  I was going out of town, and I intended to leave early ahead of a major snowstorm.  So did the hordes of flatlanders who had come up for the weekend without consulting the weather forecast.  I live on a side street just off the main drag, which in turn connects to the interstate.  As I loaded my luggage into my car, I noticed a very unusual sight for my lightly trafficked lane. 

It was a long line of stationary cars.  Walking to the end of the driveway, I saw that the traffic jam extended up the street for as far as I could see.  The highway patrol was metering westbound traffic entering the freeway.  The airport I was departing from was 40 miles in the opposite direction everyone else was going, so if I could just make to the main street I’d have it made.  Not having a choice, I got into the car and joined the line.

A half hour later, we had moved less than a hundred feet.  As the wait dragged on, I eventually lost patience.  I’m usually a cautious driver, but cautious wasn’t going to cut it in this situation.  I turned out of the idle line of cars and raced down the shoulder to the intersection.  As soon as I saw a momentary gap in the crosstraffic, I jackrabbited a quick left turn and was finally on my way. 

I later read that many of the out of towners spent that night in their cars, which brings me back to my hypothetical wildfire.  After what I saw during that winter storm, I’m skeptical that the authorities could successfully evacuate the town ahead of a fast-moving firestorm.  The egress routes are too few.  I foresee a repeat performance of the Camp Fire: Some will get away by car, others will flee on foot, and others will be fatally trapped. 

The prospect of disaster is not enough to motivate me to leave, though.  No place on earth is free of risk.  Climate change is making the magnitude of many of these hazards worse, however.  Our inaction on this crisis stems from the seemingly piecemeal, scattered nature of its attendant disasters.  A Florida hurricane causing many millions of dollars in damage is unfortunate, but I don’t experience its effects here on the West Coast any more than drought and wildfire here affect Floridians.  It’s hard to tie such geographically localized phenomena to a single cause, even to those of us who are not denialists.  Barring a sudden, single, widespread catastrophe, we are unlikely to see a concerted effort in this country to address the climate predicament in the foreseeable future. 

In the meantime, I wait at home on the edge of the wild warily watching a changing world.

 

 

© 2021 The Unassuming Scholar

Disgrace

Nearly a week later, I am still in disbelief.  The events of January 6^th at the U.S. Capitol shock the conscience.

That is, if you have a conscience.  The redneck mob that assaulted the Capitol after being whipped into a frenzy by their lame duck President lacked this essential element of character.  The resulting melee hasn’t deterred the base; this morning an FBI bulletin released to the media warned of more armed demonstrations at the U.S. Capitol and all fifty state capitols.

The optics of the forcible occupation elude its perpetrators.  The death of a Capitol police officer and the injury of several more doesn’t seem to faze them.  Neither does the threatened prosecution of its identifiable culprits nor their loss of employment in some cases.

No, instead we hear about the San Diego woman shot to death by the police as she forced her way through a broken window.  Her husband described her as a “patriot,” a term debased by conservatives over the years and trampled in filth over the past four.  Although her death was unfortunate and perhaps even tragic, she nonetheless met her end committing a violent criminal act.

And to what end?  The mob delayed certification of the Electoral College vote by six hours and caused considerable damage to a national monument which will fall upon the taxpayers to repair.  Attempting to subvert a constitutional process, to undermine the United States Constitution itself, is the polar opposite of patriotism.  All identifiable participants should be prosecuted for sedition.

It’s unlikely they will.  White privilege will out.  The small police presence on Capitol Hill last Wednesday was rooted in an assumption that a demonstration by white people was not a potential threat.  Contrast this to last summer’s George Floyd protests, which were not only met by local law enforcement in the larger cities but by a constellation of state and federal police agencies and the National Guard to boot.

Consider the intentions of some of the invaders when we raise the question of penalties.  One had threatened to shoot Nancy Pelosi in the head on social media.  Another was photographed in the Senate chamber carrying zip tie handcuffs as if they planned to take hostages.  Then there was the gallows erected at the Capitol steps.  One could go on with like examples.

There is little doubt concerning the crowd’s sentiments, as evinced by the Confederate flags and Nazi paraphernalia about.  If you needed further convincing, take the bitter remark one woman made to Andrew McCormick of The Nation concerning the police.  “They’re shooting us,” she said.  “They’re supposed to shoot BLM, but they’re shooting the patriots.”

There you have it.  It’s law enforcement’s job to kill civil rights activists, not rioting white supremacists.  The destruction of a display honoring the late congressman John Lewis further underscores the racist nature of the insurrection.  In any case, the actions of law enforcement officers varied from actually doing their job defending the Capitol and its occupants, to making themselves scarce rather than confronting the assailants, to mingling with the rioters and posing for selfies with them. 

Meanwhile, buzz on the alt-right is framing the riot as a subversion.  It was the fault of the ever-elusive “outside agitators” and “antifa.”  The base continues to stick with is its narrative of deep-state conspiracies and pedophile elites.  No fable is too wild to be believed.

The Dems for their part, despite their victory at the polls, continue to flail impotently at the sociopath occupying 1600 Pennsylvania Avenue.  The House is moving to impeach a President whose remaining time in office is down to mere days.  If they somehow succeed, and the Senate somehow convicts, the only effect will be to afford Mike Pence the distinction of serving the shortest presidential tenure in history.  Any attempt to invoke the 25^th Amendment is a nonstarter considering Pence’s refusal to even consider it combined with multiplying cabinet vacancies. 

January 20^th will be here soon enough.  Trump refuses to attend the inauguration, and it’s just as well.  But it’s foolish to assume the nightmare will end.  Talk of street protests in DC and elsewhere is rife, and will almost certainly take place.  Having had a taste of the potential havoc they can unleash militant rightists will feel empowered to repeat it.  Even as I write, Texas officials are concerned Trump’s visit to the border town of Alamo will lead to further violence.

For all their loud talk of freedom and love of country, the base poses an existential threat to our constitutional order and the liberties and rights it guarantees.  It’s doubtful many of them actually understand these.  Or care to.  I’m reminded of how common Russians welcomed the 1917 revolution believing that freedom meant absolutely no constraints on their behavior.  As we know, they were soon disabused of that notion, but I think a similar attitude animates the MAGA crowd.

It took almost four years, but I’m fully cognizant of how bad the situation truly is.  I never distrusted my own people until now.  The worst of it is there’s no escape.  We have so mismanaged the coronavirus pandemic that few countries will admit Americans.  I can’t even believe I’m entertaining thoughts of expatriating; I used to scoff at people who said they would leave if the candidate they opposed won.  Now I’m in the bizarre situation where I’m considering it myself, even after the guy I voted for won.  I want to live somewhere inhabited by sane people, if or when that becomes a possibility again.

In the meantime, it looks like the inmates will continue to run the asylum.  Don’t expect reason to prevail any time soon in the madhouse our country has become.

 

 © 2021 The Unassuming Scholar

More Headlines

“US Capitol Breached” / “Mob Invades Capitol” – CNN

“Pro-Trump Mob Brings Chaos to DC” / “DC Mayor Declares Curfew” – MSNBC

“Trump Addresses Capitol Violence in Taped Video as National Guard is Deployed” / “Some GOP Congress Members to Object to Electoral College Certification” – Fox News

“Pro-Trump Protestors Swarm U.S. Capitol, National Guard Deployed” – Reuters

“Capitol Breached by Protestors; Woman Shot Inside” – ABC News

“Biden Calls Capitol Riot ‘Insurrection’” / “Pence to Mob Storming Capitol: Immediately Leave the Building” – Gannett

“Trump Enters Burn-it-Down Mode” - Politico

“World Leaders Express Shock at Storming of US Capitol” / “Biden Calls on Mob to ‘Pull Back;’ Urges Restoring Decency” – AP

“Trump Sends Mixed Messages That Inflamed Tensions” / “Democrats, Republicans Blame Trump for Inciting ‘Coup’” – Washington Post

“A Surreal Scene Unfolds in Washington as Donald Trump Tries to Undo the Election” - Time

“The Storming of Capitol Hill Organized on Social Media” – New York Times

“National Guard Will Head to the Capitol to Tamp Down Pro-Trump Insurrection” – CNBC

“Fox News Host Claims ‘Entire Society is Rigged’ after Trump Lawsuits Fail” -  Newsweek

“Democratic Lawmakers Say They Will Try to Impeach Trump Again Following Riots Over Election Conspiracy Theories He Pushed” – Business Insider

Reflections on a Lost Year

Even for us who haven’t contracted COVID or whose families have been somehow unscathed, 2020 was a lost year.  I struggle to not mourn the loss of familiar routines and pastimes when so many have been infected, or worse, lost loved ones in the pandemic, but sometimes I backslide.  The six-week winter break has begun, the first sustained period off work since we went to remote instruction, leaving me time to ruminate on the situation.

I began the year with a small irony.  On New Year’s Eve, the day China reported its first COVID cases to the World Health Organization, I was on a flight from Hong Kong to San Francisco.  I had spent the previous week in Hong Kong and Macau, sightseeing and eating dim sum.  Many of the people I saw wore face masks, but it really didn’t register since it was East Asia in the wintertime and masking is a common practice. 

I think I started noticing the news reports toward the end of January.  Spring semester began, and I was engrossed in work.  The pandemic cropped up periodically in conversation as the weeks went on.  A few people began wearing face coverings here and there.  News reports told of mass lockdowns in China and police checkpoints in Italy, but it still seemed so far away, so unreal. 

As February gave way to March, you began to see large containers of hand sanitizer in classrooms, offices, and public areas on campus.  There were exhortations to wash hands frequently.  Finally, word came down that we were going to remote instruction.  We were given about ten days to make the transition, and the administration predicted we might be able to return before the end of the term.  I took the news in stride and didn’t change my routine.  When the appointed day arrived, I taught my scheduled classes and went home.  And have stayed there ever since.

I am not proud of my complacency; I am puzzled by it.  I’m normally alarmed by news of disasters on the doorstep, but in this case I carried on nonetheless.  Looking back, I am fortunate to not have been infected or infected someone else.   The widespread resistance to mask mandates even as infection rates are again skyrocketing beggars explanation.

For me 2020 bears an eerie parallel to another lost year, 2000.  The main difference is that 2000 was lost to me and this year was lost to us all.  The two years have a lot in common, though, a controversial presidential election being the most prominent feature.  In my case, I spent that year socially distancing by default.  I was recovering from a near-fatal accident that left me permanently disabled, I was facing the loss of my career as a consequence, and my marriage was imploding.  I was hundreds of miles from home in a military hospital temporarily housed in a bare room in a soon to be demolished annex while my family stayed behind.  Then as now, tedium and anxiety over an uncertain future stalked my thoughts.

Given a choice, I would take this year over that.  I am reasonably healthy now, and the prospect of going broke is not a concern at the moment.  The continuous nausea and lack of appetite from the morphine prescribed for my pain aren’t an issue, nor do feelings of malaise keep me in bed some days.  My biggest headaches are technical glitches. If I get cabin fever, I can always go for a walk and come back feeling renewed.

It’s the uncertainty that’s the worst aspect of the pandemic aside from the disease itself.  What will work and school look like after?   Will travel at home or abroad ever be safe?  Can we even socialize normally after this?  Anthony Fauci summed it up for many when recently told an interviewer the thing he looks forward to most is dropping by a bar for a beer and a burger.  That likely won’t happen anytime soon.   I’m still leery of circulating in public unless it’s necessary.  A few months ago, I thought about marking the anniversary of my accident as I normally do.  I made a dinner reservation at a place with outdoor seating.  As the reservation time grew closer, I began to question the wisdom of going out.  I cancelled and spent the evening in.  No point taking unnecessary risks.

Signals are mixed as to how the future plays out.  Hope and dread don’t settle well with each other, but it’s the prevailing sentiment.  On a conference call with higher education administrators, Dr. Fauci said last week that with widespread immunization students and professors could return to the physical classroom as soon as fall semester 2021.  Then again, there is ominous news of a new mutation of SARS CoV-2 running amok in southeastern Britain which has led a number of EU countries to bar British visitors.  Even as I write, reports of yet another mutation in China are making the rounds.

Nevertheless, the pandemic will subside at some point.  There remains the matter of preexisting ills exacerbated by the crisis.  Social division and a slide toward outright violent conflict won’t miraculously subside just because Donald Trump is leaving office.  We’ve arrived at a point where we are incapable of living together.  The last four tears, and this year in particular, have pulled back the screen to reveal us as a fragmented people seething with hatred and resentment.  I don’t think there is any turning back; the damage is permanent.  We’ll return to a form of surface normalcy, but the dysfunction will persist underneath.

 

© 2020 The Unassuming Scholar

Bloody Shirt

 

As the Electoral College casts its vote, the “Stop the Steal” crowd is doubling down on its baffling inability to accept that their man lost the election.  The hyperbole emanating from social media is disturbing.

Although Arizona’s 11 presidential electors cast their votes earlier today for Joe Biden, the Arizona Republican Party retweeted a post from one of the true believers proclaiming, “I am willing to give my life for this fight.”  The AZ GOP appended the comment with its own: “He is.  Are you?”

I want to shrug off rhetoric like this.  Four years ago, I would have simply responded with an eyeroll.  Events since then, and particularly in the past year, make me take it seriously.  It isn’t that I expect mass violence to break out, though months of confrontation between Trump supporters and civil rights activists gives cause for concern.  Inflammatory statements like this tweet are bound to motivate some crazy fool to act on them.

During the countdown to Inauguration Day, expect the heavily surreal political atmosphere to thicken into a pall.  The astounding refusal of the “base” to accept the outcome in the face of contrary evidence reflects a complete break from reality.  Their fealty to a morally bankrupt man has morphed into a quasi-religious cause, with gestures such as the AZ GOP retweet being akin to the waving of a mythic bloody shirt.

Fortunately, I can socially isolate and don’t have to chance the possibility of face to face discussions with these people.  But I did learn the sentiments of some of my students since November 3^rd from their discussion posts and written assignments.  Several of them asserted the election was illegitimate, that votes weren’t counted, that dead people and the “illegals” cast votes, and so forth.  It’s annoying to read this tripe, but I resolved to remain professional (and keep my blood pressure down) by choosing not to engage.  I did the same in my live classes before we went remote, even when the Trumpies became more vocal as the election cycle got closer.

It’s too soon for me to worry about personal confrontations on campus or elsewhere, being that the pandemic has entered another lethal wave.  (That said, another brand of irrationality will cause some of us to refuse masks or to receive the vaccination once it becomes widely available, thereby prolonging the crisis.)  I have the luxury of watching events unfold from my living room.  But we need to learn to live together once the dust has settled, and there is a feeling somehow that a line has been crossed.  Don’t expect the violence of words and of deeds to abate after January 20^th.

 

 

© 2020 The Unassuming Scholar