Righteous

I just spent all morning writing a diatribe against common ideologies.  Or about the epithets they have produced and the shortcuts to understanding they engender.  And then the shortcut misunderstanding they become.  Empty, threadbare phrases, trivialized slogans, trademark retorts.  But in the end, I had presented an introduction to a scholarly book I had no intention of writing.

Yesterday, I was listening to "All Things Considered" on NPR.  It is one of the advantages of the new car.  I can listen to things.  The stereo is clear, the speakers unbroken, the windows closed against environmental noises.  I am hermetic sealed now, babies, away from the miseries of the world.  Except as they are presented to me by electronic voices.  It has been a long, long time since I enjoyed such comfort.  No, in truth, I've never enjoyed such comfort in a car.  And I'm full of guilt over it.  Driving the Volvo in the end was like camping on the beach in front of a resort hotel on an expensive island.  I felt a certain nobility and dignity about it, but everyone else looked a lot prettier and more relaxed.





You write the rest.


We live in ideological times.  How's that for stating the obvious.  It is a luxury, I guess, or a reaction to it.  But it occurred to me today that there is an overabundance of it, so much of it that it has begun to lose its meaning.  I am not offering a well-considered argument here, only the inklings of an observation.  But every goddamned thing I read or listen to has some ideology cloyingly adhered to it.  Without art.  Without subtlety.  Without doubt.

Whether it is in the classroom or through the media, we are spoken to through the new lexicons.  There are buzzwords that serve as shortcuts to understanding.  And everyone loves a shortcut.  Shortcut understanding.  And what remains are the epithets.  Epithets of misunderstanding.  Empty, threadbare phrases that become trivialized slogans, trademarks, if you will.  They will make you sound smart.  But you won't be.  You will be like a Catholic who only knew a few phrases of Latin at a traditional mass.



It will only take me a book or two to convincingly illustrate what I mean.  And tons of scholarship.  No, I will not be convincing.  I am too lazy and in the end would probably not be convincing.  Someone will be, though.  Wait and see.



I wrote a lot of vitriol this past hour that I have had to delete.  It was good, too, but too confrontational, too combative.

I was listening to "All Things Considered" on NPR yesterday.  It is one of the advantages of the new car.  I can listen to things.  The stereo is clear, the speakers unbroken, the windows closed against environmental noises.  I am hermetic sealed now, babies, away from the miseries of the world.  Except as they are presented to me by electronic voices.  It has been a long, long time since I enjoyed such comfort.  No, in truth, I've never enjoyed such comfort in a car.  And I'm full of guilt over it.  Driving the Volvo in the end was like camping on the beach in front of a resort hotel on an expensive island.  I felt a certain nobility and dignity about it, but everyone else looked a lot prettier and more relaxed while I was out there representing bohemian values--or should I say "ideologies"?

So yesterday, driving in my Bohomobile, I got to hear a couple of interviews on "All Things."  The first one was with Paula McLain who talked about her new book "The Paris Wife," the novelized story of Hadley Richardson's marriage to Ernest Hemingway.  It sounded as if it might be a fun read if you are into the 1920's Parisian scene.  I am.  Who isn't?  It was full of bad characters who thought they were heroes.  And I fell in love with Hadley a long time ago.

The second was a story by Margot Adler Suze Rotolo who was Suze Rotolo's girlfriend early in his career.  She was seventeen when they began dating.  Of course, I fell instantly and urgently in love with her.  Listen to the interview and you will, too.

The thing is, though, that after listening to these two interviews, I didn't feel good.  What was eating me?  I didn't wonder long.  Misogynistic, exploitative guilt.  I'd romanticized these women as inspirational figures.  As a man.