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Thursday, July 17, 2003

•••Those Terrible, Horrible, No-Good, Very-Bad HAVERS From one of the blog writers whose style I most admire (and whom I hope I don't offend by quoting and discussing this thought), Mark at ForgetISaidThat wrote yesterday: Blockbuster is a publicly-traded company that has tens of millions of members, and I hardly expect it to be a bastion of free speech, catering to my film preferences, yet I cannot help feeling a little peeved about a policy that does not allow for NC-17-rated films at all. Similarly, cinema chains across the country are scared to death of showing NC-17 films for fear of the family-values boosterism that will surely come down on their heads if the wrong sort of film is let in the door. Who knows how long it will take for society to collapse on itself after that happens. Let customers decide what they wish to see, I say, but do not let the fear of well-organized, angry customers decide what others should see. This paragraph well illustrates the sort of example I might give were someone to ask me, "Gee Jeff, what would you name as the single most 'radical' (meaning dramatic or diametric) shift in your thinking from the time you were a college sophomore to today?" I used to think there existed a "them," a sort of grouping of people from which I was excluded (either self-excluded or forcibly), who were by definition more inherently corrupt, unjust, insensitive, dishonest, controlling, hypocritical and malevolently motivated than ME. These were not "their" obvious traits, but did together comprise the evil core which was surrounded by their most obvious traits, namely: Wealth and Economic Standing. Power and Political Influence. Social Prominence and Popularity. You know: THEM. Those "having" everything I "have not" personally. The 'evil' ones. Such thinking at one time formed a core element of my world view. It was a dogma I swallowed in great, gasping gulps; a conceptual 'given' in my mind. It colored the way I looked at everything: government, education, church, community, business ... name a behemoth -- it was lumped in there too. Yes, even my own denomination (as hard as that will be for the good PopeSleipnir and JohnnyPayphone and others to believe in some ways). I cannot claim to have cast aside every shred of this entirely unrealistic prejudice I had against the 'rich and powerful.' I am, after all, still American enough to presume at certain times and in certain situations that nobility lies more often in the heart of the underdog and seldom in the heart of the overlord. But the single most radical shift in my thinking over the last 15 years came when I encountered my most unquestioned and sophomoric presuppositions about the world. Could it be that not everyone, and indeed not even MOST PEOPLE who "have" what I "have not" do possess it by other than ill-gotten means, and that it is not WRONG for them to have it in stead of me -- and that it is not WRONG for them to make use of it without consulting me before deciding what they wish to do with it? My thinking changed when I began to give serious, thoughtful consideration to two things: a.) The secret and ill-founded notion of my own implicit superiority (my ethics were higher, my conduct more noble, my intentions ever purer, etc.) over the group I deemed inferior, threatening and suspect in those ways. That is, when I started to grab hold of that notion of original sin as the great social leveler and humbler of all human critters. We're all waay broke and messed up. b.) The fact that it's wrong to steal what belongs to another. If it is wrong to steal what they have, then it is not wrong for one person to have what another does not. That is, it dawned on me possession of money, land, power, respect -- is not bad, so long as it is not ill-gotten (stolen) gains. What is kind of hard to read in Mark's words above is that he would likely find it necessary to include me in the category (by virtue of my pastoral career) of those people -- you know, Fear-mongers. Intimidators. Angry manipulators who are "well organized" conspirators, purpetrators of oppressive "family-values boosterism." That's what I honestly used to name them too. Even harder than thinking that he or anyone else might lump me in that category is the thought that I, myself, might well for honesty's sake be forced to lump me there too.   11:43:23 PM   googleit 168

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