Tuesday, October 28, 2003
(10:51 PM) | Adam Kotsko:
Some brief notes
Heard today during the call-in segment on Chicago Public Radio's "Worldview": "What kind of system of government is it [in Iraq] where a person remains in power the whole rest of his life? What does he think he is, pharaoh?"
Shortly after that, I was pulled over by a non-obvious police car. I got all my documentation ready, but the police officer was dressed like a normal business man. He said to me, "Who are you?" I was confused. I held up my driver's license so he could see it. He continued, "Who the hell are you that you can f---ing drive like that in my state, with your Michigan plates?" The best I could do was, "I was in a hurry." Then he said, "Well, slow that shit down!" and walked back to his car.
I'm sick of driving so much. I almost hit a deer tonight.
I wrote to Dr. Bowling, president of Olivet Nazarene University, about the fact that his hiring decisions have basically thrown the religion department into chaos. Since many of my friends from Olivet are still involved in that department, and since it at least used to be the most reputable from an academic standpoint (as far as people pursuing further academic work), I have felt like this is something I need to worry about. I told him all the horrible things I had heard, and he responded with a little parable for me: some guy loses his axe head, and he's sure it's not his fault, and the kid next door was probably the one who stole it, and the kid looks like a thief, and then when the guy finds his stupid axe head, the kid doesn't look like a thief anymore. To put it in some clearer terms: Bull Shit.
He said I wasn't being objective, that it looks much different from where he's sitting, that no one's perfect, etc. He took the time to write to me, but that's probably because he knows that I still have some influence on people around Olivet. (Anthony Smith, did he ever write you back about anything?) As I said when I had my one-on-one interview with the guy, during which I was schmoozed: he's good at his job, but it's a job that probably shouldn't exist.
Today in Ted Jennings' class, we were discussing the Roman period. Around the first century CE, aristocratic women experienced a lot of liberation and freedom. It caused a great deal of anxiety, especially in a society that placed such an emphasis on manliness and domination and that had just assembled a large empire. So after a while, it just went away. Everything went back to normal. The strain was apparently too much. Any gains that progressives make, he said, are "eminently reversible." We can't count on any change remaining in place indefinitely. The best we can do is enjoy the times of greater freedom while the last and try to lay the groundwork for future periods of liberation during the downtime. The idea of steady progress is a myth.
This is probably why the right wing is so much better at mobilizing people: change is hard. Change causes some serious anxiety. Too many questions come up, things seem chaotic, and a lot of times, people are pissed off about it, or at least ready to be pissed off if someone comes along and tells them that's how they should feel. A good, solid right wing politician comes along and asks, "What must we change so that nothing at all will change?" With all the changes the US has experienced in the 20th century and continues to change, we should not be at all surprised at the ever-increasing popularity of the right wing.
During a conversation along these lines with some classmates, I said we needed another Lenin. If you ever want to stop a conversation, drop that one in there.
