OP/ED
Voices from the Mountains:
Homogenous Values, Aisle Three
At best, it’s a roller coaster ride, this life. Some wish and hope for the calm of a ferris wheel. Very often, it’s bumper cars; at worst, a real house of horrors!
To many, it’s just a shopping mall on the way to the funeral home. Evenings, after the 20 years of schooling and the day shift, rewarded with the choice of hundreds of television channels, all guaranteed to distract from all those big important things it’s best to let those in authority decide upon. Rituals like circumcision and Barbie dolls, chewing gum and retirement plans.
On the world scale, these days I see the drug of Olympic spectacle keeping the gears oiled… and it’s Coca Cola and Ford and the multi-national marketplace that wins all the really important medals.
I didn’t see the ad, but was told that there is one of a soldier coming home in uniform, a bit like Tom Hanks (already the new John Wayne), and there, amidst his waiting family, there is no Coke to greet his return. A dog shreds a doll nearby, the soldier upset beyond tolerance. Norman Rockwell with a Simpsons twist. It all makes sense in the gut of the numbed viewing audience, mesmerized, subconsciously making note which brand of sugar water to buy soon.
In another ad, I’m told, a woman outruns a man in pursuit with a chainsaw because of her brand of sneakers. All around the world, but I suspect especially here, nationalistic fervor inflamed by which country will win win win more more more.
And on my smaller Vermont scale, the madness of the reaction to the civil-union law passed this summer. Open, bold displays of hatred and fear flashing everywhere. Bumper sticker on a truck in front of me today said something to the effect that “Vermonters shovel shit, they don’t pack it.” An eloquent turn of phrase, uninformed that anal sex is not strictly a homosexual act. Local politician in a newspaper interview shamelessly stating that homosexuality is a bad thing for individuals and for society and he’ll fight against the rights provided by the civil-unions law. Letters in the papers almost every day rave, their vision distorted by fear powered bigotry, about the evils of homosexuality and how they will “Take Back Vermont.”
How far back? The Abenaki native Americans might have some perspective to add to that declaration…
And so I go to my son’s school open house tonight, my head already shaken up from the exposure to all the creepy masks of bigotry and mindless consumerism that the ride in this culture has lately been presenting me.
Third grade. He’s doing okay. Some of the teachers seem okay, and he’s learning some things and even having some fun amidst the constriction. I cringe at the posted “pledge of allegiance” (“one nation, under god, indivisible, with freedom and justice for all”) and lyrics to “god bless America”
And then I get the parents’ packet, a plastic bag that I discover is filled with nothing but advertising coupons (like the Sunday paper ritual… go to church, come home with newspaper, clip coupons, go to Walmart) for Pledge furniture polish, Always feminine wipes, catalogs to order and “win prizes”as a result, General Mills cereals (eat more sugary cereals and “earn cash for your school”).
And if that weren’t enough, a free video. Hmmm, wow… a cutesie cartoon, “Veggie Tales.” And then I read the package (“Sunday morning values, Saturday morning fun!”… stories that teach kids a Biblical perspective….etc etc etc…). There are certainly other parents and kids there, whose faiths and of perspectives of reality have nothing to do with “Sunday morning.” What Christian group infiltrated the public school with this stuff? (With barely restrained, almost trembling anger, I pulled aside and spoke with the principal, asking for a private meeting in the near future.)
I’m furious at all this combined cultural assault and try to explain to my kids what bothers me in all this. They’re amazingly open, clear and bright people at eight, 10 and 12, and have little use for Santa or other deities. They seem to understand most of what I say quite well. I stop afterwards and have some pizza, I talk all the issues though again with my friend, and then I’m home, the children are asleep, and I sit in front of the computer and roll this all out on the keyboard.
When I get scared, I think of my thought-dreams being seen, my head in a guillotine, and social workers at my door. But also when I get scared, I think of a world run completely by some of these people.
Tomorrow I know I must be even more active, more out, more vigilant… naming the demons.
Alex Hirka is one of the founders of Both Sides Now. He lives in Burlington.