A lot of attention is being paid these days to racial and ethnic slurs. I’d be happier about that if I thought it was helping the situation, rather than just being a justification for complaining about it.
But in this present context, volatile as it is, an exchange came back to me from 1974. It
was from a show called Chico and the Man. “The Man” was a cranky old man (Ed Brown) played by Jack Albertson. Chico was an ambitious young Hispanic (Mexican for TV purposes in the 1970s) man played by Freddie Prinze.
They meet at Ed’s garage when Chico rides his bike up to the place He looking for work. Ed turns him down without much thought. “Get out of here and take your flies with you.” There is nothing remarkable at all in that. The cranky bigoted old man is right out of central casting.
What was really remarkable, and the reason I have remembered it all these years is what Chico says as he leaves. He gets back on his bike. He says something that sounds like acceptance of the old man’s decision (it isn’t) and as he pedals away, he turns around on the seat and makes a “come with me” gesture and says, “Come on, flies.”
I liked him from that moment. It wasn’t a good show, even for the 70s, but that presence of mind and lack of resentment conquered the old man after an episode or two. It conquered me immediately.
I’m not making that one exchange on an old TV show a model for any kind of approach to today’s racial and ethnic issues. But it did take me by surprise and I admired it. Also…it worked.
So let’s return to Orolo’s axiom, considering frustration as an event; it is the failure to achieve something you were trying to achieve.
are entirely taken up with the strategy and tactics of achieving a particular goal, it is hard to consider at the same time whether it is a viable goal. Persistent frustration of your efforts (failure to achieve the goal) is an excellent time to consider whether is a good goal for you to have.
Then the headline writers took over and we got this: Debunking Three Viral Falsehoods about Kamala Harris. Note that these are “viral falsehoods.” [2] The falsehoods are viral. And I thought, as I once thought about the fun party, “Wow! That happened fast.”
have been allegorized on the spot, especially by Mark and Matthew. You hear a suggestive phrase and it blossoms almost immediately into an allegory where each part of the story represents some identifiable part of the real world.
Hell! Or, more properly, “Retreat? Hell…” The rest of the line in “We’re just attacking in another direction.”
Dr. Birx was criticized by Crazy Nancy Pelosi.” Speaker Pelosi is one of the least crazy people on the American political scene. She is inconvenient at times and she is quite forceful. She would be crazy not to be.
picture—you know he is not going to do what he was asked to do. How do you know that? Because there is nothing on the teleprompter. What’s a teleprompter? Well…do you see how Santos’ face is (nearly) framed by a window. It is extremely significant that there is nothing on the window. To understand how important that is, you need to know what is supposed to be on the window. Santos’ speech withdrawing from the race is supposed to be there.
You see, Jesus adapted the parables he told based on the conventions of parable-telling. He devised these conventions by listening to parables his whole childhood and early adulthood. He liked some and didn’t like others. He saw possibilities in some that others had not seen or had not used. He didn’t start off in Mark 4 by explaining what a parable was; he began by using an established form—a popular, rather than a scholarly form—to preach to the crowds.[3]
A says, in other words, “We need to do something about the callous treatment of black protesters.” B says, “Let’s talk about why you want place before the neighborhood the claim that you are a virtuous person.” A says, “Let’s talk about a public crisis.” B says, “No, let’s talk about a private motive.”
I have lived in a society where other things were prized, however. Take purity in purchasing foods, for instance. You could be “righteous” for purchasing only virtuous goods. [3] You could be righteous by purchasing virtuous goods from virtuous stores. You could be righteous by investigating the conditions under which the food was produced and by buying only foods produced without the exploitation of workers. You could be righteous by buying food only from companies who use their profits in ways you approve.
various kinds at Portland State University, there arose an interest in putting a limit on the number of terms a legislator could serve. [2] “Why do you want to do that?” I would ask the students who were advocating it. Well, they said, we want to reduce the power they wield in the legislature. Really, I said, and who do you want to have that power instead of them? Ordinarily, that caused a brief pause in the conversation.
People who think of “government” as office holders and regulations and votes will say that there was no government in the first two settings and that it was introduced in the third. But if you think of government as a function, there is as much government in the first two scenarios as there is in the third. All the government is self-government in the first. All the government is self-government and where that fails, social government, in the second. All the government is self-government in the third, except where that fails and social government is brought in, and also except for where social government also fails and structures wielding formal coercive power are brought in.
In societies that emphasize the power of social institutions, the power of social norms to clarify conflicts and in many cases, to resolve them, is much prized. In the U.S., we have allowed such institutions to wither. [4] In the symbolic representation I used earlier, that removes B from the A + B + C palette, so conflicts in A move rapidly to C. Individual disputes, are more and more mediated by political agencies, in other words, which are often not well-equipped to deal with them. If I saw a lot of that, I might very well argue that “that government is best that governs least,” meaning that I want less regulation of interpersonal behavior. But if I were to say that very often, it would bring me to lamenting, instead, the lack of self discipline or the atrophy of mediating institutions that requires that much government. Arguing against the constraints of government in this situation is like arguing against the constraints of a tourniquet. It brings you to wondering what the tourniquet if for.
recognize that the white linemen are dogging it on the plays where a black man is carrying the ball. What Julius does is to relocate that grievance so that it is part of the job of his superior, the captain of the team. And what Gerry does is to accept the challenge not as a white player but as the captain. As a white player, he had done everything that can be demanded of him, but as captain, he has been complicit in the behavior of his white teammates. He has not called them for their bad football behavior (not blocking) because calling them out on that would be seen as a racial matter—and when he does it, it is seen that way. But as captain, he really doesn’t have a choice.
Perceiving the new relationship—as yet unnamed—Thelma says, “I can see that when I play with you, I will have to be careful.” Thelma might have meant that now each can harm the other, so at least a grudging respect, is required. Maybe Thelma meant that now that Frances has claimed the right to personhood on the same grounds as Thelma, they will have to treat each other as competitors, each taking advantage of the other when the occasion arises. Russell Hoban, the author, doesn’t speculate. He leaves that to me.
The Dilettante's Dilemma 