Differing Abstractions

essaysbysean.blogspot.com

“Canadians all live in igloos”

Some dude in Texas

Regarding their mayor:

“They kept reelecting him because he was grandfatherly and worked hard to help individuals and families who were having trouble. They didn’t care much whether he also set good policies—that was too abstract for them.”

Xenocide, by Orson Scott Card, 1991, p 238

Hello Reader,

Got differing abstractions?

Introduction

I hadn’t planned to continue last week’s theme of middle class guilt. My current blog post, right up until today’s posting, begins:

QUOTE

… I am writing this … under the spell of Audre Lorde, a member of several minority groups: Black, and a woman too, “but a traitor” with a nonBlack partner, raising children, but “without a  family values marriage,” lesbian, and speaker of truth to hands-on-ears fellow feminists… 

UNQUOTE

Differing

Trust us writers to care about the nitty gritty of sentences. So there I was, only three days after posting the above, still under the spell, among about a dozen writers, at a big long table, studying sentences, and I spoke of U.S. Blacks, and—I was corrected and told that now we say Persons of Colour. This was in Canada. You may wonder: Did Canadians genuinely ponder and decide to change names, or is this a case of swift Yankee imperialism? (Because hey, you’ve got to admit such things happen)

You ask: What did I think of being corrected?

I answer: I think it’s time to talk about levels of abstraction. But don’t worry, I’ll get back to Audre and me.

Here’s how I explain two words: I could say, “Gee, I better stop procrastinating.” Or I could say, “Well, I better get to my work.” The former is sentence is more “abstract,” the latter more “concrete.” By concrete I mean you can see it, like cement, and measure it, like with a ruler, and beholders can agree, “Yep, there’s Sean, working at his table saw.” But if you entered my man cave and saw me silent in my easy chair, the eyes of the beholder wouldn’t agree on whether I was procrastinating, or hard at work dreaming up some new poem about the Martian invasion. When it comes to something abstract like labels for people, there can be a whole lot of opinions going on. 

Abstractions have power. Are people “developing” the land or “exploiting” it? Both words are easy to argue about, as both are abstract.

How many races do you count? On the prairies, or great plains, the first nations medicine wheel abstracts four: black, white, yellow, red. 

Black or Person of Colour? Again, abstract. A member of the Mongolian race, or a Person of Colour? A higher abstraction: Here colour means not specifically black, but non-white. When my father was a boy, history text books always started out listing the various races of man. When I myself was a boy, the How and Why Book of Primitive Man began by saying scientists don’t like to say the word race. 

(With race being not so much concretely found in nature as being abstract concept we make up. Hence laymen in Europe, when Dad was a boy, as documented in brown paged books in the campus library, would say that folks on two sides of a river were two different races. I bear no ill-will to 1930-Edmonton scientists or 2010-Saskatchewan indigenous elders. They both abstracted as best they could)

That would have been about the time the term Mongolian was dropped—should I now say East Asian, Oriental, or just what?—and when, for folks with a specific disability, the term Mongoloid, with its racial implication, was replaced, on our side of the pond, with Down Syndrome. 

If people argue about abstract single words, then they can get even more heated about abstract logic chains. I can remember when a Marxist study group, meeting down in the basement, would learn a set of steps to a conclusion for good comrades, but by the time the idealists got up onto the streets, among the rest of us, they would be forgetful about the abstract steps, and go right to the Politically Correct conclusion. It was when the rest of us were puzzling over the half-missing steps that leftists felt the need to be especially strident and shaming by saying, “Trust me, that’s not PC!” Well. Human nature means that we will calmly discuss the value of cement versus concrete, while our fiercest arguments will be over fuzzy abstract things like religion, politics and PC.

Fun with abstract scenarios

If I am at a big long table with a dozen folks—not writers but my buddies who play World of Warcraft—and I want to talk about Yankee imperialism by certain Texas Yankees, then my peers might get their Star Trek shirts in a twist: “What if a U.S. citizen was spying on us from Texas using a super-telescope and heard you calling him a Yankee? He would be offended because the Texans fought on the side of the Confederacy, Rebels against Yanks, for the U.S. civil war, so shame on you, for not being PC.”

Same table: One of my male ice hockey buddies, being a little more realistic, might use a few of those few English words that help us to phrase an imaginary state, words known as the “subjunctive,” words such as were, would or could. He might say, “What if a Texan were in this room and what if he would hear you talking about imperialism… and so you shouldn’t say such things, even if, as I must admit, no Texan is present.” 

Next to speak up is my hockey buddy with a sense of humour: “What if a Yankee—I mean a Texan—was just outside the window on his hands and knees in the shrubbery, so we couldn’t see him, but he heard us, and then stood up and yelled in the window?”

Now, I just have to chuckle, and get into the game too, making things four sided. “Well buddy, suppose I had my own telescope to Texas, and so I called them long distance while they were talking. One of them goes over to the land line and says, “Hey you guys, the call display says Canada… Hello?”

“I just heard you people saying some falsehoods about Canada, some myths, shame on you, for no, we do not all live in igloos! You’re not being PC!” …Somehow, I doubt stereotypical Texans care much about PC, not these days. 

(I remember the scandal when new Texas vehicle license plates came out that said, “The friendly state.” Texas changed that in a hurry! At the time, my roommate from Kansas opined that Texans just like to bug the rest of the union—and I can blab that, because I’m in Canada)

At this point, as we are each getting into our differing private abstractions, if any of my buddies claims to have The Truth and be the centre of world, then I have to gently remind him, “Excuse me, an Ugly American would act that way, too.” (By the way, it was secret agent Matt Helm, settled in Santa Fe, who noted: No self-respecting New Mexican wants to be caught sounding like a Texan—and yes, I know I shouldn’t report that on a Canadian blog)

Obviously, talking about labels and “what if” will always sound a little crazy. My buddy says with a tense jaw: “We label jars not people; you must say ‘a person with a gimpy leg,’ not a gimp; say ‘a person of the Jewish persuasion…’”

More private abstractions

One of my thinking tools is the abstraction of Political Correctness. 

According to PC, —I could be wrong— isn’t there is a PC sound barrier, not to be broken, between us and Yankee-land? And doesn’t PC include the concept that if you talk about others then you are “speaking for” them? We would say of a Canadian woman holding two Ph.D’s in “American Studies”, that if she travels below the 49th parallel, she knows less than a high school drop out, at least about certain things in “real” American life, and so if she travels down to the States then she shouldn’t “speak for” Americans. I guess it logically follows: PC-wise, I can’t rush across the border and vent my spleen at some Texans I hear mentioning igloos, either.

At the same time, in the name of Political Correctness, the Americans have no right to complain as my professor talks, when up here, among us fellow-Canadians, about “those” imperializing Americans, no, not even if she accidentally tells us some myths about Yankees. 

(Of course she would document and footnote and quote U.S. citizens in good faith, like me quoting Matt Helm, of course)

Maybe I feel a blazing social warrior leftist temptation to drive to Montana and shout “Power to the 99 per cent!” … Still, I have to let U.S. citizens seek their own salvation. Or at least, not shout, but talk nicely to those Yankee salt of the earth folks politely, talking with them, not at them. Maybe mail them some footnotes, if asked. 

It was an apologist for communism, self-described “Chinese” writer Han Suyin, who said, “Revolution must be neither exported nor imported.” Yes. My citizenship papers are stamped Canada, not U.S. of A, so I’ll cackle whatever crazy thing I want to “among us chickens, up here, about them eagles, down there.” My latest theory is that the U.S. public enables their Yankee Imperialism by holding on to an ignorant plausible deniability. “What? Us? Imperialize? We’re so innocent!” Yeah, you just go on saying that.

A wide eyed peer might earnestly ask me, “Yes, but what if an eavesdropper was innocently out of sight below the window?” 

(I suppose this is getting away from the abstract into the actual concrete examples)

Easy: If it was me I would stand up, walk around the building and enter through the proper door. I would go to the room by the window and wait to be invited to join in. And then I would not hijack the conversation, but wait until it was appropriate to swing the conversation around to igloos. As a Muslim said to me in London, humbling and politely and without any hijacking, “If you want to know anything about Muslims then you can just ask me, for I’m Muslim.” At the time we were sharing a vegetarian, OK-for-Muslims-and-Jews, pizza.

Fun with peers

I wrote about that Muslim man on the jet back from London, for my last visit, just as this time flying home I wrote about Audre Lorde. It was while I was part way through Audre’s book that I met with a man who had moved across the globe to Oxford to raise his boy because it was a “diverse” city. That man was Derek Sivers; we knew each other through his blog, and he bought me a nice breakfast near Saville Row in London.

You may ask: Does the boy call his father a Caucasian? I don’t know, I never asked.

Does the boy know about the various formal races of man, including, “but not limited to,” Caucasian, as found in old textbooks? I doubt it, the boy is only eight. Does he give himself a label? Sure, one he either made up or hears being used by his child peers: He self identifies as brown.

Historians are only half right: We don’t learn from history, but we do learn from our peer groups—too bad they don’t learn from history. They differ in their ability to abstractly see beyond the here and now, just as they vary in their ability to think in term of time and space. Seriously: Have you ever tried to organized a street protest before the deficit has worsened into a dragon? One snorting cutbacks, and breathing fire against government programs? Have folks declined your request to take to the streets early enough to do some good, even though your peers surely know what horrors we went through last time we finally had to kill the deficit? If so, then surely you were viewed as “a crazy minority of one.” Power to the people.

It would be nice if groups were all equal, but no, they aren’t all the same. And that I like, since my different peers can express different aspects of me. Today I see I have mentioned peer groups from writing, computers, athletics and, if you include a peer group of just one, a Muslim. It seems to me that fighting within any given peer group, over fuzzy abstractions, words and labels, is like fighting over fashion: Even if I am are “right” I am are apt to walk away feeling somehow foolish. 

(Example: Should we dress for Stampede Days like a cowboy, or like a real cowboy? One could argue. Should my businessman’s trench coat be a real trench coat, complete with a wee loop for my pistol lanyard? And yes, on Saville Row they do indeed sell such coats. A young British businessman, sent to work in Italy, found that all his peers wore coats without epaulets, so he felt compelled to go back to his hotel and cut off all the epaulets on his coats. Now, before you would make a face in scorn, I would advise a pause… sometimes we really need our sense of "humour and compassion" for a poor lad craving a peer group) 

Specific words

The most Positively Correct peers for me have been the ones who will like me and buy me a beer.  If they go from properly saying cellular telephones to crudely saying cell phones, then me too. The worst peers share my hot ideals but lack a sense of proportion: No "humour and compassion." For them, as they grate on me, I will reach for the lubricant of humour, and alcohol too.

If you, dear reader, want me to say Person of Colour, then all you have do is say that word around me, like my peers saying “cell phone.” But that begs me to ask the question: Up here in Canada, when would you ever say P of C in real life? It could mean that, in order for you to change my everyday language, then, in your own everyday life, instead of talking about the the weather and such trivia, you would need to speak of what you were doing around racism. Yes, I sympathize; it’s hard to take action, and then it’s hard to share from your heart. But if I keep naturally hearing Person of Colour then I’ll naturally start saying the term too. Like how even bigots have exchanged the horribly stigmatized word homosexual for a nice, pretty, new improved one, gay.

Right now, from dear Audre, I keep hearing the word Black… God bless her.

Sean Crawford

In her majesty’s dominion of Canada,

(although Dominion Day has been replaced by Canada day)

At the foothills of the Rocky Mountains,

In the sweetest home city in the world,

(although our sibling rivals in Edmonton would say otherwise)

March

2020

Update of Thursday March 12, regarding opportunities to say to others, "Person of Colour."
There are two Person of Colur documentaries are showing in Edmonton on March 19 at the Garneau. About the time the Person of Colour Panther headquarters was being shot up, as noted one post back, innocent Persons of Colour women working in hospitals were facing the National Guard in their quest for a decent wage. Link

Meanwhile, today on CBC, writer Kiley Reid was interviewed for her book about the Persons of Colour situation called Such a Fun Age. I tuned in at the part where a middle class white woman felt safe that her husband would have no sexual desire for a domestic worker because she was a Person of Colour. 

Reid, a self described as "light-skinned (I forget if there was another word too)" reminded those of us privileged to live in the developed British Commonwealth, including, "but not limited to," Canada and the United Kingdom, how it had warped her life, diverted her employment choices, to live in the only developed country in the world without national healthcare. 

Footnotes:

~I Met a Muslim in London is archived September 2017

~Guilt and Toronto, with Audre Lorde, is archived last week, in March 2020. You might be interested in the essay for Lorde’s definition of racism.

~In Commenters and My Responsibility archived May 2018, I quoted Derek Sivers, who moved to Oxford, at length in my essay, His words in the footnotes are in yellow; his words about the financial costs of unclear writing are in the main essay, in a slightly larger typeface, with some bolding.  

~Call me an artist, but this post was written in the subjunctive imagined world; while in the real world I lack a table saw, man cave and certain peers.

Amusing (and tragic) difference in abstracting the definition of racist:
While normally I would retro-change the words "Negro" or "Black" to Person of Colour, the humour below doesn't work as well unless I report the "dialogue" accurately.

As our leftist friends know, every man, woman and child in Canada is racist because we soak it up from our culture. As least most of us aren't as bad as the TV bigot Archie Bunker, although he could at least have Persons of Colour, the Jeffersons, over to visit him and Edith, or have his son-in-law's Person of Colour friend Lionel come over. All in the Family was the first post-colour TV show filmed (videotaped) before a live studio audience.

 The "and tragic" part of my amusing memory is how my roommate, who divided his time between Canada and the States, driving a sports car down to California, had a definition of racist that differed from our leftist friends—Actually, I guess he spent more time down south than here, since he thought "minus four degrees centigrade" was cold.

I was renting the upper half of a duplex, while down below lived a Malaysian couple who were soon moving out. So they gifted me with a plastic silver platter covered in food and supplies. I remember one gift was a white container of Johnson's baby powder, only the blue writing was in Malaysian, not English.
 So there I was, coming up the stairs and cackling like a witch. Seriously, I was cackling. My roommate was at the top of stairs. "What I like about me," I laughed "is I'm not a racist. Look at all this cool stuff I just got."
The guy exploded, "Sean, of course you're not a racist! You're living with a Black man!"

How Humor Helps the Agenda

essaysbysean.blogspot.com …

September, Friday the 13th, 2019

Hello Reader,

Got humor, as a precision tool to help a formal meeting?

Prologue

Purpose

Humor concepts

During a convention

The Theory

In conclusion 

Prologue

It’s so nice to think I can help people laugh, as I used to be “humor challenged”: That’s what comes of being a child survivor. What I forget is that others can be challenged too.

I was reminded recently at a writer’s circle. A few of us were casually gathered on a Sunday afternoon. I read a bit from my blog (April 2019) about the humor background of abuse survivor Pat Conroy, (The Great Santini) saying that it’s normal to X, (I forget) Y, (I forget) and Z (save up a funny event from the morning to tell folks when when they come home at night).  A dear writer looked surprised, (maybe for X or Y, I forget) and exclaimed, “I never do that!” She wasn’t a nerd—she had a gorgeous personality and a pretty smile—but she was, I guessed, a survivor like me.

Purpose

For her and others, to express 

some concepts of group humor for helping a meeting agenda. 

In the spirit of My College Mentor (archived January 2019) who said he could find “teachable moments” from our behaviour—we were truly a class with much to learn—I could try to find specific lessons from our AGM for the AWCS, also known as, aka, Annual General Meeting for the Alexandra Writers Centre Society.

Fellow readers, I don’t necessarily expect you to care about my fellow artists having an AGM, but I expect to better express things by using real life examples.

Humor Concepts

I was almost the first to comment for our first agenda item: Turns out folks badly wanted an AWCS credit card, but our bylaws we aren’t allowed any debt. I stuck up my hand to say that a bank debit card would not be debt, since it only spends money in the account. Someone swiftly pointed out: The reason individual staff were resorting to using their personal credit cards was that you could buy stuff over the telephone, and so forth. 

To forestall lots of “and so forth” explanations, and yes, to salve my poor ego, I said in a penetrating voice, “I just want to say: ‘Oh. Now-w-w I get it.’” Laughter.

Note: Yes, I was talking for my own ego’s sake, but also to set an example of safe participation, and to prevent the group wasting time explaining the “and so forth,” AND to help the group laugh. After all, AGMs can be awfully cut and dried. 

Concept: Before you joke, or speak up in a meeting, apply Sean’s patented 50% rule. If your purpose is not “50% or more” to help the group… then don’t joke. 

Closely related: If you don’t know your purpose for speaking up, then STOP until you do. Taking a good full second to check your purpose can prevent a lot of empty words.

Fellow citizens, you may recall that in July I mentioned—or at least I meant to—some research from different corners of the world that showed that populist leaders such as Trump will get into power not because a given country is objectively rich or poor, but because of the “income disparity” within a country. 

(How President Reagan turned the key to start economic disparity in America is in Gwynne Dyer’s latest book, reviewed in my post An Experiment Called Civilization archived July 2019)

I mention economic disparity here because during our meeting we talked of building connections with the half-built grand edifice next door. Turns out we were approached by the future occupants. The new building will be for “active seniors” who are “very wealthy”: having walls of mahogany, and —say it with a hushed French accent— a concierge. 

Right before we talked of this, we had been talking about raising membership rates for all of us except our senior citizens, because, as a director said, “On a fixed income, it’s brutal out there.” As it happens, some of us writers are starving artists, AND let’s face it, “disparity,” since the Reagan years, can be “the elephant in the room” that everyone is pretending to ignore. And pretending not to be gritting their teeth about. 

So I spoke up with enthusiasm: “Well, I’m an active senior. After I cook a bowl of ramen noodles I’m going to actively take it over there and eat it.” Laughter, much laughter.

Concept: Taking up the group’s time with a quick reference to an “elephant” is never out of order. Come to think of it, that’s why society needs its artists. To put paint onto invisible elephants. Again, my joke was for others, not “about me.” (Although I pass for being a senior because my hair has gone white—also, I’m in my sixties, past the age of senior-hood in the UK)

Fellow rebels, you may like a reminder: The harshest truths, of course, can only be told with humor. In the court of the Red Queen, only the jester may tell the truth and keep his head on his shoulders… 

Again, the role of artists, including writers, is relevant here: I once saw a communist movie, with English subtitles, where a painter, devalued and scorned, yelled, “You (society) need me!” Even under godless communism, or an oppressive Muslim theocracy, there needs to be art. 

In talking about our AWCS membership rates, some folks compared them to various comparable artist organizations. Well. Can you name any? I hated to be harsh, but I spoke up, “(oh, I don’t know,) If I was a writer, I wouldn’t know that the Writers Guild of Alberta charged a fee, and (lowering my voice sheepishly) I wouldn’t care.” Much laughter. The executive director spoke up that we could inform folks about other organizations and…

Concept: A quick funny one-liner can be a catalyst. As in getting the director talking. Once something has been said, a perspective unblocked, or an elephant made real, then people can say more on the subject, or at least have it in their awareness. Laughter often comes from surprise, and surprise often comes from something new, something that needs to be added to the group’s vocabulary.

I believe humor is a precision tool: firstly as a practical means to help a meeting be more productive; then secondly as a means to quality of life. As when meeting 

during a convention.

Last month I attended a weekend for readers and writers, When Words Collide. Events started Friday at 1:00 p.m. On Saturday morning I attended the very earliest Words seminar of the day, where an author, Adam Dreece, stood at the front to share his hard-won wisdom about independent marketing and publicity. Some of us had staggered in hung over, some still waking up. Dreece was a conscientious fellow, who made reference to us meeting so early, and hoping he was teaching OK. Early in his lecture he paused to ask: “Any questions or comments so far?”

I decided to be supportive: My hand went up. “A comment. This is the best seminar I’ve attended all day!” Laughter.

Dreece said, “That’s the second best compliment I’ve had all day!” Laughter. Then he took time to inform us that he got that “second best” line from the old spy comedy Get Smart, adding that when he was with his kids driving past a tourist monument such as a Ukrainian giant Easter egg, he would exclaim, “Wow, that’s the second biggest Easter egg I’ve ever seen!”

Concept: Before you do an “increase our quality of life” joke take time to do my special check-for-time gut check, (not patented) asking yourself, “Is is OK to use the group’s time for this?” The fact that Dreece would ‘take my contribution and run with it’ is proof I had judged correctly. Come to think of it, if you don’t know, from doing your gut check, whether or not you are “grounded” and “centred” and “genuinely moved to speak” then you probably aren’t: Stay silent, there’ll be other chances to contribute.

The seminar rolled on. I was sitting beside Minkee Robinson, who has been published in the same British anthology as I, The Baby Shoes Project, (Named for the tragic Hemingway story) Late in the seminar Minkee was part of our “audience participation,” with something intelligent to say. Sometimes I can be intelligent too, so right after Minkee I shot up my hand again. “Yes?”

I grinned widely. “The lady beside me says, ‘This is still the best seminar she’s been to all day!’” Laughter and clapping. Yes!

“That is the third best compliment I’ve had all day.” Laughter.

Note: Saying indirectly, “The lady beside me says…” besides being funny in itself, allowed for a second of suspense; good jokes have suspense before the punchline.

Concept: Laughter is increased if there is repetition, or—and this is a form of repetition—if there is a reference to something said earlier in the meeting. You find this at events where there is a quick series of good humored speakers who keep spontaneously referring to something an earlier speaker had said. Sometimes successive speakers can really keep a theme going: The fact that all this wit is improvised, “live before their very eyes,” adds to the crowd’s enjoyment.

That’s all I have for recent concrete examples. Any nerd wishing to learn to do group humor would do well to start with the concrete, and then move to  

the theory 

I would remind you, dear reader, that my 50% rule applies to things such as venting your spleen, expressing your pet peeve and putting yourself into the spotlight. Don’t-don’t-don’t use up a whole formal group’s time for your own private purpose. Your spleen will still be there when you retire with informal friends to the bar. 

If, say, “getting attention” is only a minor part of your motivation then you will be forgiven: I always am. But if you’re being too egotistical, as the flip side of being too needy, then it’s like showing fear before a dog. Folks at a formal meeting or seminar will notice, and they won’t be charitable. So first do the gut check for time, and for the 50% thing too.

In conclusion, to review my points… Actually, the theory right above is your conclusion. And you can review each of my points by looking for words in bold. 

But if you still want a final word, then OK, this I believe: 

At the formal group level, properly and precisely employed, humor helps us all… and thereby helps world peace. 

Sean Crawford

September,

High River

2019

Footnotes:

~The theory of using humor to help a group advance against stormy winds of fear is in my essay Kubrick and Work or Fear archived December 2016.

~Today’s essay was held back from September to allow space for posting War of the Worlds poetry and essay re-runs, such as last weeks Sarah Connor one. Why? Because I am still trying to free up my time to maybe begin to start to attempt to tackle the writing of fiction.

~ The weekend convention title is a pun on the old Philip Wylie novel, later made into a 1950’s black and white movie.

~We liked hearing Adam Dreece. I haven’t read any of his fiction yet, but I enjoyed his book Five Critical Things for Successful Book Signings. It’s about far, far more than signings.

~Minkee Robinson has a story soon to be published in a school reader. Ca-ching! She only found her acceptance letter because she checked her spam folder. Close call!

~Sometimes I answer people: “My hobby? Writing essays.” As I see their eyes begin drooping from boredom, I hasten to say” Not academic ones, not like school kids write…” Then their eyes open again. But if, dear reader, you like academic writing, and you have some cash to spend, then here you go, here is your link to an article called Meeting Mirth… an article that I don’t ever plan to read myself.

Trust and Ugly Americans

essaysbysean.blogspot.com

Hello Reader,

Got Trust Issues? …

Got Ugly Americans?

Got an idea how the two are connected?

The previous blog post , URLs Again, had some interesting links (web addresses) 

Ugly American

One of the links was to a post by a famous blogger, Mark Manson, called Ten Things Most Americans Don’t Know About America. (footnote) As I was putting that link into context for my dear readers, I realized something. The “penny dropped” as I wrote:

“…written by an American, but not by an “Ugly American,” Mark Manson, living abroad, has truly mingled as an equal, and has a Brazilian wife.”

As you may know, the book The Ugly American, later a Marlon Brando movie, was a best seller that introduced that phrase into our culture. (and inspired the creation of the Peace Corps) The book came about because two well-traveled men thought America was “shooting itself in the foot” (my phrase) during the Cold War, that time of desperate competition with the Second World for the hearts and minds of the Third World. They first typed out an entire book of nonfiction, ripped it up, and then resorted to a series of short stories. In their book, the writers said the best advertisement for democracy was the Americans themselves, back home, where they are plain spoken, humble and gracious to guests, but… as soon as they put even one foot across their border—Whammo!—they turn ugly. Turn into snobs.

In Vietnam, just as in the book, this meant Americans staying with the snob elite in Saigon, while totally avoiding the villages that were… one, by one, by one… voting to go communist and support the guerrillas. (Viet Cong) In Iraq, as is well documented, this meant segregating themselves inside the elite “green zone.” Americans, as you know, were waging America’s War on Terror through their great task of striving for their noble goal of instilling democracy in Iraq. And equality. This while somehow avoiding all the common cab drivers, barbers and interpreters who, if any, any Americans had cared to humbly ask, would have unanimously advised, “Are you crazy? You can’t just…”

Snobs, eh? Would Canadians agree? Well, not about all Yankees, let’s not stereotype, but put it this way: I am still chuckling over folks in a charter flight to England, while still on the tarmac in Toronto, being addressed by their Canadian tour guide, who reminded them, “When we get to England, don’t act like American tourists.” People groaned. Did I say it was a charter? Of veterans and their spouses? Half the passengers were U.S. citizens. Who, by the way, got along well with their fellow North Americans, members of the Royal Canadian Legion.

Would Americans agree? Some are so ashamed of their ugly countrymen that when they backpack in England they put a Canadian flag on their pack. I’m still chuckling at a Canadian saying to a pair of young men in Paris, “Hi guys! What part of Canada are you from?” “New Jersey.”

Would I agree? I don’t know any more than the two writers do about the mystery of why Americans turn ugly, but I can humbly offer two small pieces to the puzzle: I think one reason is that Yankees don’t mingle as an equal. As we know from everyday life back home, snobs just don’t mingle well. They isolate. A second reason would require a whole page to explain: Trust Issues.

Trust Issues

Snobs don’t trust the natives.

My past is relevant to a recent slowness to act. “I was not always the man you see before you.” Many years ago I lived in a dark place. Compared to later years, my everyday self esteem was very much lower, my ever-present shame very much greater. Happily, I did personal growth, to the point that my chaplain noted my very voice had changed. (Not from aging) An old army roommate, honourably discharged and now a social worker, said to me, “You’re a success story.” His words I would gladly set up on the same shelf as my awards and medal. (Significantly, perhaps, we both stayed in the city of our last posting)

Part of my growth was from being in one or more self-help groups. At our meetings I would not talk of abstract things, however good, nor of what I was “gonna do” but rather, I told of specific events during my past week, of what I had just done and what it meant. I was admitting my mistakes, and sharing my strength and hope. In our sharing we were leading by examples of the good, the bad and the ugly. 

I suppose our meetings worked like evolution where, from our sharing about behaviours with consequences, over time the fittest behaviours would prevail. We found it useful to talk in simple non-medical terms, such as “isolating” and “boundaries.” I don’t think we ever said the term “trust issues” but I am saying it now. Until recently, I had known only two such unfortunates. (Now my ex-boss is a third)

One was a lady in my shared house. She was an angry communist who distrusted the capitalist world, meaning: just about everybody. The masses, including you and I, were too stupid to rise up for a revolution. An illustrative example of her trust issues: We found someone’s cat. Of course we only kept it temporarily. The thing was this: She hid the cat, when the owner came by, for fear that “owner,” a respectable ordinary looking woman, was not the real owner.

The other such person I knew was my girlfriend, angry and impatient with society. It seemed to me back then that our relationship meant trusting that we were safe to be emotionally intimate, use silly pet names and be naked. We managed to do the naked part but… it took me a while to grasp that no amount of me being honourable and trustworthy, again and again over time, would ever get her to feel trusting of me… She wasn’t a communist, but she did have a comparable superiority, believe that 90% of the population had an addiction, that everybody lives in daily grave danger of falling into an addiction to something.

Some might say: Too bad most people don’t know the joys of abstaining and only drinking plain water. Some might say: Too bad most people are too unenlightened to realize the joys of socialism. I would say: Such views are a form of snobbery. Great Superiority is a counterfeit coin: the obverse side is Greatly Distrusting. I would add that superiority is a crutch most unworthy.

From both my childhood and our popular culture (think schoolteacher getting mad or an angry sargeant) comes a “social contract”: You are allowed to be angry from having your higher standards, and in return you have to know what you are doing. But of course the contract is a sham. My best sergeants only raised their voices for emphasis, not anger. Same with each of the most accomplished ladies and gentlemen I have ever met. Even folks dealing with medical life and death, such as nurses and folks in my own profession, disabilities, will not be angry but instead firm and fair.

One of my imperfections as a young person was that I was too stubborn to name drop, place drop, or do other things to look cool. It worked out alright for me, as the friendly folks and the most secure cool folks would still want to get to know me. I thought: Never mind the rest. 

Another imperfection, partly as wimp-proofing, and partly as distrust, was my philosophy of “never complain, never explain.” My distrust: What if I tried to state something as a mitigating factor, and was then accused of making an excuse? Or worse: what if my side of the story wasn’t believed? What if I was called a crazy liar? My self esteem was low enough already without accusations. Better to be tough. It would all work out, I thought, because if someone worked or socialized with me over time, then they would surely get to know the real me far beyond my poor power to add or detract.

(Note: In healthy everyday life, with common sense trust, I do try to respect you and me when we complain or explain) 

I confess: Recently, at a certain part-time (fortnightly) workplace, my own unease around a boss with “trust issues” might have meant I gave up on him too easily. Then again, I try to be humbly conscious, as a “creative artist-type,” that I might be wrong about things, and that I might be wrong as to how much he and others should believe in inclusiveness and respect. 
(Two topics I’ve used for essays in the summer of 2018) 

Now, after making allowances, I have surely done all I can. In fact, I have at last taken action: I have resigned. This essay helps to put my “time-to-resign” insights into perspective.

Where my imperfect philosophy breaks down, of course, is when I encounter an angry superior isolating Ugly American. Because if such a person has trust issues… then despite rubbing shoulders over time I never can build any credibility. The “penny dropped” when I realized that if my boss is superior and disrespectful of everyone else too—and he surely is, grotesquely so, as much as my housemate and girlfriend—then almost no one he knows ever earns any credibility. Everyone in his world is forever at square one. Not just me. 

So I can say to myself, “Self, don’t take it personally, and give up any hope for change over time.” An illustrative example, which I won’t give any details for, was when my boss and I had a slight altercation last week, including his unethical breaking of the “social contract.” We simply weren’t dialoguing properly, certainly not as equals, but rather, with me as the native and him as the Ugly American. I did not offer a certain useful opinion, or a certain useful fact, because I knew from his anger he wasn’t interested. Was the issue “too angry?” Nope—Too disrespectful! Too bad, as it was a useful-to-him fact, too.

Of course I won’t divulge any historical workplace details: Too private for him, too distasteful for me, and—(cough)—too revealing of my formerly low self esteem. I am sad to say: A normal person would have resigned much earlier. But besides other reasons, I wanted to work on my own issues, on “my own side of the street” first… Snobs don’t ask for my help, and no I won’t, even now, give that boss any constructive feedback. No figurative exit interview.

(…Partly I won’t because there have been other folks quitting: If I have no value with that boss, then fine, let them give the feedback… except, as I only now realize, they wouldn’t feel valued either, not enough to offer vulnerable thoughts from their hearts and minds…)

Why not give feedback? Because it wouldn’t have worked for my old housemate: Character flaws are impervious to advice or logic. Besides, I don’t like to take chances with people who bizarrely don’t trust me; better to practise being strong and silent.

As for Americans in Iraq, I can sympathize with their initial culture shock at others having different opinions and beliefs, along with the almost inevitable “blame the natives” for one’s own discomfort, that’s merely human nature, but… After time has passed? Still? I wonder: How many Americans departed Iraq with their trust-level and respect-level for Iraqis no different than when they had first arrived and hadn’t even interacted with any natives yet? 

Snobs don’t change.

Sean Crawford

Calgary

2019

Footnotes:

~Here’s the (link) to the above post of Mark Manson.

~Don’t worry, my ex-boss won’t have his feelings hurt by reading this. I’m sure he doesn’t even read mass newspapers and flyers, let alone obscure web essays.

~The functional way to trust is to start in the middle trust level, and then raise or lower trust over time based on experiences such as from socializing together, or from seeing the person flinch at “too much information.” One might avoid the latter mistake with “share, check, share, check.”

~Among the least of reasons for not writing about any work details is my old self-help group’s concept of “don’t take (scrutinize) someone else’s (flaws) inventory.” Among the least of the reasons for this advice is wimp-proofing: Every minute spent thinking about another person is a minute of escaping any work on one’s own issues. 

To illustrate: That fellow that bitterly stalked his ex-girlfriend for ten years? I think he spent his ten years without getting any new girlfriend. 

By the way, as reported on CBC radio, the stalking didn’t stop until he died in a car accident. The police, for ten years, beginning with their saying, “He’ll soon get over it,” had been useless. Ten years of terror.

~For any young survivors reading this: 

Please don’t lose hope from reading my recent story. I know, I was wrong to stay too long at a gig unworthy of me, one where I was not valued, but that gig is only a very small blip on my big radar screen of life: I can assure you that right now at my functional full time job I am greatly valued for doing great work.

(As for documenting growth, last Monday night a poet at a coffee house microphone singled me out to people, last Friday night at a formal kickoff party I was singled out: In both cases I had to raise my hand to show myself to the crowd. Tonight I will be at a microphone myself, with enough self esteem to speak clearly and feel warmly valued from a monthly open mic community) 

Personal growth is real and possible. I can say this because I have done so.

Once you have experienced stage fright, you are always aware that it could be just around the corner waiting for you, just waiting for you to get cocky and overconfident. So you treat the body and the brain with much more respect, and you remain conscious always of the shadow in the corner.

Lawrence Olivier

For me, the capacity for shadowy self doubt always remains. 

I got that line from a fellow with a Ph.D, a successful writer, in his book The Content of Our Character. He, Shelby Steele, was (unknown to his family) verbally abused during class by a white racist during just a single year of elementary school. Other parents got the man fired, and the boy was told it wasn’t his fault, and this was logically true, but for the rest of his successful life the capacity for self doubt was always there. He thought the tension between everyday self esteem and this capacity was a distinctive part of each person’s makeup. I think the abusive year made him a better human, better able to dialogue with young black undergraduates and with white “fellow middle class” folk.

As Tiny Tim said, “God bless us, everyone.”

Fear and War of the Worlds

essaysbysean.blogspot.com

Hello Reader,

Got fear?

Never have I been a stressed entrepreneur, never have I looked like that wide-eyed cartoon fellow in bed on those late night commercials: Debts keeping you awake at night? 

The most I knew of fear, as an older civilian, was being a student: Term papers coming due and final exams looming, during a time when, back before I had learned to do all my schoolwork on campus, I might find myself, while at home, walking through molasses like the soldiers in Rudyard Kiplings poem who were temporarily sheltered behind a hill: (from memory)

And now the hugely bullets,

Come pecking through the dust,

And no one wants to face them,

But every body must,

So like a man in irons, 

Who doesn’t want to go,

They move them off by companies,

Uncommon stiff and slow.

As a civilian, even when doing public speaking, I would guess I was not so much afraid as very anxious. I can say this because earlier still, as a soldier, I was partnered with the real thing: Mr. Fear. He wears a black robe with a hood… During World War II an officer who served almost alone behind enemy lines in the jungle—while his father, a senior officer, was a Prisoner Of War of the Japanese—reflected on why his army training had been so scary. Simple: So that when you are in combat, the intense feelings will be familiar, rather than a complete surprise. Incidentally, he survived the war, and then found that his father, who used to bizarrely disrespect him, had to stop doing so.

By the way, my army buddies were not like Ernest Hemingway: We thought Earnest was a tad unreal. And hey, I fished in Hemingway’s river, in Europe! (We were forbidden to use our leave to go fishing back in North America, for obvious reasons)

I see I’m avoiding, looping around the topic of fear, like roaring PT boats on a looping approach to a battleship: (with a complete circle near the end) Forgive me, for as a true product of our society, this topic isn’t easy for me to come at directly. 

Years ago, standing in a campus library, too busy to sign the book out, I once opened the Pulitzer Prize winning book Tales of the South Pacific. I found, I imperfectly recall, a scene on the beach, in broad daylight, with young men who crew Patrol Torpedo boats. 

The young men—boys to us oldsters—are going out at night into harms way, crewing boats where the hull was not naval armour-grade steel, nor simple freighter steel, but only wood—nothing to protect them but their speed, using motors that run on extremely flammable aviation fuel. On the beach, a much older man, a respected construction worker, keeps saying how he wouldn’t like to be going out in those flimsy boats, not him, too scary, “you guys are crazy.” The young men don’t get angry—of course not. They laugh, and laugh hysterically, and bring him lots of beer. Because he is saying what society cannot say, what they cannot say. For they are young and life is sweet, but the night sea is vast.

What I want to say, however hard to admit, is this: Fear exists, and it has an effect. 

(For me, as a high metabolism skinny artistic guy, I know fear makes my brain confused—Hence the armed forces use highly repetitive training—not at all boring, not when you realize the alternative) 

I say this because as a society we don’t understand fear—we minimize it. But we shouldn’t.

In denying fear, we may also minimize lesser things like anxiety.

I was standing in a “special needs” home one Saturday, on a day when I was not working there; I had merely popped in for some reason. Virginia was an experienced worker at the home. That day she wanted to get her difficult client the heck out of the house, but—to where? She was stuck as to where he could safely go. So I suggested an appropriate idea. Then another. And another. Abruptly, poor Virginia looked so despairing, saying that I could come up with ideas, but she couldn’t. I remonstrated with her: “Vir-gin-ia, it’s not my shift! My brain is not squished down with responsibility like yours is.” 

I have no shame in saying “stress” or “pressure” or “discomfort” or “squished” when that is more helpful to my listener than saying “fear,” a word our society is just not ready for. But once I connect my “pressure” to, er, my “functioning level” at sports or work or everyday living, then I am able to cope much better. (Such as when taking penalty shots) As a manager I keep fear in mind. As a chairman in a big meeting, I will keep scanning the group for anxiety and fear—realizing that surely the group is not as conscious as I am, surely no one is going to say the F-word—and then I will take whatever measures are needed. (If only the group’s tasks were easy, then someone else could be the chairman) 

Back in college, I learned how to chair from My College Mentor (archived January 2019) And in college theatre class, we learned what it felt like to be relaxed on stage. How? By truly tensing our muscles to discern what the opposite of relaxation felt like. Of course, learning about the world’s stage, and gaining wisdom, is a process that takes time. My essay today is to remind myself and my readers that coming to appreciate fear is a process. I trust Virginia is more aware now.

This poem is when the narrator, who has joined up with his sisters, Janet and Susan, is commenting on life in the shadow of the Martians.

After the Martians Used Alien Warfare

Black Smoke,

left a dead and desolate land.

When Martian missiles arced overhead,

the birds were the first to fall.

Near the end,

the Martians had worked in the next valley.

At night we had often seen a fearsome glow.

One evening I saw their machines prowling on the ridgeline.

We lived in fear.

Death has passed us.

Now we putter around the old farmhouse.

In the drizzle this is truly November country,

leafless trees all wet and grey and black,

ground all wet and muddy with dead grass.

I’m cold and glum.

My soul is chill.

Janet’s lungs are wet,

and she sees glints like phantom mica.

Susan limps without complaint.

They enjoy the clouds and sunsets.

No birds to be seen.

No morning songs.

Janet coughs, “I miss the birds.”

Susan totters by without complaint.

She croaks that even before the Martians,

“The birds were doomed.”

Sean Crawford

Calgary

July

2019