Another Doomed Attempt

NOTE Edited slightly to correct typos and a couple of infelicitous phrasings. I suck at proofreading my stuff.

It is quite difficult to explain to most people I know and associate with as friends on a voluntary basis, what it is like to live in a completely different culture. The one I'm trying to describe is the one I grew up in, the one where most of my family and the people I grew up with still live, conservative, working-to-middle class, heartland. (In this case the heartland is NE Oklahoma.)

This has been brought to my attention once again by the universal repulsion on most of the blogs I read over remarks made by the junior senator from Oklahoma, Jim Inhofe, about the Abu Gharib mess. Inhofe's web page has a transcription of the senator's remarks here. (Scroll down and click on the link that says Transcription....) The transcription begins:

SEN. INHOFE: Thank you, Mr. Chairman. I -- well, first of all, I regret I wasn't here on Friday. I was unable to be here. But maybe it's better that I wasn't, because as I watched the -- this outrage, this outrage everyone seems to have about the treatment of these prisoners, I was, I have to say -- and I'm probably not the only one up at this table that is more outraged by the outrage than we are by the treatment. The idea that these prisoners -- you know, they're not there for traffic violations. If they're in cell block 1-A or 1-B, these prisoners, they're murderers, they're terrorists, they're insurgents. Many of them probably have American blood on their hands. And here we're so concerned about the treatment of those individuals.

Of course everyone is pointing out all the obvious from well, in fact, some sources say 70-90% of those people were there by mistake from being in the wrong place at the wrong time, to if you want to be the good guy you have to act like a good guy. He's been called a disgrace to Oklahoma, the US, and the human race.

Senator Inhofe has been elected Senator by Oklahomans three times. He and Oklahoma's senior senator, Don Nickles are in the top 15 most conservative senators in the 108th Congress. So Nickles has been elected even more times. Which frankly boggles my mind and I grew up there. But more Oklahomans have chosen them than not, and they probably agree with the sentiments Inhofe expresses above. I'm quite sure all my relatives have voted for both.

That particular culture is way different than the one I and my friends inhabit. They get all their news from the TV and local newspapers. And in some cases the owners of the stations and the newspapers are the same. The Gaylord family, which owns the OKC newspaper and at least one TV station, is infamous for its conservatism. In a very conservative state. (Gaylord Senior opposed dregding the Arkansas river to make it navigable because it would open our heartland to Russian subs. I couldn't possibly make that up.) I've been checking the Tulsa World and Oklahoman newspapers and they haven't really said much of anything about Inhofe's remarks. I don't much expect they will.

It's a culture which does not particularly value education and book learning and where intellectual curiosity is unknown and questions are suspect. They are actually good people at heart and not unintelligent, but they believe pretty much what the government/media tell them is true. The simply do not believe their government will lie to them, unless absolutely necessary for national security. They believe this because they are, at heart, honest people who know that if they were the govenrment, they would do what's right and so the government must be.

Discussions at my family's gatherings are about people and things and occasionally the news. They don't talk about ideas or question belief. I have been accused of being disrespectful to my parents because I believe and live differently than they do and than they think I ought. I have been accused of enjoying putting people down when I supply factual information, even when I'm doing it as a sort of , 'isn't this neat' kind of thing. They know what is right and what is wrong and they don't thank you for questioning that knowledge. And, of course, they're not likely to go seeking additional news sources which would call that surety into question. I've tried for most of my life to get my parents and sister to see that there are things beyond their small world; but they don't want to see, let alone go to, those other places. They don't want to move out of their comfortable, secure, and known world. (My sister owns a complete set of the Left Behind books. In hardcover. Proudly displayed in the living room.)

These are the people we talk about trying to wake up, educate, get on our side while being respectful and not insulting them. I don't know that it can be done. Not when they consider me disrespectful for merely living my life my way instead of theirs. Mostly they don't want to be awakened, don't want to be educated, don't want to know. I mean, what can you do about a society that re-elect Inhofe and Nickles?

Comments

[Jill Smith]

MKK, you remind me of a comment I once made to my mother (who somehow managed to emerge intellectually curious and with an intact BS filter from a conservative Indiana family).

"Where did you COME from?" I asked. She had no answer for me. She and I have speculated that a cuckoo may have nested near her house near the time of her birth...

It's so difficult not to explode in the face of your own family's worldview. My father is incredibly eager to lap up jingoistic swill from his inbox and pass it along to everyone he knows. My continued exhortations to use snopes as a basic hoax-checker have gone for naught. He is eager to believe the worst of the world he refuses to understand. It's sad. And a bit disgusting.

[Mary Kay]

I've often wondered where I came from myself. I really do put part of it down to reading fantasy and science fiction; it exposed me to lots of new ideas. I was, however, open to those ideas and was just too dammed stubborn to let, what at that time appeared to be, the rest of the world tell me what to think.

I exploded at them far too many times when I was younger, dumber, and more impatient. Shut up you there in the peanut gallery. None of them listen to me anymore. I try really really hard not to discuss anything important with them.

MKK

[chris.]

Goodness. I know exactly what you're talking about; you could just as well be describing the Central Pennsylvania where i grew up. While my mother was out here visiting this past march she tried to start in on the upcoming election & government & how she's tired of people going on about how big business is so bad because don't they know that business is what makes the country go 'round & so it's ok that they get all these government breaks & .... I had to ask her to just stop, to please just stop, because we were going to disagree & i simply didn't want to get into it. And she accused ME of being closed-minded. Forget that i've heard all her, & my grandfather's, conservative arguments for the past 31-yrs. No, *i'm* the one who's closed-minded. SIGH.

[Mary Kay]

Chris: Obviously, we're sisters under the skin!

MKK

[Wampus]

FWIW, an editorial in the Norman (OK) Transcript called Sen. Inhofe an "embarrassment" and his comments "shameful." And some on local talk radio, which can sometimes be more fascistic than Michael Savage, have called the comments "regretful."

How I wish some rich oilies would pool their money to create a second newspaper in Oklahoma City.

[Wampus]

Whoops! I apologize for the subject-verb nonagreement.

[Mary Kay]

Wampus: Well, yeah. But everyone knows Norman is a hotbed of commie pinko faggot hippies. Where I'm proud to say I lived for a total of 9 years while getting a BS and an MLS. Thanks for the info.

MKK

[fidelio]

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[fidelio]

I apologize for desecrating your blog with repetitive sentence fragments. That computer was exercising its right to be a counterproductive item of technology to the full extent of its powers. My bad.

As I was attempting to say when technology failed me, while I was talkig with my sister Sunday night, we discussed how much this was a problem for us currently. We grew up in a town a lot like Norman, in the Missouri Ozarks. There was, and still is, such a dichotomy between the mindsets of the university and non-university sections of the community that there were pretty much two different communities. Although we've both gone back there for brief visits since we left, and these have generally been for family reasons. Luckily, our parents were part of the universiy community, and had been the ones to leave the farm, and turn down different paths. We grew up exposed to the value of education and the results of free thought, as well as the use of the scientific method to examine ideas and concepts. As a result, we don't have the schism you suffer, but have nothing to say to far too many of the people we grew up with.

For a lot of these folks, education and the examination of ideas must be rejected, because once you start examining things and asking questions, the answers have a horrible habit of not being the ones they were hoping for. I think in some cases they simply fear change, because they don't know what the new thing will be and have no idea how to deal with it. In others, it may be that they've so identified themselves with one set of answers they fear they'll be devalued if those "answers" are set aside.

There's something that keeps coming to mind when I deal with such people--Maslow's self-actualization theory. They've simply accepted the answers they were given, rather than going through the pain and effort of working out answers for themselves. Those who insist on attempting to make the effort to reach beyond that stage are a threat, because they suggest that simply accepting the given is not enough. Worse yet, they might force the unwilling to undergo the process themselves, after which they might be different people who would not be satisfied with the way things are anymore.

Even now, so many of the people my sister and I deal with on a daily basis, in our different parts of the country, fall into the unquestioning acceptance group. It's easier. It's less frightening. When they are confronted with situations such as what we've had since 9/11/01, they try desperately to reduce things to a form that fits their view of The Way The World Is Really. I find no benefit in arguing; I restrict serious discussion to people who are willing to use their brains for more than cataloguing congealed salad recipes and sporting statistics. You have my profound sympathy, however, since you have it the bosom of your family can must grit your teeth whenever you deal with them.

I always shake my head in wonder when people marvel at how much of the military comes from small towns; so often, it's not just economics that send them forth to Uncle Sam. A family from such a place who can't accept a child leaving for any other reason will accept the military. It's a patriotic duty: they can be proud because Earl JR (or Jolene) is Serving Their Country, and they don't have to explain this choice to anyone at church. It's a Good Thing, and everyone back home is impressed. Earl JR (or Jolene) have at least found a way into the Wide World. It's not amazing that they use this escape route, if you know that part of the country. So many of them only come back for holidays and major family occasions, too, even after they've left the service, which is telling.

I wish you some better news, and improved peace of mind soon. I remember the shock people underwent over the Vietnam War protests, over Watergate, and other problems since. It's not simply that these are troubled times, but that current events (and those previous ones) do not fit on the map they've made in their heads. They can handle the ordinary range of troubles--it's the ones that aren't on their maps that drive them so inward.

[Mary Kay]

Yes! Yes! That's all exactly it!

The military also often provides the only viable career choices in town. Myself, I never really went back, except for visits, after I left for college. Of course, my mother's mother told her that she had ruined both of her daughters by allowing them to go off and get educated.

MKK

[fidelio]

Well, there is that old saying, "Your daughter's your daughter all of your life; your son's your son until he gets him a wife." Daughters are supposed to stay home, marry locally, look after the old folks, and keep the world glued together by taking care of people and things in general. An educated one has career choices, and therefore may not fulfill these esssential small-town duties. She may be more useful to herself, but (in a short-sighted way) she's not as useful to the clan. This is, after all, a pre-industrial view of society.