When I started self-publishing my “story” through my books
and websites in the 90s (with blogs to follow), there wasn’t much question that
my “story” (regarding a civilian college expulsion and then getting “drafted”
anyway) would be relevant (with some irony) to the debate on gays in the
military as it had developed. I was able
to “sell” copies of the book and get speaking engagements in the 1997-1999 time
period. Traffic on my websites grew
steadily as Google and other engines indexed everything (even without applying
or using meta-tags very much). There was
no need to be particularly aggressive in “selling” my book or content although
I did chose strategies for specific and correlated audiences.
Over time, my coverage of things enlarged in “concentric
circles” and I indeed became a pundit, with the connection to the original
issues (discrimination v. shared risk or responsibility) somewhat forgotten or
covered. It was apparent I had a real
“stake” in things when this all started;
that’s not particularly apparent now. I still live in a separate world from
social-emotional closed circuits of most people. I observe, watch, and report, and
comment. Yet, it seems I don’t have my
own skin in the game now, even though I once did. And while my “giving back” and “paying my
dues” seems necessary morally and as a way to help with stability, it’s very
hard to dive into the worlds of others (for example, to mentor the
disadvantages) without taking orders again.
The “mind your own business” principle becomes very double-edged and
inconsistent. And unsolicited emotional
pleas become intrusive, and repetitive.
All of this could twist on a head. I remember one time, about ten years ago,
after I had returned to Virginia, when my mother said I should never mention
William and Mary in public again. Of
course, I had to ignore her; the whole business model for the “second half of
my life” (post “All-Star Break”) had started with the WM Expulsion-NIH period
and what it meant. She really never
understood what was going on while I lived here.
Actually, I had more skin in the game than people saw. Everyone is emotional about eldercare, but
nobody talks about the fact that there are filial responsibility laws, and the
ethical and financial (and public policy) conundrum they could cause if they
were enforced and taken seriously.
“Everybody” begs for the government to mandate paid paternal leave (or
paid family leave), but no one wants to talk about how to pay for it. (True, in Europe, it seems to work relatively
well, but why it does, that deserves a whole “Vox explanation”, not out there
yet.) There were times when I “worked
for free” (unpaid overtime as salaried) when others took sudden family leave. Over the years, there have been many other examples where I have "skin" in the game of an issue, especially with public health.
That brings me to another point. Sometimes, bringing up “logical” objections
to a popular idea is seen as rude. To
object to paid family leave might be seen that way, from someone who “doesn’t
have kids” – someone not willing to take the “risk” or “responsibility” to have
them but instead remaining a free spirit with disposable time, income and
wealth – maybe because he wasn’t sexually competitive enough to have children
in the first place. We’re different, but
we do have to sit in the same canoe sometimes.
Some people see monitoring of sensitive issues like this as
the function of the “natural family” or of its leadership. Our world of hyper-individualism is rather
exceptional in historical terms. Most
societies have been organized into clans or tribes, where there was great
emphasis on family survival. Having and
raising children was a necessity, not a choice.
Homosexuality and marital infidelity (at opposite or separate vertices
today) were seen as offenses against the family or tribe, but not against
specific people or victims (often translated religiously as disobedience to God
or Allah). Family socialization taught
people to live together in close quarters, often under conditions of forced
intimacy common with poorer populations (or low-tech). They had to share risks together against
common perils and enemies (which sounds like the Middle East today). Life was not a matter of choices. A family patriarch (or sometimes religious
leader) was empowered to decide who could afford to make “sacrifices” without
insulting others in the group and jeopardizing the tribe. Speaking out or complaining about a
sacrifice, even if not “fair” in modern individualistic thinking centered
around narrow ideas of personal responsibility, was seen as rude or even
dangerous. Hence the Internet censorship
in many parts of the world, or the comment about WM from my mother. In this kind of world, social competitiveness
was understood as a good in itself, and the ability to get others to take your
orders was seen as important (even if the orders were for the wrong “reasons”). Yes, we call this authoritarian. Sometimes it does result in stability, even
at the cost of individual liberty, And
it does invite corruption. It sounds like Chicago under Daley.
At a local level, tribal culture is indeed communitarian
(almost as Marx would have liked). Family
members take care of their own first, under leadership, and that doesn’t always
wait for having your own children.
Morally, one place where things break down is in reaching out beyond the
family or tribe. Often religious custom
or law determines how that is to happen.
Social skills acquired within the family should enable
reaching out, to those (especially impoverished) in other places or countries
who are very “different”. But often
tribalism discourages this (look at how the child migrant crisis is getting
debated). Individualism would encourage
outreach with intellectual justification, but sometimes falter at actually
doing it.
Many of the ideas of how people should behave in the family
or tribe affect social norms in public, at least informally, as the law becomes
less important with succeeding generations wanting a libertarian approach.
There is still the nagging question of how
the “different” person (like me) interacts with others when he seems to have
less personal stake in them and doesn’t find gratuitous interactions or sharing
with others rewarding or meaningful. I’ve
been used to seeing the “poor” (etc) as those who failed morally or
competitively, but I’ve come to know (especially in recent years, at least
intellectually) that a lot of times a lot of luck and fortune is involved. My personal attitude toward individual others
(especially those at a disadvantage) mirrors the attitude peers often had
toward me. That raising disturbing
questions in a society that says it values all human life as miraculous and
special. I can’t say that I always feel
that way.
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