INFORMATION #3 09-22-1997 - Laserfiche WebLink

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FALL 1997 5 MEMORANDA FROM THE EDGE Jon Hohenstein If ignorance is bliss, I must know some of the happiest people on earth. Sometimes after a long day, that's just the way I feel. The burr under my saddle lately is the number of self-appointed victims walking around. The Grand Army of the Put Upon seems to grow with each passing day and I for one have had enough. Some years ago, there was considerable discussion of de- criminalizing "victimless" crimes. The idea was that some actions really only have consequences for the people doing them, so why punish that person to boot. Well, it didn't take long to find the flaws in that theory. Drug abuse affects people besides the user. Prostitution has con- sequences for the welfare of families and public health. Construction in the setback tends to change drainage pat- terns and so on. It is safe to say that there are victims in all of these situa- tions, but I think that a lot of people got stuck in this groove and just kept going. They didn't stop with crimes. They concluded that most ordinary things--work, traffic, copy ma- chines--also victimize people. Ersatz victims use many varia- tions, but their theme is consis- tent. It goes, "They (meaning non-specific, menacing conspi- rators) did this (meaning per- sonal affronts of profound emotional consequence) to us (meaning me)." Certainly an action doesn't need to be a crime to be harmful, but in- creasingly, we hear this motto being applied to things that really only affect the complai- nant's ego, pride or self inter- est. In many cases, the trans- lation actually amounts to; "They (meaning one's super- visor, co-worker, family) did this (required personal ac- countability, responsibility or grown up behavior) to us (still meaning me)." Robert Bly has a book out called Sibling Society that makes the point that many peo- ple in today's society behave as arrested adolescents. They blame others for anything they find distasteful, demand that others be responsible for their happiness and are indignant to- ward any action or belief which fails to place them at the center of the universe. Not only is this damaging now, Bly notes, but it increasingly leaves young people without a model of adult behavior. We see the effects of this when public debate and personal in- teraction increasingly resemble a schoolyard fracas, with few rules and less reason. Remem- ber too that Bly's last major book recommended nude drum beating in the woods. Imagine how bad things must be if he is finding fault. Now this is not to say that one should never be like a child. For instance, there is no higher call than a childlike faith. As we grow older, it is also im- portant to remember to play, to enjoy and to imagine--all child fortes. People value youthful exuberance, boyish looks, girl- ish charms and second child- hoods. What is it about kids that people don't appreciate? Selfishness, whining and ex- cessive dependency, that's what. Nothing illustrates the sibling society more obviously than peoples' relationship to gov- ernment. When I was growing up in the mid-baby boom, post-depression, post-war, pre-Watergate era, the charge was to ask not what our coun- try could do for us, but what we could do for our country. The threat of government was its potential to become a Big Brother. The clear implication being a call to self-reliance and personal responsibility to dem- ocratically shape our society rather than be shaped by the will of the few. As is the case with true adoles- cents, the pervasive attitude to- ward government today seems to be that of a teenager toward a parent. It is a love-hate rela- tionship alternating between in- sistence on self-sufficiency and fits of abject dependence. Far from Big Brother, government today finds itself Mom and Dad to a house full of emotion- ally challenged pre-adults. The same person will demand an elimination of government reg- ulation and interference with their activities and then insist that restrictions be placed on Hohenstenstein Continued on page 4