Miller Time (for now, but hopefully not forever)

I usually keep a list of things I want to write about during the week, but this time I didn’t so let’s see where this goes.

There’s an oddness in the air that I can’t seem to get my head around. I think it started with that speech of Carney’s at Davos, putting a name and a label on the general feeling of change that we’re all trying to internalise. I recently read “The Lottery” with my students, the Shirley Jackson short story. You can read it here: https://bpb-us-e2.wpmucdn.com/sites.middlebury.edu/dist/d/2396/files/2019/09/jackson_lottery.pdf I keep thinking of that line “It’s not the way it used to be.” Old Man Warner said clearly. “People ain’t the way they used to be.”

It isn’t clear exactly what he’s complaining about, but it has to do with the people of the village not taking seriously the (well, okay, spoiler alert) the arbitrary stoning to death of one of the villagers. But it might be just the challenging of traditions, even those which never made much sense and that everyone has forgotten the foundation of. I guess what I found interesting is this social pressure in the village to continue the ritual even though it doesn’t make sense now, if it ever did to them.

When I was a child, there was enormous social pressure to act a certain way, believe (outwardly at least) certain things. It was always a bit hypocritical but we were supposed to behave ourselves, not talk badly about people behind their backs, be polite, wait in line for it to be our turn. It was a pressure that also brought a lot of suffering to people; it’s was much harder then to be different in a whole bunch of ways: harder to be handicapped, harder to be disadvantaged, harder to be any sort of minority.

But in some cases, we, as society improved a tiny bit. The masses could slowly be influenced to be….better. The most obvious example is that marriage between homosexual couples barely causes a blink these days while just at the beginning of the 19th century, one of the greatest writers in the English language finished his life in prison for “indecent behaviour”. You might take issue with the “barely causing a blink” but I notice it in the same way I do other things when I meet, say, the parents of my students: “Wow, she’s really tall” or “He must have been growing those dreadlocks for years” or “Geesh I wish I could look that put together. Maybe I should stop biting my nails?” or “Okay, there’s two women here as parents. They definitely look more put together than me. Maybe I should get a manicure?” You notice a gay couple; of course you do. Like you notice someone wearing a long coat or a green scarf.

Actually, no, it’s better than that. I notice a gay couple kissing and it makes me happy. Wait, when I notice any couple kissing it makes me happy. I feel great that our world has become more accepting of showing our emotions, of loving the person you love, and all that makes me happy. I feel like we were heading a little tiny bit in the direction of love in the world. Sometimes. In some situations.

And now the bullies are winning. I want this all to finish like some Hollywood movie of redemption, where the world goes along almost to the brink and then pull back at the last minute, and we remind ourselves of what really matters. Will love win out? I think of those words, “We live in a world, in the real world…that is governed my strength, that is governed by force, that is governed by power.” (I won’t remind you who I’m quoting here; if you don’t remember, look him up.)

What if we were living in a world, the real world…that is governed by cooperation, that is governed by sharing, that is governed by love…would that really be so bad?