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Tuesday, September 24, 2002
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Do You Have to Be a Flake to Be Open-Minded?
Over at the Emphasis Added COMIX Weblog, Rob Salkowitz is talking about Ellen Forney's "I Was Seven in '75" comic, which I wish was available on-line somewhere. As it happens, I was seven for most of 1975, so this is of particular interest to me.
Discussing why he finds this depiction of the "social project of the 60s and 70s" useful in the current climate of "family values," Rob says:
In this climate, it was by no means innocuous to suggest, as Ellen did, that parents who took their kids to nudist camps, who smoked pot and left it around the house (where, in one memorable incident, it was discovered by a curious babysitter), and who hosted wild parties for their swinging friends--could, nevertheless, be good parents and good people.
My parents fell squarely into this category. They had an "open" marriage until they finally gave up the ghost and got divorced; I was raised without much discipline or direction; my brother and I saw my parents and their friends drunk and using drugs; we were taken to nude beaches; and as adults, neither of us is within a country mile of being healthy. On the other hand, my brother and I were raised to believe strongly in civil rights, feminism, and the validity of homosexuality as a lifestyle. These values have made us much richer emotionally and much stronger and more flexible intellectually. My childhood was both of those things.
It seems to me that the problem stems from seeing everything that happened between, say, 1967 and 1978 as one event, from referring to a whole host of things that happened to coincide (the anti-war movement, the civil rights movement, the feminist movement, all manner of hedonism and decadence, and the conservative reactions to all of that) as a "social project." Those things were distinct happenings, not a monolithic project. The movements toward equality and peace were certainly useful, while the drift into sexual and chemical anarchy were of considerably less value, and neither required or was driven by the other.
Similarly, it's possible to have a positive, open environment without being a negligent parent, just as it was possible for children to grow up healthy where civil rights and feminism were advocated and homosexuality was seen as valid. I don't think that there's anything wrong with parents refraining from decadence and excess on behalf of their children (or themselves for that matter)--though I do think that there's a problem with anyone sanctimoniously holding up their lifestyle as the one that everyone should live.
8:24:00 PM 
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Anyone Got a Dog In Need of a Home?
I want a dog. When I was a child, my parents raised Saint Bernards. My earliest memory is of eating cinnamon toast while watching Saint Bernard puppies being born--I had to keep an eye on things while my mother went to get something. Until I went away to college, we always had at least one dog around. But this week marks seventeen years since I've lived with a dog.
Over the weekend, we visited my aunt and cousins and their Rottweiler, Hans. Despite his size and strength, he's the goofiest, sweetest dog in the world. Sitting next to him at my cousin's Little League game, with my arm around him as we leaned on each other, life was simple. As trite as this may sound, close contact with such simple good will can help one to transcend all sorts of emotional maladies. Simply put, if whatever is bothering you doesn't bother your dog, then you should probably get over it. Just be sure that you're giving the dog what it needs and wants, and everything will be fine.
So I think that one of the first things we'll do after we're settled in our new apartment is go to the ASPCA and rescue a dog or two. There are, of course, God knows how many dogs in need of rescue, and my life could clearly use a dog to look after and give me perspective.
8:08:08 AM
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Mommy, What's an Allegory?
Midway in our life's journey, I went astray
from the straight road and woke to find myself
alone in a dark wood. How shall I say
what wood that was! I never saw so drear,
so rank, so arduous a wilderness!
Its very memory gives a shape to fear.
Death could scarce be more bitter than that place!
But since it came to good, I will recount
all that I found revealed there by God's grace.
How I came to it I cannot rightly say,
so drugged and loose with sleep had I become
when I first wandered there from the True Way.
Dante - Inferno I, 1-12
translated by John Ciardi
8:04:01 AM
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© Copyright 2003 Morgan N. Sandquist.
Last update: 11/2/03; 10:28:28 AM.
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