Catharsis
A Farewell Post
One cloudy, uncharacteristically cool spring day, as I was sitting in a bar with a friend, we discussed my participation in this newfangled Blog business. He offered an observation, that I seemed to get something out of doing this despite my near constant frustration with it and unending battles with one of the other members that drove me dangerously close to fits of apoplexy. I thought about what that was, what benefits I perceived from yet another net technology that allowed people to broadcast thoughts, opinions, and beliefs over this medium. I responded that the Blog allowed me to keep my writing and debating skills sharp.
But more and more, I returned to my early suspicions of the Internet, first experienced through listservs, usenet, and other such strange things that have been with humans for such a short period of time. It seems like only yesterday that our primitive ancestors wielded a bone for the first time to kill another of our own kind, a la the opening sequence of Kubrick's 2001: A Space Odyssey. Now we are increasing our technology a hundredfold with every revolution around the sun. Somehow, our primitive, atavistic impulse to smash the skull of another human with a blunt object, however, remains, despite our advances. Civilization, as the adolescent tome Lord of the Flies teaches, is a thin veneer that is rented asunder with but the slightest tug.
That impulse, I think, has been channeled into the primary function of Internet communications. With every online discussion group or listserv, I gave up in frustration as someone either misinterpreted what I had written or simply attacked me outright. The bone is still there. It's a keyboard now. The urge to kill is right outside my window, in all its glory of primitive, naked rage. It's in me, and every other human as well. We are by nature angry, savage killers who will smash the brains from the head of another human to possess his food, shelter, or his woman.
But the sort of thing that goes on the net is a different manifestation. It's an opportunity for people who haven't the guts to wield a bone in deadly combat, to square off with another shaggy, hunch-shouldered, human ape, when the prize is their own survival, and perhaps the meager possessions of the vanquished. The Internet allows people to mouth off at others with anonymous impunity, take all their frustration out on someone they cannot perceive with their senses over the vast gulf of cyberspace, hurling insults and vitriol across that same unseen chasm, physically as imperceptible as the air we breathe. Some people aren't even taking out their frustrations on the faceless other, on the opposite side of the cable. They're just mean, and they don't have the balls to be mean to other people to their face, lest those they verbally attack take up the bone in lieu of the keyboard.
I return to the original question, why did I Blog? I came to understand that allowing me to polish my writing and argumentative skills was in fact but a penultimate objective. The Blog, in truth, allowed me to rediscover who I really am, what I think, and what I might believe.
In the last four years, I have been accused several times of being a sexist, racist, conservative, and lastly, a right-wing extremist. At an Irish studies conference years ago, I tried to make small talk with a conference participant. This is always a mistake. Conference participants are typically keyboard wielders as opposed to bone-wielders, if you follow my conversational drift. But I digress. The other conference participant and I got to talking about political perspective. When I offered that I had in my early adolescence fancied myself a Communist, but that age, experience, and increased knowledge had brought me to a perspective akin to that of Social Democracy, or a Social Democrat, the other participant rolled his eyes and rocked back on his heels, ensconced in expensive, glistening, leather shoes.
"Oh," he drawled, the attempt at condescension left uncamouflaged, "so you've moved way to the right," extending his arms widely to indicate that I had fallen far and fast, a distance traversing an entire ocean. I gave up trying to talk to this person, and most other people at the conference.
Since enlisting at a certain Jesuit university that shall remain nameless, I have been accused, in so many words and directly, of also being sexist, racist, ethnocentric, what have you, in addition to a right-wing extremist. I have puzzled repeatedly over how this could be true. Since I do not believe that all men are evil and should be castrated, by some people's standards apparently, I am sexist. Since I am white, I am automatically a racist. The extent to which I am white could have been a subject, perhaps, of a discussion here, specifically whether or not near easterners and people of near eastern descent are truly afforded white status now. But the sun is setting with alacrity, and if that subject be discussed, I will be unable to weigh in.
Back to the matter at hand. My pale skin, a genetic takeover by Irish ancestry when in the past I had a robust olive complexion indicative of my coexisting near eastern descent, does not alone make me a racist. What has made me a racist in the recent past are the abominable thoughts that have entered my mind over the last four years as I have watched members of another ethnic group firing weapons at each other and indiscriminately, screaming at the top of their lungs in the middle of the night, threatening to kill me, attempting to kill me, trying to kill other people, trying to hurt other people, taking up the bone, leering with a maniacal grin at the prospect of a satisfying smash of bone against bone.
But just as I am not racist because I have pale skin, rather for other reasons, the people I have described do not engage in violent actions because their skin is dark, rather for other reasons. They do it because they are desperate, angry, poor, hungry, left out of the American dream. They also scream in the middle of the night because they have no consideration for other people. Not all members of their ethnic group stand on the intersection near my building screaming and shooting. Or perhaps, as my Dad once told me long ago, "There are only two ethnic groups. Assholes, and people who aren't. Skin color and geographic origin has nothing to do with it."
As I have written, for this Blog, however, I have noticed myself eschewing racist interpretations and statements. It was not conscious, so much as innate, a natural inclination. The disgusting racist, or at least prejudicial, thoughts creeping into my head as of late, were unnatural, and not really me.
My political orientation, like my impulse contrary to racism or prejudice has similarly been confirmed. It appears that accusations leveled at me by the keyboard-wielding members of the asshole ethnic group populating the Ivory Tower are patently false. I'm a union man. A son of the working class. Each according to her or his need, and I demand that need be met. I call for an end to foreign war, and an initiation of global peace. I call for justice for workers, and jobs for the unemployed. I call for an end to all forms of discrimination and injustice. I demand that the narrow wealthy oligarchy that dominates this country make themselves accountable, and pitch in what is their due. I call for the downtrodden to raise themselves up from their knees and spit in the faces of those who held them there in chains. I am, unflinchingly, a leftist, and I proudly puke bright red. I never thought I really believed in anything, but having done this Blog, there are ideals in which I have made a leap of faith. To shift gears slightly, as a leftist, I look forward to one of my part-time jobs because it's akin to manual labor. It's honest work.
I also look forward to my other part-time job as a teacher because society has left the underclass with little to advance themselves. Education is one of the keys that have fallen onto America's dirty floor, forgotten by those who would keep the door locked tight. I also look forward to it as an ideological great grand-child of the Enlightenment. Reason above all else, and the dissemination of reason and knowledge. Liberte, Egalite, Franternite, et vive les droits des Hommes et Femmes.
I wish to wield no keyboard to vent my inconsequential frustrations against faceless others rather than having the balls to face them. As much as I often desire to wield the bone, with a flame so blindingly crimson as all of perdition burning behind my wounded eye, I choose not to do so. I will wield the education key, and help others through the door that I have entered, been ejected from, entered again, and ejected from once more.
Steve, I cast aside the bone that I briefly shook at you with increasing rage as my face sight-unseen twisted in murderous anger and hatred. We are enemies now, you and I. I invite détente, and in that interest, I will not throw more accusations at you or complain further, but I will never discuss matters political with you again. Like a job that I recently had briefly for two days, I simply don't have the right personality for it. I do not want to wield the bone unnecessarily, or if I can help it, ever again. For that, and because I do not wish to wield the keyboard in a cowardly, undignified fashion, to become what I dislike, a simpering, insult-hurling denizen of this damnable Internet, whining about small matters on a luxury item while others much less fortunate starve and face suffering, war, and death, I withdraw from the discussion.
John, thank you for the opportunity, the forum, your patience, and the gentle kindness which I find so characteristic of you. But this I cannot do.
Adieu.
-Mike
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