Commedia del'arte and US Politics

We're just back from a cruise to the Mexican Riviera (Puerto Vallarta, Cabo San Lucas) and packing up, getting ready to turn the RV over to its new owner and transport ourselves back home. The RV experience has been informative, but it turns out that we are bricks and mortar people after all. With the end now in view, we are barn sour, in the way of horses that really don't want to be out on the trail and are longing for home. Yes, definitely barn sour.

Admittedly, this feeling of wanting to get everything over may be impulsive, but it is entirely human. When there's an end to something, we all tend to look forward and want to be on our way to the next part of our lives. In many cases, though, there's rather more at work. It certainly is so in my case. I want to get on the road because I am tired of being the only one around here willing to disagree with everyone.

I felt somewhat the same way on the cruise as I have in the park. Mostly, the people on the cruise were the same (white, middle class, comfortable, tending to Tea Party) or else were reluctant to admit they had other ideas until they were alone. I, of course, being me, twitted some of them, only to be met with awkward expressions of "Well, eveyone has an opinion." That this was a euphemism became clear when several told me later that they fully agreed with me. 

I am now of the conclusion that many US citizens have been silenced by the posturings of the noisiest among us and have retreated into a type of resignation to avoid trouble. Only privately are they are willing to tell me that Ms. Palin, one of my previous targets in this blog, scares them. Indeed she should, since our lady of the plattitudes and the barmaid's wink, represents the dumbing down of our education, political, and cultural lives.

Now, I am not really into destroying dinner conversations--although on occasion I have managed this extremely well--but I am getting really tired of maintaining polite silence so no one is offended. For heaven's sake, how long have we been so politicially delicate that we have to consider every opinion or crackpot idea as equally valid? Am I really supposed to be silent and agreeable when I get e-mails presenting me with a new "game" whereby I can earn points for shooting illegals running across the border, one of them a pregnant woman pulling two children behind her?

I'm sorry, World, there are opinions and arguments based on junk science, historically incorrect facts, prejudice, and just plain ignorance.  Not all opinions are equally valid. Many, in fact, should be exposed post haste because they are dangerous, ill-intended, and mean. Here are a few of my favorites:

1. The word god does not appear in the US Constitution--not even once--and that was deliberate.

2. Recent claims that the southern states seceded in order to protect states' rights ignore the fact that the rights the states were protecting were to keep slaves, something the southern states said quite clearly at the time.

3. The link between illegal immigration and crime isn't proved. Here in Arizona, the controversial sherrif Joe Arpaio, ran for office on cracking down on illegal immigrants to reduce crime; in fact, his county is the only one where crime actually increased depite detaining record  numbers of illegals. No one seems to care, which suggests the voters like his message rather than his results.

4. Slashing education budgets does not assure efficiency and effectiveness. Also here in Arizona, legislators believe there is "administrative waste" with schools paying "exorbitant" salaries to administrators. The newspaper did a careful analysis this week and found that the schools here pay less in administrative costs than in other states and, in the wake of budget cuts, have been using whatever extra money might have gone into the classroom on such basic needs as building maintenance.

I could go on.

It's all very well to talk about having wrong-headed ideas aired so there can be a collision of truth and error and thereby some education, but I'm not seeing the second part of this process happen. Everyone is being so polite that the errors are never exposed. What happens then is that by sheer repetition, people believe something to be true because they've heard it over and over and it's never been challenged.

Me being me, I have my own theories about how to challenge the foolishness. Henceforth, I intend not to dignify ignorance by trying to argue with it and point out its errors. I intend to use humor.

So let me begin by saying that I consider Ms. Palin (let me start with her since she's such an obvious target) to be a great comic character. She belongs in the Italian Commedia del'arte as one of the clowns. Let's call her the harlequiness and describe her as a mischevous practical joker. She's known by her costume, a diamond design in bright, fashionable colors and a dunce cap on her head. On stage, she gets into foolish scrapes by trying to meddle in other people's business, and when she is caught, she simpers and tries to get out of trouble by using her charm and glamor. She is paired with an equally foolish grandfatherly figure who rubs her arm in a comic attempt at seduction. She is basically just silly until she or some of the others take her seriously; then she becomes pompous and self-important and things become confused and mixed up until she is exposed amidst audience laughter. In the end, she's just one of the clowns Shakespeare used to bring some levity to the happenings of the important people in his plays, sort of a female Bottom from Midsummer's Night's Dream.

This is how I am going to look at her from her on, along with the other clowns like the Tea Party media voices. I invite you to join me in laughing at the clowns, along with the preoverbial emperor, for their lack of clothing.