I've been reading Sinclair Lewis recently, due to a post a while back from
bellatrys. And today, on
Angry Bear I read
a post about Washington's shortsighted push for China to revalue the yuan, no matter, it seems, what that might mean for our own economic future.
And I had a terrible, tinfoil-hat-type-thought--are they doing it on purpose? Constant lies, constant warfare, shady elections (even if they were entirely on the up-and-up, the lack of transparency makes them seem shady, when the process should be as spotless as Caesar's wife), unprecedented rules changes in the Senate, collection of ever more power into the hands of the executive branch, complete with an attack on the jjudicial branch--a clear attempt to weaken the system of checks and balances that our civics books have always lauded as
the thing that makes our system unique and good...
Are they
driving for a recession, or a depression? Populist-fascist movements seem to take best root in the poorest soil--where the people are hungry and unemployed, yet feel entitled to power and money. If you then tell them they are being persecuted by some hidden conspiracy, and provide them with a scapegoat (liberals, gays, Jews, immigrants, blacks, communists...), will they not rise up to give you all the power that you tell them is necessary for you to "save" them from these menaces?
I feel a little silly, sometimes, worrying over these things on what threads of information I have. But then, if we reach the point that what may be happening becomes obviously what
is happening, I am afraid it will be too late, for far too many.
Is it racist of me to be interested in a culture not mine by birth/ethnicity?
Have I been insensitive, culturally, in learning Japanese? In going to Japan? In cooking Japanese food, watching Japanese films, reading Japanese books, listening to Japanese music? Or in trying to understand a culture not my own; in trying to explain cultural differences as best I understand them, or appreciate traditions that aren't mine? Am I poaching? Stealing? Being insensitive and boorish?
I'm not Japanese, and I never will be--is a different culture off-limits to me? Are my only legitimate lines of cultural enquiry German, Prussian, Welsh, Scots, and Irish? I would not dare to claim American--every southern family claims to have a "Cherokee Princess" somewhere back in their line, but it's purest bullshit. I doubt there is a drop of First Nations blood anywhere in me.
Is it possible to learn a language--to reach a high level of fluency in a language, really--without having a great deal of interest in the cultural milieux from which it comes? For me, I don't think that it is. Should my non-English language selections be limited to German, Polish, Welsh, or Gaelic? (I didn't enjoy German, am deeply apathetic about Polish, and Welsh and Gaelic... I want to learn them, but they are reasonably low on my priority list, not being widely spoken.)
Is my desire to be polylingual an expression of racist or ethnocentric motivations? I have always thought and felt that learning about and participating in other cultures is a way to reach beyond and to learn my way out of the cultural baggage of racism that I, like every white American, have inherited. But now I wonder if I am wrong, if there is racism hidden behind everything that I do, every interest that I have.
I don't want to turn my livejournal into a political ramble, not least becase of how badly it pisses me off when people I otherwise might want to keep up with instead spout crap that I find ill-informed, inaccurate, or just generally hypocritical. Sadly, I must say that it is the tendency of people like that to call themselves "committed Christians" that keeps me feeling as though I can never consider Christianity a viable alternative for me. If that is what Christianity is, then thank you, no. I want no part of it.
I hate my job, btw. I don't want to babysit this afternoon. I hate how everything has to be done now, and she'll just dump more and more on, and interrupt me in the middle of what I was doing, and not actually let me do my job, and move shit around, and take paperwork out of my office and the neat understandable stacks I've left it in and make it disappear, and she doesn't care what I think, or if I could do my job more efficiently if she'd just let me, and... grar. I'll be so glad when I finish school and can go find a new job.
