understanding conservatives part 1

 If you didn't grow up in a conservative Christian home, you probably don't think about hell very often. But I was raised on that stuff, and being afraid of hellfire and eternal damnation was a big, scary thing for me when I was still an Evangelical.

When I was in my twenties, as I became more and more angry about the un-Christian ways I saw Christians acting, I reached a point where I was so done with conservative Christians that I had the shocking (to me) realization that if those were the people that were going to heaven, I would rather go to hell. I'd rather risk eternal damnation than hang out in heaven with those smug, sanctimonious "saints."

I don't believe in hell anymore-- not because I'm sure it's not there but because the idea of heaven and hell has become irrelevant to me. But I still think about that moment, the moment when I realized that I was so disgusted by conservative Christianity that I was willing to risk eternal damnation to get away from it.

Fast forward to the 2016 election. As I watched the unabashed glee of the Trump base after the election, it suddenly occurred to me that they had hit the inverse of that moment: the moment where they were so disgusted by liberals and holier-than-thou progressive moralizing that they'd rather risk being governed by a known philanderer with zero experience than vote for a liberal Democrat.

(I should insert here that this is all entirely anecdotal, just based on my observations watching the people around me. I have no hard data to back this up. Just so you know.)

The working class conservatives were overjoyed with the feeling of having won a long-shot, wing-and-a-prayer last-minute victory over the Democrats who had completely lost touch with them (see below for more about that). The more well-to-do traditional Republicans, I think, weren't so much voting for President Trump as they were voting against Hillary Clinton, and through her, voting against whatever they perceived to be the liberal/progressive/Democratic agenda.

So my mini-quest to understand the other side became a quest to figure out how we as liberals/progressives managed to so thoroughly enrage the other side. How did we lose them so completely? How did we manage to alienate conservatives so thoroughly that they were willing to believe anything someone said to them as long as it involved trashing the Democrats?

You'll note that I'm assuming that you, gentle reader, are a liberal/progressive. That's because I'm pretty sure I lost all of my conservative readers-- or at least, all the ones I know about-- when I wrote the post about why I am pro-choice. (And I guess if I didn't lose them then, I've lost them now.)

There's a lot of directions that we could go here--for example, in a country that cherishes freedom of the press as much as we all do, how in the world do we hold the media accountable for the ways they have further polarized us to increase their own bottom line? and how in the world did Donald Trump manage to convince working class voters that he was one of them?

But that would be, once again, trying to figure out why they (the press, working class voters, Republicans) are Wrong. Lord knows we've all spent plenty of time doing that. What I'm trying to do here is figure out what we (progressives/liberals) have screwed up. How did we lose them so badly?

So here are some ideas.


For one thing, working class voters resent being lumped together with the poor. When I finally got this, I was embarrassed to death that I'd been doing this for years. When liberals look at each other, mystified as to why working class voters hate them, we think, But we're in favor of food stamps! We want to increase access to medicaid! And we're completely missing that working class voters do not consider themselves to be poor. To them, poor people are people who can't hold a job-- drunks, drug addicts, deadbeats. Those people might need handouts, but working class voters don't want them. They want steady jobs with decent pay and good benefits.

Which leads to a corollary: Conservatives don't consider poor people to be minor saints. I didn't catch this attitude in myself until I'd been working at the food bank for awhile. If you talk about poor people in hushed, reverent tones, or in the same voice that you use to talk about sick children or abandoned puppies, you might be guilty of this, too. Poverty is an enormously complex issue that I'm not going to tackle in a blog post, but I can guarantee you that this attitude is not helpful. Or at least, not if you're a volunteer at a food bank.

as always, this is getting too long. The other half is mostly written, so I'll probably post it tomorrow. I can't believe I'm posting this, because I am so far from being an expert on this that it's like the proverbial chalk from cheese. And the more I write, the more I realize how presumptuous it is of me to post this as if I know what I'm talking about. My only comfort is that not many people read here, and also, if you're a conservative and you're reading this and I've gotten anything wrong, I'm counting on you to let me know.

to be continued.

7ToF: I'm Nobody! Who are you?

1. It's a commonplace these days to say that women in their 50s are invisible. If you haven't experienced it, lucky you. You can read about it here and here and here and lots of other places.

2. I remember the first few times I experienced middle-aged invisibility were at restaurants, where the waiters are basically paid to be friendly to their patrons. That's a cynical way to look at it, but you get a better tip if your people like you, and the restaurant gets a better reputation, and everyone is happy. When I was younger, I took a waiter's attention for granted--if I was sitting in a restaurant with friends or my kids, the waiter (male or female) would take some time to talk (flirt) with me. But suddenly, somehwere in my late 40s, waiters started ignoring me to talk to my younger friends or my kids.

3. I'm not exactly a femme fatale, so there was no reason to expect that wait staff would fall all over themselves to socialize with me, but still-- the first few times it happened, it was so unexpected that it was obvious. I'd heard that middle-aged women felt invisible, but it was still a surprise to actually experience it. Oh, that's what they mean!! Now I get it!

4. Plenty of has been written about the larger cultural reasons why this happens, mostly about factors that have nothing to do with us personally (other than we keep getting inexorably older, silly us). But what I've been thinking about recently is the part of it that is personal to me. As an introvert who has never had particularly strong social skills, it was a surprise to me to discover that a small, unconscious, but signficant portion of my attention had been taken up with the who-gets-noticed, who-is-attractive, who-is-a-potential-sexual-partner game. I've been in a monogamous relationship with Dean since I was 21, so it never really meant anything, but it was still happening. Until suddenly it stopped.

5. So, this isn't anything earthshaking or personally shattering, but it did take a bit of adjustment and I'll even say a little bit of mourning for something that had been a kind of fun and interesting aspect of interacting with people. And oddly, as I approach 60, it almost seems to be coming back. Maybe the 50s really are just a no-man's/woman's-land. The culture doesn't know what to do with us, and we don't quite know, either. I find myself almost looking forward to 60.

6. This week's interesting read: from Book Riot, a list of contemporary books with strong women protagonists over age 50. My TBR pile for this fall is already full, but maybe I'll try some of these in the new year--the only one I've read already is the one about the two women in Alaska.

7. Here is a picture from Labor Day weekend. This is our usual: I'm sitting and reading a book, and see that tiny, blurry figure on a stand-up paddleboard in the background? That's Dean, being active. Yup.

Me reading, Dean exercising.

Quote of the week (which relates back to the fitness for couch potatoes post), from The Wisdom of the Enneagram: "...the basis of confidence, the feeling of being full, strong, and capable, arises from the instinctual energy of the body, not from mental structures. Thus, Fives grow by coming down out of their heads, and coming into deeper felt contact with their vitality and physicality." I live so much in my head, that idea is almost shocking to me. Really?

Cool. I can work on that. Have a great weekend.

yup, that nest is still empty

I halfway feel like I should apologize for that sad-panda post on Thursday, but you know what? It really helps. Writing stuff out and posting it works for me in a way that journaling does not. It helps me think things through, and it helps to see how people respond to it. So I guess occasionally you'll have to put up with it. Thank you. I feel better.

It occurred to me over the weekend that part of what I'm going through (still) is the long-term adjustment to being an empty nester. The short-term part of it, the month or two after each kid went off to college where I missed them intensely, was over pretty quickly. But the long-term transition away from devoting a signiticant portion of my time, energy, and attention to keeping track of their schedules and their school's events and their friends and their laundry and everything else-- I think I might still be working my way through that.

My kids were pretty independent even when they were still living at home. They managed their own homework and by the time they were seniors, they were driving themselves around. We didn't really see them all that much. But still there was always a part of me that was aware of what they were doing, when they'd be home, if they'd had dinner, when was the band concert, etc. Having all that energy back again is great (really great), but there's also a bit of a vacuum. Having a job for awhile filled the gap, but now I'm not working and I guess I'm back to figuring this out again.

Another aspect: I've been thinking about the distinction between being an introvert (someone who recharges via alone time) and being a lone wolf (someone who prefers to work alone). I am definitely an introvert, as I've told you ad nauseum, but I'm not a lone wolf. (I don't know enough about this to know if being a lone wolf is a subset of introverts, or if you can be an extrovert lone wolf??)

At work, I prefer to be part of a team. In fact, my perfect job situation would be to have my own office and yet still be part of a team that meets regularly and accomplishes work together, bouncing ideas off each other, vetting each other's work before it goes live/public/whatever, talking through things that aren't working, etc. I was lucky that for about six months that's exactly what this last job was. But then we moved into cubicles. If you have to work in a cubicle, as one of my colleagues still does, you have my utmost sympathy.

So it occurs to me that another part of the adjustment I've been going through recently has been the loss of my colleagues at work. I spent a year working every day as part of a team, so I'm not just missing the structure and the feeling of accomplishment you get from a paying job, I'm missing the feeling of being a member of a group. And since I'm an introvert, that's not something I can easily replace. I need to brainstorm some ideas on this. (Maybe starting with not grumping at my friends who want to be supportive when I'm feeling down. Just sayin.)

Remember awhile ago I told you that I am an Enneagram number 5? Fives are the observer type, and for observers, it can be hard, really hard, to push through the veil of observation to become a particpant in whatever's happening around you. Being part of a team at work makes this easier, because it just happens. You show up at work and boom! you're part of a team. But it's not so easy to make it happen on my own.

So, as always, work in progress.

my VGBF

Caveat lector (which, according to Twitter's latin scholars, means let the reader beware): If you believe that sex should only take place between a man and a woman who are married, and you are offended by the idea that anything else is acceptable, skip this post. I respect that, and you probably won't appreciate this post.

OK, now that we've got that out of the way. Here's the post.

I've had several virtual best friends over the years since I've been online. Social media allow you to feel like you're getting to know someone you've never met. You feel like you know them really well. Like they could be your best friend. The Bloggess, for example. Or any of several writers whose blogs or tweets I've followed.

My new virtual best friend is Dan Savage, and he's gay, so he can be my gay best friend, right? At first glance, he's not an obvious pick for my VGBF. He's brusque, pugnacious, sometimes obnoxious, often outrageous—not qualities that usually define me. He’s also thought-provoking and interesting, and on the turn of a dime, he can be quite kind and even sweet. But he's not putting up with bullshit and lies. He doesn't back away from controversy, or stirring it up, and he's not afraid to be blunt about what he's thinking.

I've been reading Dan’s online column, Savage Love, for a couple of years now. (I don’t want to link to it, but you can google it easily enough.) I think Julie was the one who originally told me about him. Savage Love is a sex advice column, and it’s fascinating. 

Then a couple of weeks ago I read his collection of essays American Savage, which are maybe a bit uneven, but there's some serious food for thought in that book. Dean and I had a couple of really interesting conversations about it—he didn’t read it, but I kept bringing it up.

Let me warn you ahead of time that there are some reasons not to read Dan’s writing. Profanity abounds, for one thing, and there is plenty of explicit talk about sex of every variety. Ohmyword the things people ask about. *blush* (A word to the wise: when he warns, "Don't read this one if you're squeamish," don't read it. Not kidding.) There is also a community of commenters at Savage Love who don’t hold back their opinions, or even phrase them politely most of the time. When they disagree with Dan's advice, they let him know. Sometimes they are more outrageous than Dan, sometimes they rein him in.

But if you can see past that stuff, there are even better reasons why you should read Dan's work. It helps that he and I agree about most of the political issues he raises, but mainly he's just interesting. A mind awake, as they say. Other than being middle class white parents, he and I have very little in common, but I've found some good relationship advice on Savage Love, and some good general information on being a decent human being, too.  

What I love about Dan is that he's waded in to the morass that is modern sexuality and tried to make some sense of it. Underneath the outrageous questions and the eyebrow-raising situations that come up, you can hear people trying to figure out, is this OK? Am I a freak? What does it mean to 'do the right thing' in this situation? and I find it fascinating. It’s like a huge, amorphous sociology experiment.

He and his community have come up with a number of ideas that are starting to enter the mainstream--like the "price of admission," i.e., whatever it is that you have to do to stay in a relationship with some particular person. A simple example--if you fall in love with someone who is highly allergic to cats, the price of admission for that relationship is you're never going to have a cat. Or "the campground rule": if you're in a relationship with someone significantly younger or less experienced than you, you have a responsibility to leave them in better shape than you found them.

Dan has popularized the idea that you can't really control what turns you on, so there's no sense fighting it (those are your "kinks"). But knowing what turns you on should make you smarter about choosing your relationship partner. Someone out there has the reciprocal kink(s), and you can find that person rather than making yourself (and your partner) miserable in a relationship that doesn't work. For example, if you know you're not going to be able to be monogamous, it is irresponsible to commit to someone who wants a monogamous relationship. And if cheating itself is what turns you on, find somebody who is turned on by being cheated on, because apparently they're out there (Leopold Bloom, the protagonist of Ulysses, would probably be one of them).

It's not traditional morality--at least not compared to the morality I was raised with (and thank God for that)--but it is morality. A lot of this is stuff that should be common sense, but we have a culture that is so weirded out about talking about sex that the conversations often don't happen. Of course, it's way better now than it was back in the prehistoric days before I got married, but still. He's opened up a lot of topics to public conversation that were previously off-limits, and it can be really refreshing to read that.

Just for the record, I don't agree with him about everything, and there's possibly going to be one more post about my major disagreement with him. But it wouldn't be so interesting if I agreed with everything he said. I think he's worth reading. Like I said at the top, if you're of the mindset that sex should only happen between a man and a woman who are married, you're not going to appreciate Dan. But if your experience is wider than that (mine isn't), or if you're just curious about what's going on out there in the world (like me), Dan's your guy. And if you're willing to broaden your definition of sexual fidelity to include "being faithful to whatever my partner and I have agreed to," he's got some pretty eye-opening insights.