Obama has won a resounding victory. Marijuana is now legal in Colorado and Washington. Three states passed marriage equality. And Random House and Penguin are merging. On this last, the Author’s Guild is less than enthusiastic. Read their statement on the Writers Beware blog.
What Science and Politics Have in Common
In the mid twentieth century, Thomas S. Kuhn wrote his landmark The Structure of Scientific Revolutions. He talked about how science changes. Not in the neat and orderly way we might think it should. If something is proven, then everyone should accept the facts, right?
Wrong. What Kuhn noticed is that the first response to a change in scientific fact is that it just gets ignored. Yawn. Ho-hum. Huh?
Yeah, if this new way of looking at things keeps being discussed and more evidence piles up, then it gets noticed. Not accepted, though. The second step is the new idea gets attacked and ridiculed. Pseudo-science. Cranks.
If the new idea persists, then all of a sudden there’s what Kuhn called a paradigm shift. Everyone accepts the new way of looking at things. They say, “We knew that all along.” Of course, there are a few holdouts. They’re now called cranks.
Maddening? Yes, but we’re emotional creatures as much as we want to say we’re rational. That we accept the facts.
Politics is the same. Take Occupy Wall Street. First, it was ignored. What protesters? We don’t see any protesters.
Then it was ridiculed. Look at those worthless, dirty hippies all out there acting ridiculous and having too much fun. They don’t even know what they’re protesting.
Now it’s being attacked. Check this out. And you know what, Peter King is right. We’re back.
When I Talked to Nixon
I recently received an email asking me if I was the same Theresa Crater who talked to Richard Nixon about the Beatles. I answered yes and asked how s/he knew (Lee P). This little piece of the past had floated up from the Seattle Times and been reposted: Could Beatles Become Issue in Campaign?
One Sunday my father took me to the Greensboro Airport because Richard Nixon was scheduled to be coming through. This was February 3, 1964 and I was 13 years old. When he arrived, I noticed that people were walking up to him to ask questions. I thought that’s what we were all supposed to do. I didn’t realize these people were the press. So, I asked him about what was uppermost in my mind. “Mr. Nixon, do you like the Beatles?”
Everything stopped. He paused and waited for the press to gather close. Then he told me he didn’t understand them, but his daughters liked them. I thought he was a bit dense not to understand the Beatles. Now I realize I may have been partly responsible for Nixon’s political come-back. For that I offer my sincere apology.
The Personal is NOT Political–Always
Back in the day, the budding feminist movement of the 60s had a slogan: “the personal is political.” What did it mean?
When women experienced inequality or violence against them, it was often in what was thought of as the personal world. If a woman was physically abused by her husband, that was a family matter (personal). Women were discriminated against in the workplace because they might get married (personal) and pregnant (personal), and they couldn’t be counted on to stay in a job.
Pregnant, single women hid from society because that was a personal tragedy, and in order not to be “ruined,” that is still eligible to be married, a woman was expected to hide this at all costs. In fact, the Florence Crittenton Homes for Unwed Mothers first started because a woman swallowed ground up glass when she found herself pregnant and unmarried.
Sex was personal; therefore, rape was personal. So were relationships between husband and wife. A husband was owed sex by virtue of being married. And no self-respecting woman got raped. That only happened to women who were out at the wrong time or dressed the wrong way. They were asking for it. We just didn’t talk about personal issues in public.
The feminist movement made the claim that if a majority of a group were all affected by similar circumstances, then that was a political situation. The definition of “political” was broadened to include social hierarchies, social situations in which one group held power over another. So, women’s problems weren’t personal anymore if a majority of women were affected by them. They were political. These issues needed to be discussed and social policies and institutions created to deal with them.
But now in 2011, this situation has gotten out of hand. Nothing seems to be personal anymore. It’s time to have some things be personal again.
Like Anthony Weiner’s photographs. By no stretch of the imagination is his wife Huma Abedin helpless or being oppressed by her husband. She is completely empowered to take care of herself, her situation and her baby with or without her husband as she sees fit. As for the women Anthony tweeted, they are empowered to take care of themselves as well. They are consenting adults. They can enjoy their little thrill or seek therapy for being shocked—whatever is appropriate to their experience.
Anthony Weiner is one of the only representatives who will stand up to Republicans. That is why this has even been brought to our attention. Other politicians have done worse and stayed—most of them Republicans. Except, of course, for Winston Churchill, who was wild in his private life. So, let’s stop gossiping about Weiner and be titillated by his pictures in private. Let him do his job in public—and he does a damn fine job!