Sympathy for the oppressed September 6, 1985
Something’s up with Michael.
I’ve noticed it several times over the last few weeks,
somewhat distant, and this worries me.
I think partly it is the change at work – a new manager and
new habits to adjust to. He wanted the manager job for himself and his disappointment
has drained some of his enthusiasm.
He’s also deeply involved in his band. On Labor Day, he made
his debut at CBGBs - the ground floor in
a career, or so he claims.
The conflict between work and art no doubt weights heavily
on his shoulders and mind. But there is something else, perhaps my dislike of elitist
behavior – especially when it comes to politics and religion. This came up
during a lunch we had with other friends. I’m not sure which side he took up
when it came to the Middle East and Israel.
I have a problem with any faith that declares itself as the
chosen people, Christian, Moslem, Jewish or Buddhists, just as I am offended by
all the in-groups, whether they be spoiled brats from Ivy league schools like
Princeton or Harvard, or some exercise club in the local park that takes over
public space and dares you to stop them. This is particularly true when it
comes to race and feminism, where if you don’t tread lightly, you get labeled a
bigot or worse, misogynist.
Michael got a distasteful look and told me he’s sympathetic to
oppressed people.
This is a party line attitidude, but one I saw was deeply imbedded
in him, as if there were specifics he did not wish to discuss. I didn’t press
it.
The issue came up again over a series of stories that
appeared in our zine. Michael called the work of one of our authors “Nazi-like”
while he could not put his finger on the whys and wherefores of a story I had
written, he didn’t like it either.
In college, liberal professors had done their best to excuse
antisemtic writing by modernist authors as “fashion of their times, choosing to
ignore the bad feelings generated from such remarks.
I don’t completely understand why Jews have been made scapegoats,
targeted by scores of people for centuries. Even Shakespeare – who probably
never met a Jew before writing his epic – seemed to paint them in a bad light. While
we hear a lot about conservatives being like Nazis in this regard, most of the
anti-Jewish stuff I’ve seen comes out of the black and so-called tolerant liberal communities, partly
due to the trend to support Muslims supposedly oppressed by Israel – these groups
largely ignoring the slave trade the Arabs engaged in, sending more blacks into
slavery than those that ever reached the west.
Frued would have claimed that Jews, Christians and others
bring this wrath upon themselves. It is ironic that the most suffering people
on the planet over the centuries should adopt tactics as a nation that so
resemble what has been done to them.
But this “bringing things down on themselves” argument can
be used to explain the plight of any of those oppressed peoples Michael is
concerned about, and those who question why blacks prey on other blacks while blaming
whites, are considered racists, but those who question Israel are not always
called antisemites.
There is a kind of arrogance that comes with being one of
the oppressed, part of a special people who are struggling against unfair odds,
this sense of entitlement that liberals like Michael find attractive – such as
most artists like him do. We are all in this together crap. When, in fact, most of it is about getting
something, using power to obtained privilege, to mask open lust for power behind
this sense of injustice.
“We are superior because we are oppressed” mentality which
makes no sense.
All this says something horrible about the human condition,
and I must be very insensitive not to automatically throw my lot in with those
who seem to be struggling against overwhelming odds.
Perhaps Michael senses this evil side in me, one that
refuses to fall in line with something just because we are expected as artists
to support certain causes. Maybe he’s right. Maybe I’m a bad person for
refusing to give in.
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