David J. Bodenhamer

I knew a certain amount of this already, but in this review, I just want to talk about the fact that America has a constitution. My first encounter with ‘conservatives love the constitution’ (even though this guy isn’t so much a conservative, but I’m trying to make a point), was in the ‘Conscience of a Conservative’ book, which I read in a previous profile era, in my first flush of ‘back to history/speculation’ (I also read a very long JFK bio, because I wanted to understand Baby Boomers; it turns out Baby Boomers’ consciousness has very little to do with JFK’s workaday schedule). I had never encountered the idea before. In school we gingerly talked about things like slavery or the constitution, but we never talked about liberals and conservatives. I guess our teachers mostly didn’t want to get assassinated by anybody, and also didn’t want the mythical mid century era of good feelings to end. Of course, around the same time me and my video game friends were rude liberals, and thought that being a conservative meant touching a cheerleader’s ass in public or something. (Incidentally, being a liberal for us did Not mean doing something hard, like being less racist, ourselves.) And before that, as a child I was conservative in a way, since I was a ‘patriot’ and a militarist, (a little macho boy), but I knew next to nothing of politics and civics, and didn’t mind not knowing.

…. I mean, I know that once when I lived in the femme mystique village, I happened to hear an old white man say, I don’t care if we have an immigrant woman doctor—but I also want people to know that we have the Constitution!— And having kinda a Disney brain at the time, I couldn’t sparse what he was trying to tell his friends, you know.

Aside from that, aside from purely conservative/liberal things, the constitution is obviously also the product of the ‘majority’ culture in a wider sense; it’s ‘the rules’. The majority American culture obviously affects practically everybody, even most people outside the United States. And it’s not going anywhere; it’s not going to disappear into fairy dust, you know—even after white Americans are less than 50% of the country, the majority culture will still be here. White minorities have been the dominant group in various colonies and even ex-colonies, even if they’re a little less secure in the saddle than numerical majorities. (And the core culture has only changed slightly since the old days, as the very hopeless insecurity of most radicals pays a sort of testament to.) America has a constitution, and the majority aren’t going to toss it overboard all of a sudden, you know.

I’m not saying that people shouldn’t have to learn about slavery, you know. Slavery is real. Slavery and the constitution both matter, right. And they intersect. They’re part of the same story. But certainly the majority thinks in terms of ‘the rules’ as the normative thing, even when certain groups only exist at the margins of that story…. And I’m saying that even the perspective that puts the center at the center and the margins at the margins, even when that isn’t fair, has /some/ legitimacy, you know. All perspectives matter. I’m saying that no true change results from /gratuitously/ making the majority culture afraid or uncomfortable, you know—

(punk singer) The Constitution is gay! The Constitution is gay! (head banging) Okay! (starts doing sexual hand gestures during the drum solo)

America has a constitution….

And although I’m white—I’m not saying that (a) there’s a One True POV, and (b) it’s mine—even I often have to remember, being as weird or whatever as I am, that the majority culture also has a story, too….

But what are you gonna do. I remember Dr. Hew Len—the Hawaiian guy in the book ‘Zero Limits’—told people he had made an agreement with himself that if he ever got through a whole day—one, whole, day—without having a single judgmental thought—not even /one/, /thought/—he would eat so much ice cream that he’d practically have to get sick—but he could never get through a whole day.

And he’s a Hawaiian guru, you know.

…. All nations have a collective aspect, although the American nation is relatively individualist. I guess the debate about this is necessary today, because on the one hand totally ignoring the collective aspect usually just leaves in place the injustices created by our imperfect history of liberty, whereas on the other hand, an individualist country that agrees on less now than it used to obviously has a need for the private sphere as well.… (más)