Agree to Disagree

Is it good to "be consistent"? As far as ideology goes, maybe not. Being able to see things from another point of view may come in handy sometimes.

I'm thinking about this not only because of some research I came across but, more importantly, because of what I read in the news every day. A recent Pew Research Center study confirmed something that doesn't come as a shock to most of us: political polarization is a reality in the United States.

Many sociologists and political scientists have examined divisions among Americans in recent years--whether under the name of polarization, fragmentation, or culture war--and they have come to varying conclusions. Some of these researchers have found evidence for fragmentation along political, economic, or religious lines; others have concluded that the perception of a deeply divided country is greater than the reality. The findings often seem to depend on the way polarization is defined and measured.

The Pew study examined political affiliations and opinions on an array of questions. Essentially, the study found that significant numbers of Americans are now consistently liberal or consistently conservative in their views, that these consistent viewpoints align closely with Democratic or Republican party affiliation, and that members of both parties are increasingly likely to view the opposite party with deep disapproval. In fact, according to the study, 27 percent of Democrats and 36 percent of Republicans view the other party's policies as "so misguided that they threaten the nation's well-being." Ideological division has grown significantly over the last twenty years. (See "Political Polarization in the American Public," Pew Research Center for the People & the Press.)

In addition, Congress is more divided than it has been "since the end of Reconstruction," according to data compiled by political scientists Keith Poole and Howard Rosenthal. Analyzing roll call votes of senators and representatives, the researchers found that the ideological overlap formerly commonplace between Republicans and Democrats (as recently as the early 1970s) has evaporated. (See Drew DeSilver's article, "The Polarized Congress of Today Has Its Roots in the 1970s" on the Pew Research Center's website.)

While it's true that the public is more divided than it used to be, the majority of Americans, according to the Pew study, have mixed ideological views, still believe in compromise, and would like to see their politicians meet each other halfway to get things done. This is sometimes not apparent because the majority group tends to be less mobilized and vocal than those who are more polarized.

Jung's comment on ideologies, which he viewed as a "blight," comes to mind here. Could it be that the belief that we're in the right because of the reasonableness of our views and that others are all wrong because they refuse to agree is the biggest mistake we're making?

I used to wish myself away to a more liberal geographic location, where I might find more people who thought the way I did, but I think of it differently these days. I now believe that being surrounded by a variety of political views, including some that are very different from mine, has been a blessing in disguise. It's just harder to vilify people with opposing viewpoints when they're valued coworkers, friends, and acquaintances. When you like someone and understand their aspirations, joys, sorrows, and beliefs because their lives intersect with yours, it's easier to see where they're coming from. It seems likely in such a case that you'll discover the things you do agree on more easily.

Some people believe that harmony results from bringing people with a lot in common together, and that may be true. It's also possible that lack of friction is not always the highest goal. After doing some research on the Myers-Briggs test, I once concluded that having people with various personality types in a workplace is preferable to having a lot of people of a single type because including various perspectives makes the group smarter and more creative. It can be uncomfortable to live with differences, but in the long run, it may result in unexpected insights and new approaches to problems. That's if there's no unspoken belief that one way is inherently better.

Passionate partisanship is nothing new and certainly has precedent in the early years of our country. The Federalists and Anti-Federalists come to mind; the debate over the importance of a strong central government, states' rights, and civil liberties had strong, intelligent advocates on both sides. In the end, both sides got some of what they wanted, and most of us would agree that the addition of the Bill of Rights championed by the Anti-Federalists was a vitally important amendment to the Constitution. Our system of government was greatly improved by a disagreement that was eventually resolved by compromise.

Why aren't we doing the same thing now?

A Herm on the Road

Yesterday morning I drove to my hometown to accompany a family member to an appointment. The distance is not great in miles, but it has always seemed to me that mere miles don't reflect the real distance between here and there. While it's just down the road, my hometown has always felt a lifetime away. When matters called me there more frequently 15 or 20 years ago, I usually gave a big sigh of relief on the return journey once I hit the outskirts of Lexington, scene of my adult life. Now I wonder if even the psychological distance between here and there is as great as it always seemed.

I don't have the same kind of nostalgia for my hometown that a lot of people probably have for theirs. Some of the good memories I have are for places--like my grandmother's house--that are long gone. I used to have dreams in which I would somehow end up moving back into one of our childhood houses, and I usually felt trapped. I shouldn't be here, I'd be thinking. I'm an adult. I have my own life. More recently, when I dream of being there, I'm often on Main Street, passing the familiar shopfronts as if searching for something, feeling not exactly trapped but perhaps a bit frustrated.

One way I can tell I still have some of my old town with me is through my inner concept of "home." A lot of my ideas for what a neighborhood should feel like are based on my hometown experience of being able to walk just about everywhere, of spending time on tranquil front porches and in pleasant back yards, of being able to get an ice cream cone down the street and a library book a few blocks over. When I think of buying a house, I imagine a scenario that includes these possibilities. So, paradoxically, as much as I wanted to get away, some of my hometown experiences have had a positive, lasting impact.

Yesterday, on the way back here, I started thinking of the many memories I have just of the road I was on. I passed the little church where we once had an end of the year school picnic and water balloon fight, circa seventh grade. A little farther out is the electric co-op building where I attended a high school seminar that resulted in trips and a college scholarship. There's the drive-in where I saw movies with my family and napped in the back seat. Closer to the county line is the house that used to have a Chinese gong and a little Oriental museum, a bit of exotica on that country road that we always liked to look out for.

Then there's the little lane on the right that goes to Avon, where I went swimming with the other sixth-grade girls one summer, "Aquarius/Let the Sunshine In" blaring on the sound system, and jumped off the high dive for the first time. A few miles more, and there's the quick-mart where I once stopped with my Dad on the way back from Lexington. I don't remember what we stopped for, but I remember the occasion--a gray Saturday afternoon in November--because it so closely matched my mood. I was full of dread over having to find material to make a skirt in home-ec class, a prospect that overwhelmed me. (I wish that was the biggest problem currently facing me, but at the time it seemed a terrible ordeal.)

I've driven that road many times in a more businesslike frame of mind, but yesterday, perhaps because of some pictures of venerable local landmarks I saw while visiting, I was in a mood receptive to memories. As I passed the stately church with the classical facade about halfway between there and here, I thought for the first time in years of a short story I once attempted. It was all about that road, and that church (though I've never been inside it), and the journey from one place to another, short in distance but great in meaning. Something about the prospect of that church, with its Greek columns and its hilltop view, has always seemed to mark an invisible boundary between past and present. It's a herm, if you will: a milestone.

Maybe I'm now approaching a similar prospect, a place with a wider view. Maybe that's one of the benefits of staying with the journey long enough.

Boundaries

In between dusting, making iced tea, and chopping vegetables for dinner, I've been thinking about old Robert Frost. To be precise, I've been thinking about his poem "Mending Wall." Did you ever study it in school? We came across it in the 5th grade, though what I gleaned from it then other than thinking the neighbor in it rather grouchy, I couldn't say.

Well, that was then. I'm now inclined to wonder what it was that set that rock-hauling neighbor's teeth on edge and made him insist on keeping the wall in good repair. You just know there's a story behind it; having had a few bad neighbors yourself, you may be more inclined than you were as a youngster to wonder about his side of the story. I know I am. The something-there-is-that-doesn't-love-a-wall narrator has apparently not lived in my building. If Frost had quoted me in that poem, I'd be saying not only "Good fences make good neighbors," but also "So does soundproofing."

As of today, I have new upstairs neighbors, it seems. I haven't seen them, but I'm going by all the noise, trudging back and forth, and voices I've heard in the hall. Last month, I heard maintenance cleaning the apartment after it was vacated by He-Who-Bangs-Around-Like-Thor (the previous tenant), and I was hoping for a quiet summer, but someone seems to have swooped in already. Over the last couple of summers, there was a two-month break between tenants when things were blissfully quiet. This year, the break has been cut short, but it was nice while it lasted.

June is not a common time for people to move in around here. Nor would I guess it to be common anywhere to start moving in at midnight on a Sunday night, but of course there's no accounting for taste. I don't know how much actual heaving of boxes and furniture took place, but I did hear a lot of footsteps up there right around then, just after I settled down peacefully with a book. Unfortunately, the previous tenant had a penchant for coming in and making a lot of noise as soon as I turned on my reading lamp at night, so last evening's unorthodox arrival already felt like deja vu.

I have several theories as to why that particular apartment has been so troublesome for the last several years, and most of them are tongue-in-cheek. Any one of them would make a great thriller or science fiction novella (and maybe I'll write it some time):

1.) A previous tenant had ill-gotten gains and hid it in the walls or floor. Word got out, but no one knows where it is; hence the use of saws, drills, and other equipment I've sometimes heard up there. Gold diggers.

2.) In that very apartment, an alien lost the wingnut needed to drive his spaceship and can't get back to Alpha Centauri without it (this is the reverse of Lost in Space; call it Trapped on Earth--Without a Paddle). The story of how this happened in the first place involves a wild party, a limbo session, and a spaceman who couldn't hold his bourbon. A succession of neighbors with humanoid features masks a desperate attempt to find the widget, which is smaller and thinner than a contact lens and can move of its own volition. Pod people.

3.) All the upstairs tenants are part of a psychology experiment to see how annoying they can be before the other neighbors within earshot move out. I agree, it would be hard to get this one past an ethics committee, so it would have to be run by a renegade psychologist untroubled by tenure considerations. At the end of the experiment, the psychologist ends up in prison, and the volunteers are forced to flee the country to avoid prosecution. Mad scientists.

4.) The tenants are part of a theft ring, which decided to establish its Bluegrass headquarters in the bucolic environs of a suburban apartment dwelling. No one would ever guess, right? All of the heavy noises and sounds of furniture moving are attempts to hide stolen -- what? Artwork? Gold bricks? Bicycles? Circus elephants? Criminals.

If this were a Douglas Adams or Neil Gaiman novel, the upstairs neighbors might actually be gods, passing mostly undetected as regular humans due to their shapeshifting abilities. The whole thing would end in a major gods-on-gods rumble or some sort of time travel cliffhanger. The trouble with that one is that none of my actual neighbors have had even a hint of mythic grandeur. I'm leaving this one off the list. So, not gods.

I think Mr. Frost's narrator dismisses his neighbor's insistence on mending the wall too naively. After all, healthy boundaries are important in life, as is consideration. The narrator seems to feel that even nature rises up against walls, toppling them in silent protest--whereas I am all in favor of them, within reason. They offer some protection against stray dogs, invasions of privacy, and accidents. A picturesque stone wall like the one in the poem seems eminently reasonable to me--it keeps modest order without being an eyesore. There's an art to stone fences, as well as personal boundaries, and I somehow doubt it's a spirit trying to break the wall in the poem. It could be moles, though.

Gone Fishing

Not really, but Wordplay is on a short break while I wrestle with revisions, labyrinths, cultural complexes, the myth of the rugged individualist, the potency of the myth of the rugged individualist, majority-minority demographic trends, the exact location of the Minotaur, Benjamin Franklin, the Knights of the Round Table, and the peer review process.

Capturing a Book

Last week, I read two books recommended by readers of a magazine I subscribe to. This reminded me a little of my experiment two years ago, when I read lots of books from NPR's summer reading lists. I did something like that last summer, too, but blended recommendations from several sources. On the whole, I've decided that, despite coming across a few gems in these reading lists, I usually do better on my own when it comes to picking out books. I just know what I like.

I often find good titles when I'm looking for something else. I might be looking at books by an author I already know and notice something on the same shelf that calls out to me. Part of the fun of going to the library is the serendipity and the not really knowing what I'm going to walk out with. Sometimes, I'm in the mood for something in particular and walk out with a book within five minutes; other times, I know what I want but can't seem to find it.

When I went to the library the other day, I had a title in mind, but the library didn't have it, so I started browsing. I noticed several flyers on a display that someone in reader's advisory must have put together. They had titles like "If You Like Dan Brown . . ." or "If You Like Agatha Christie . . ." In my case, you almost have to be more specific: "If You Like Jane Smiley's Historical Novels But Not A Thousand Acres"; "If You Like Literary Adventures With Exotic Settings and Mythology"; or "If You Like Romances--With Humor--That Aren't Predictable," but to get something that close to the target, I'd have to write the list myself.

However, I flipped through several of the flyers and found some book descriptions that appealed. I started hunting and located a few of the books, including The Age of Desire, a novel about Edith Wharton, and Rules of Civility, a novel about upper-class New Yorkers in the 1930s. I almost picked the Wharton book, but something in the description made me think of Henry James's The Bostonians, and though this book may be nothing like that, I decided against it just in case it was. (This would be from my flyer, "If You Like Henry James and You Like Boston, but not The Bostonians.") Likewise, I might actually enjoy Rules of Civility, which is supposed to invoke a touch of F. Scott Fitzgerald, but my reverse snobbery kicked in just then and a novel about wealthy New Yorkers didn't appeal.

I perused three of the pamphlets and looked for at least 10 of the suggested titles before deciding that maybe the lists wouldn't work for me. I then tried the library's "New Books" shelf, but nothing grabbed me there either. This was turning into one of those contrary occasions when I didn't know exactly what I wanted, but I knew what I didn't want, and I wasn't finding what I wanted, but I didn't want to leave the library without a book.

I took one last look at the list called "If You Like The Night Circus" and saw a book called The Stockholm Octavo that I had somehow overlooked before. The description summarized a tale of love, intrigue, and a Tarot-like deck of divination cards set in 18th-century Sweden. What? How did I not see that before? I found it on the fiction shelf and was drawn to it right away because of the beautiful cover, which depicts the deck of cards, and the satisfying size--over 400 pages. I also noticed a blurb from an author I like on the back of the book, and that seemed promising.

The real test of a book, though, is to read the first few sentences. Then and there, you get the flavor of what the author is up to; a book that sounds fascinating in synopsis and is highly recommended is sometimes simply not your thing once you start reading, but this one began well: "Stockholm is called the Venice of the North, and with good reason. Travelers claim that it is just as complex, just as grand, and just as mysterious as its sister to the south."

OK, that's more like it! Right away, I'm intrigued because I've never thought of Stockholm as being like Venice at all. Throw in words like "complex" and "mysterious," and you've got my attention. A novel set in a northern city with the allure of an Italian one is probably going to be worth your while for the setting alone. And there's a seer! And a deck of mystical cards!

Why I ended up with the last book I considered, I don't know, but I walked out of the library happy. I'm about a fourth of the way through it, and somehow it's just what I had in mind, even though I didn't know what I had in mind when I walked into the library. Sometimes, you just know what you want when you see it.

Palace of the Looking Glass

This week, we had a special treat in the re-opening celebration for a local treasure, the Kentucky Theatre. The evening featured a free showing of South Pacific, free popcorn, free leis, and an appearance by Nick and Nina Clooney, who had their first date at the Kentucky years ago for a showing of (guess what!) South Pacific. The Kentucky has been around since 1922; you can tell it's of a distinguished age by its neoclassical facade and elegant architectural details, but it embodies the phrase "aging gracefully" to the fullest. Rarely will you see a more beautiful theater, or one that is more beloved, as evidenced by its most recent renovation.

Based on my extensive moviegoing history at the Kentucky, I developed an idea some years ago about the real meaning of the experience. This was even before I entered graduate school to study myths; I'd been thinking about mythology in our culture for a long before I went to school for it. It seemed to me that going to a movie had a ritual quality that was something like the feeling you get by going into a cathedral or some other great spiritual house. The sequence of events is perhaps in a different order, but the elements of enactment are similar.

I think the same dynamics come into play in most movie theaters, but perhaps the lofty elegance of a place like the Kentucky makes it more apparent that you're entering a special place, one set apart from the everyday world. You stop at the ticket booth and make your offering, which entitles you to enter. There's a series of liminal spaces, from the entrance under the marquee (where you're still outside but in shadow, already experiencing the imaginal lure of the movies calling out from the playbills and movie posters surrounding you), to the first lobby (in the case of the Kentucky, a spacious hall of mirrors, the better to remind you that what you're about to see is yourself reflected, or possibly a different reality altogether than you've imagined before, as in Cocteau's Orphée), to the inner lobby, behind a second set of doors, where the concessions stand reigns supreme.

Popcorn, Goobers, Raisinettes, Candy Bars . . . these humble but nostalgic foods that look so enticing inside the big glass case, where they sparkle like jewels, are the ritual accompaniment to the main attraction, topped off not with communion wine but possibly a Cherry Coke. Healthy eating is not really the idea; self-indulgence is somehow innocent in a movie theater, if not actually necessary, possibly to lower your guard. You thought you were coming for an evening's diversion, when in reality . . . who knows what might happen up there on that screen and inside your head? Instead of incense, the seductive, earthy aroma of roasted popcorn envelops you, and not just today's freshly popped offering, but all those other batches of months and years past, permeating the fixtures at a molecular level, smelling of carnival and mystery, magic and darkness, as a theater lobby should.

With refreshments in hand, you pass yet another threshold, the door to the inner sanctum, the auditorium itself. In the Kentucky, the large open space above your head, the stained glass, and the ornate architectural flourishes draw your eye up, as if toward heaven. You feel a little bit like Dante before he starts ascending. For many people, there is a distinct difference between a spiritual and a secular setting, but I think in this case, considering the imaginal and transformational potential of moviegoing, the distinction is somewhat blurred. You sit in the dark, suspend your disbelief as a series of images plays out on the screen like a dream, and are sometimes profoundly changed by what you see, shaken, inspired, exhilarated, saddened, enlarged. You have probably been entertained, but sometimes you've gotten a glimpse of something you weren't expecting, and it makes a difference.

When the movie's over and the lights come up and you retrace your steps to the outside world, it often takes a few seconds to adjust to being in the ordinary everyday once again. I remember attending a showing of A Touch of Evil one rainy summer night at the Kentucky and walking to my car afterwards through a town that seemed different from the one I had left a few hours earlier. I had somehow carried the noir mood out with me, and the familiar streets now looked like a scene from Orson Welles, as if God had somehow assumed the persona of the great director.

I lost the feeling by the time I got home, but it's worth remembering. Was it possibly an opening to realizing that the shadow world and the surface world are not as far apart as they seem? Don't good films often reveal that in one way or another? Isn't a movie theater a portal to the unknown, what the Celts called a thin place, but with good seats and popcorn? I think the answer to all of these questions is yes.

The Sense of Place

Do different places express different archetypes? The question has interested me for several years, and I actually considered working on it for my dissertation. I think the answer is yes, but it's easy to fall into oversimplification when you try to identify what those archetypes are.

I'm especially intrigued by comparisons of urban environments. Is it possible to identify predominant archetypes in a city as expressed in its image, economy, physical environment, and the people it attracts? Can you characterize Seattle as being more like Hermes and San Francisco as being more like Aphrodite? Is Washington D.C. a city of Athena? Does Boston, with all its colleges, have more of a heady Apollo energy? Any city obviously has multiple faces, subcultures, nuances, and shadows, but predominant themes often seem present.

I've read books by people who have addressed these issues either as depth psychologists or from other perspectives, and they seem to agree that different places represent noticeably different aspirations and "personalities." I spent a lot of time a few years ago trying to identify the main archetypes of the place I live in, wanting to understand what it excelled in and what it lacked, especially in comparison to other places. When I first started thinking about it, I found this hard to do, probably because I'd been here so long and couldn't see things from the outside. Having been around a bit more since then (I traveled a lot in 2011), I have more of a basis for comparison now and can articulate what I know.

There's a calmness about Lexington, an orderliness that's in noticeable contrast to, say, Los Angeles, which is much more venturesome -- even chaotic. Part of it's a size difference, of course, but I think there's also a difference in underlying dynamics. Lexington is in many ways a settled place, centered on families, it seems to me, so that it has a feeling of Hestia, hearth, and home. L.A. and San Francisco (and many other places) are also much more hedonistic than Lexington. Hedonism, unless it's of a sedate variety, just doesn't seem to play well here.

I've found Lexington to be both comfortable and confining. I've always thought it was a probably a better place to raise a family than to live in as a single woman, and it all has to do with that homely quality. I've often felt out of my element here, as if standing out too much in any way was always going to be a problem. I felt that I might thrive in a more adventurous environment, a place with more variety not only in cultural and occupational opportunities but also in the people I would meet. I finally addressed this frustration when I commuted to graduate school out of state, an arrangement that let me stay in place but experience the stimulus of an entirely different environment.

My home and even my job were rife with Hestian qualities of order and caretaking; I needed an infusion of a different kind of energy, more Aphrodite, more Apollo, and more Hermes (for a feeling of movement and lightness).

I told a friend before I started at Pacifica that I hoped it would help me figure out either how to leave here or how to stay. During the three years I was commuting to Southern California, I was pretty much in the "leave" mode; the question was where, when, and how. But a funny thing happened somewhere along the way, because once released from three years of what was definitely a labor of love but gave me no free time, I was at leisure to rediscover my own town. Somehow, despite its drawbacks, Lexington suddenly seemed to offer more than I remembered.

I re-discovered the Gallery Hop; there seemed to be more places to have brunch on Saturdays; I had time to attend Woodsongs Old Time Radio Hour at the Kentucky Theatre (on the night I attended, I was having dinner in a nearby restaurant when it was announced that a European opera singer was in the house and would give a brief performance); a couple of weeks later, I saw a play by Samuel Beckett in the theatre of the same small restaurant. Lexington had perhaps changed and expanded a little, but what seemed really different was me. My graduate program, and what it took to see it through, had enlarged me, so that I felt more confident in my own skin, wherever I happened to be. Perhaps my vision had also become more acute so that I was now able to seek out those touches of Aphrodite and Apollo and Hermes wherever they happened to be.

Kentucky is, of course, very land-locked, so that the spirit of Uranus, the ocean, is not much felt here. I like the feeling of having land all around me; it's nice to able to move in any direction. But when I was in California, spending so much time between the mountains and the sea, I think I developed an expansiveness partly in response to the intellectual and social climate and partly in response to the physical environment. Looking up at the mountains and out over the ocean must have trained my eye, without my knowing it, to seek further and to see more. I think it's difficult to stay settled in your ways when you spend a lot of time next to the ocean, which presents such a challenge to ideas of solidity. I must have needed a little of that moisture, that fluidity, and that sense of things loosening up. And maybe the mountains raised my sights a little higher.

I miss the beauty of those California interludes, but I think in the end they did their job and became a part of me. Some sort of rebalancing took place that was partly to do with my studies and partly to do with the different energy I experienced on the West Coast. Never underestimate the power of place.