A PLEA FOR PURPLE
No, not just because I wear a lot of it. Which I do partly because it suits my blonde coloring, and partly in memory of my great-aunt who also wore a lot of purple and was one of the coolest people I have ever known. At age 85, she still had 110% of her marbles, and served as the part-time city clerk of a smallish Ohio town. She was a Republican, but she never had any use for Nixon, who she firmly believed had trashed the local party organizations. She kept up with everything. She eventually retired from public office, and died in her 90s. And in a way, my relationship with her is a good metaphor for possible resolutions of the Red/Blue divide.
She was a good Catholic, and, had she lived long enough to hear about the abortion controversy, would probably have identified herself as “pro-life.” She was an active woman, deeply involved in public life, and probably thought of herself as a first-wave feminist. She certainly approved of my having graduated from an Ivy League college and become a college teacher. (That was before I went to law school.)
We had, in short, a lot of common ground. And a few common enemies, like Nixon.
If liberals and conservatives would stop posturing and stereotyping, and shut up and listen to each other, we might find that we too have common ground and common enemies.
Most liberals looking for common ground with the Religious Right start out by discounting the culture wars as trivial in comparison with the economic disaster the Republican Party and its business supporters are visiting on working people. That disaster has to be attended to before it gets any worse. But we aren’t going to become a majority on that issue if we continue to alienate half the population by saying culture doesn’t matter. In fact, it does matter. There are aspects of the culture wars that liberals can join in, enthusiastically. Culture isn’t trivial, even in comparison to the bread-and-butter issues.
The most likely common enemy I can think of (but also the most powerful) is commercial culture. What people are fond of calling the media, and using the word as a singular. Grammatically, that’s an illiterate abomination, but it has a certain substantive validity, because the television, internet, radio, popular music, and popular press are a monolith in their dependence on advertising and the mentality of the advertisers.
The culture purveyed by the advertising-supported media is saturated with greed, violence, soulless sex, great special effects, and bad writing. My reasons, as a good card-carrying liberal, for despising it may be somewhat different from those of the Christian Right. I may be more dismayed by the violence, greed, and bad writing than by the sex. They may be more appalled by the fact that some of the soulless sex is between people of the same gender, and almost all of it is between people who are not married to each other. But probably, we are equally revolted by the prime-time ads for pharmaceutical treatments for erectile dysfunction and genital herpes. For different reasons, we are equally dismayed by fashions that make ten-year-old girls look like hookers. Why can’t we get together about this? Can you imagine the power such a combination could wield?
Once we take on the moguls of commercial culture, we can gain the courage and power to stand up for ourselves on the bread-and-butter issues that affect working people of any political stripe. The commercial culture vultures profit by dividing us into black and white, or red and blue—it makes more green for them. If we can talk to each other about the worst aspects of commercial culture, we can begin to remake a common culture and a common polity. Let’s make a beginning for the politics of purple.
She was a good Catholic, and, had she lived long enough to hear about the abortion controversy, would probably have identified herself as “pro-life.” She was an active woman, deeply involved in public life, and probably thought of herself as a first-wave feminist. She certainly approved of my having graduated from an Ivy League college and become a college teacher. (That was before I went to law school.)
We had, in short, a lot of common ground. And a few common enemies, like Nixon.
If liberals and conservatives would stop posturing and stereotyping, and shut up and listen to each other, we might find that we too have common ground and common enemies.
Most liberals looking for common ground with the Religious Right start out by discounting the culture wars as trivial in comparison with the economic disaster the Republican Party and its business supporters are visiting on working people. That disaster has to be attended to before it gets any worse. But we aren’t going to become a majority on that issue if we continue to alienate half the population by saying culture doesn’t matter. In fact, it does matter. There are aspects of the culture wars that liberals can join in, enthusiastically. Culture isn’t trivial, even in comparison to the bread-and-butter issues.
The most likely common enemy I can think of (but also the most powerful) is commercial culture. What people are fond of calling the media, and using the word as a singular. Grammatically, that’s an illiterate abomination, but it has a certain substantive validity, because the television, internet, radio, popular music, and popular press are a monolith in their dependence on advertising and the mentality of the advertisers.
The culture purveyed by the advertising-supported media is saturated with greed, violence, soulless sex, great special effects, and bad writing. My reasons, as a good card-carrying liberal, for despising it may be somewhat different from those of the Christian Right. I may be more dismayed by the violence, greed, and bad writing than by the sex. They may be more appalled by the fact that some of the soulless sex is between people of the same gender, and almost all of it is between people who are not married to each other. But probably, we are equally revolted by the prime-time ads for pharmaceutical treatments for erectile dysfunction and genital herpes. For different reasons, we are equally dismayed by fashions that make ten-year-old girls look like hookers. Why can’t we get together about this? Can you imagine the power such a combination could wield?
Once we take on the moguls of commercial culture, we can gain the courage and power to stand up for ourselves on the bread-and-butter issues that affect working people of any political stripe. The commercial culture vultures profit by dividing us into black and white, or red and blue—it makes more green for them. If we can talk to each other about the worst aspects of commercial culture, we can begin to remake a common culture and a common polity. Let’s make a beginning for the politics of purple.
posted by WiredSisters at 11:52 AM
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