Oh my.
Yesterday evening I watched as many clips as were available online (without having cable or a subscription to CBS’s 60 Minutes) of Charlie Rose’s interview with Steve Bannon. Fascinating stuff. After a long period of “literally Rasputin” or “the Devil,” he’s sort of being normalized. I think this is a good thing because you can’t talk about anything rationally if it’s taboo and/or abnormal. And there’s nothing Bannon says that should be considered taboo (as in, off the table, to be banned), and since he’s merely articulating in higher language (intellectually) what half the country feels, he’s not “abnormal,” either. Whatever it is, we can’t sweep it under the rug.
And frankly, that he ripped into Hillary Clinton seemed deserved. She’s like this bad zombie – now her book is out, and it’s all ego and “me me me,” resentments and recriminations galore. Not much wisdom there, not much at all.
Yesterday afternoon W. and I went to the oceanfront picnic for [group] at B.-Head Point. First, a big “wow” to the setting: nearly four acres, immaculate gardens, and lots of solar arrays. (I think the owners must be set up to be able to manage being off the grid.) Second, a big “wow”on the turnout. Lots of people showed up. Met an interesting couple, professional musicians (classical), now in this area, but they met in New York City, where they also lived and worked during their careers.
I was repeatedly (inwardly) reminded of our class differences, specifically of mine from practically everyone else’s who was there. Aside from W., I might easily have been the only person there who was first in her generation to go to college. I’m almost certain W. and I were the only ones there who were first in our generation able to finish high school (because certain fiancial constraints on doing so were lifted off our parents).
The level of privilege people bring with them when they are already the children of academics (of professors, in the specific case I’m thinking of!), and then pursue an academic or “arts” career themselves is staggering. But it’s important not to stagger, to stay upright when facing it. The same holds true for people in business and finance.
There, the “stagger” overwhelms less because it’s not in my wheelhouse, but when I see it in fields I was once embedded in, fields I actually penetrated (but no longer occupy), it is staggering. I have to tell myself that they just started from a different position, that’s all. But …wow. My intelligence can make up for a lot, but it can’t completely make things up, like a past, a history. Mine is what it is.