Los Angeles, California
The Chinese curse, May you live in interesting times, has never seemed truer than today. Between the polarization of our politics, the toxicity of social media, and a still-unpredictable pandemic, my thoughts often turn to a long ago TV commercial. Calgon, take me away...
There is respite to be had. For me, dancing helps the most. I simply cannot hang on to the day's news, travails, and confusion during dance movement. Spinning in a space of music, movement, and my partner's face can drop me into an in-the-moment nirvana. It washes the day away. But as Covid is once again rising in our county, post-holidays, we are abstaining from the salsa community who are inexplicably not vigilant regarding any mitigating measures. So I utilize what I can. I meditate. I work out. I write. I cook a little. And these pastimes allow my mind to ponder on much of what I see around me.
The repeal of Rowe v. Wade has been stunning. Not that we never saw the possibility of this, but that it has been wrought on the back of a violent, toxic, imposter religiosity is frightful. Friends blame this on Catholicism -- too many Catholics on the Court. But Biden is a pro-choice Catholic, as are many. Blaming Catholicism is like blaming the US government for Trump. It's not the institution. It's not the party. It's the man. Or in the case of the Church, it is the men. The celebration of Mass in the Catholic church, the one true, original Church, instills the teachings of Christ through a ritual of repetition in prayer and in tradition. But, through centuries it has been corrupted by men. I participate in Mass because I find it enlightening and beautiful, but mostly because it fully functions as a conduit to my connection with God. As an institution, does the Catholic church need to change and evolve? Definitely. But I don't think it should be thrown to the dustbin because some members of its clergy and parishioners have personified evil. Any more than our country should be, because of a wicked man who lied and maneuvered his way into the presidency.
But, getting back to the anti-choice movement; we, on the pro-choice side, are always saying that it is a personal choice to have or not have an abortion. Personal. Choice. You have a right to be free to choose to end or not end a pregnancy. But you should not have the right to take away anyone else's freedom of that choice. That is what we have been saying for decades. Freedom of choice is at the heart of human rights liberalism.
But have we, as liberals, fallen into a quagmire of judgment over other individual choices? I hear some weird criticism amongst my fellow liberals. I am almost at the end of counting on the fingers of one hand the comments guests in my home have made regarding my use of paper products. One commenter's reference to their millennial offspring indicated that they would love to utilize pretty paper plates as I do, but of course their children won't allow it. Won't. Allow. It. This is when I think about having a wall hanging with the universal red symbol for NO over the words: Virtue-signaling.
Don't get me wrong. I am conscious of our environment. I recycle everything that is recyclable. I follow the county guidelines for water usage. I drive an electric car. Frankly, being a person of moderation, I think I do enough. And, not to put too fine a point on it, it is a choice to utilize paper products. It is a choice to marry a same-sex partner. It is a choice to eat meat; to wear what we want; to get tattoos! Are we so bogged down with the misery of our macro culture that we are hyper-focused on the micro? Recently a friend informed me that she keeps a list of middle-aged actresses who she thinks should cut their hair. Was she telling me that in our liberal culture where we accept and support people changing genders we are judgmental about women's hairstyles and clothing after a certain age?
When a comment was recently made at a dinner party in my home regarding my printing something out on paper, I responded that I was using my kids' paper allotment. I have no kids. Interestingly, most of these über-virtue paragons brought resource-sucking progeny into the world. You can't recycle yourself out of the amount of air, water, and trash your next-generation family members will consume and create. Three words for these people: Zero. Population. Growth. Not just a blast from the past, but something they might be thinking about before they criticize the choices of others. It was their choice to have children and I am not in any way knocking that. But it is my choice to use paper products in the manner that I do, and to feel justified in that choice, as they are in theirs. We are truly fortunate to have choices in many areas of life, and moderation is a perfectly viable one. Granted, it's no longer the sixties and freedom isn't as it was then perceived, but come on people, can we please at least try to lighten up? Virtue-signalling comes across as an irritating annoyance. And maybe true freedom can only exist in an absence of judgmentalism (however, it would be folly to look for that absence here).
Meanwhile I will continue to print things out on paper, to use paper plates which enable me to create a variety of pretty and fun table settings, and especially, to read hardcover books. As I have often said, I was born under the sign of paper. And, those kids I didn't have are allowing me to use their allotment, as they are generous and nonjudgmental, like all imaginary children. And there is no virtue-signaling in this family. I must have done something right in raising them.
