Trying to figure out who to look up to...

I had a day, today, that has me finally asking myself some hard questions...

A teacher, today, that is among the special education teachers in the building that I respect has been on a mission to kick a kid out of school...

She doesn't have any reason to think that he will be better served elsewhere...she's not even thinking of that, honestly...

What she's thinking is that he is a major pain in her ass and she wants him off her plate...

And it has me wondering why I do this work at all...and who in the world I have to look up to...

The answer to that question at this point in my life, sadly, is noone...I respect lots of folks...but I don't look at anyone's judgment, anymore, and trust it more than my own...because noone's earned it...

When I was a kid, I was pretty trusting, as it turns out...where others didn't trust their teachers and parents, I did...even when they probably didn't deserve it, as it turns out, as I spend more time with teachers and as I get to know my parents better as I get older...

I trusted my teachers...they were older than me...more world-wise than me...they were generally smarter than me...and I just generally trusted that they probably knew enough more stuff than me that I should probably listen to what they had to say...

I can't name a teacher I think that about, today...and I don't really know if I can name a teacher or scholar or moral leader and definitely not a political leader who I trust more than myself...

It's a very awkward feeling, I have to say...

Because it's not like I know what I'm doing half the time...

It's just that I trust my judgment better than most folks, now...not around the matters of expertise I lack...or around matters that are less important...

But around the stuff that really matters most in life...I trust my judgment most...

It's a strange feeling, really...and an uneasy one...because I'm not used to thinking/feeling like this...I'm used to consulting with others...a lot...and often trusting others more, if for no other reason than to try on their outlook...

But today...and the last 6 years...has me wondering who to look up to...

I just don't trust most folks like I used to...not because they're any worse than before...but just because I think most people have really underdeveloped consciences...even and especially the self-righteous among us who are so intent on uncovering the underdeveloped consciences of others...theirs is a form of voyerism and the less righteous and vindictive tendency to prove how right they were about how shitty people around them are...or to justify their fear and panic in a world full of flawed people...

And all the people I used to look up to more regularly...my parents...my professors...Brandi...they just haven't come through in the last 6 years or so...they're fine people...they're just not great people...certainly not as great as I gave them too much credit for in the past, I think...

And I'm not afraid of anyone anymore...

And I don't know what I want...

Some company, maybe...

I'd like to work with people who care more about others than about their own convenience...

I like being with people who can be honest...with me and with themselves...we all bullshit ourselves...but some people are just better about sorting out their own bullshit from a more honest assessment of their lives...

My colleague and most of my colleagues, really, are now, and regularly, bullshitting themselves...they think of themselves as smarter, more thoughtful, more worthy of kids' and peoples' respect than they really are...

Perhaps we all are...

But I respect people more who know that than people who pretend otherwise...or perhaps are too stupid or unwilling to challenge themselves to consider otherwise...

And one thing is for sure...I am damned tired of the intellectually and morally lazy of my colleagues acting like their rationalizations for their laziness are really the same as doing better than me...I am tired of being everything but the kind of shithead to kids that my colleagues would like me to be and having it held against me because they just can't take two seconds of their precious time to think harder about how we handle things...

I am tired of working so damned hard at taking my own conscience seriously and being condescended by those who never in their lives have tried to do so as seriously...

I feel very alone, these days, is how I really feel, when it comes down to it...

I think life, for an awful lot of folks, is a game where getting the most for yourself and covering your ass is the objective...and responsibility is to be avoided...even in your own heart...for fear of having to face what shitheads that makes us...

A lot of this is due to how harsh the consequences can be for taking responsibility...but most people won't take responsibility for this, either, so it's not like there's any way out of this thing without someone taking responsibility...a lot of people taking responsibility...
I think most people are like my kids...full of themselves for no good goddamned reason...

Kids can be an arrogant lot...they think they can do anything, no matter how little they know...and they're always convinced of their own righteousness...always...no matter how much in the wrong they are...

And most adults are the same, as it turns out...

And all I want is a little company...for people to face up to their shitheadedness just enough to consider, just maybe, being better...

I'm becoming concerned that that is asking too much of most people...who are more concerned with not feeling bad about themselves than with being better people...my general feeling about that sentiment is too fuckin' bad...

But maybe social conservatives are right...maybe people are just too shitty to face up to that, themselves, most of the time, and so they must have all of their impulses restrained...

And if that is the case, I really can't see what area of life should not be restrained...why not marital fidelity?...why not heterosexuality and homosexuality?...why not pornography?...why not oral or anal or non-missionary sex?...why not who you marry or who you have sex with, including race, ethnicity, and religion?...why not restricting goofy religions?...why not state control over the economy?...why not regulate speech or thought?...

If people really can't be trusted with these things, why would we keep our hands off?...

If we are to be trusted more than our neighbors with regulating his life, why would we need any limits at all on that capacity?...

The truth is that if we really believe that people need to be regulated to do the right thing, we're either too pussy to be theocrats or too pussy to be communists...either way, not too flattering...

Because, right now, my country...the world...is sounding suspiciously like the Palestinians...suspicious of and cynical about everything...never satisfied with enough autocracy and force to solve their problems...fucking up their own ambitions and never taking any responsibility for it...and all the while waiting for the right strongman to finally make everything right...

Come to think of it...it sounds like every society since the beginning of fuckin' time...

And, really...how can you respect people who act like that?...and more importantly, how can they respect themselves?

I won't be pressuring my colleague to change her mind...her conscience is more important than my need to be right about sticking by this kid...

But goddamnit it would be nice to work with people who take their consciences more seriously than they take their TV viewing...

Education is about challenging ourselves...and challenging each other, constructively...

But most people avoid it like the plague, even as they sing its praises, because they prefer the pander of television and music and movies to the challenge of education...

Like math, Barbie might say, education is hard...challenge is hard...and most people spend their whole lives trying to avoid both...

And days like this one I wonder why the fuck I take that challenge so seriously when most people could really give two shits...

That includes the student in this situation...and the teacher...

And I just don't understand why I give such a shit about the whole situation when the two people involved clearly don't themselves...

Love,
Ben

The failures and limits of power...

A very quick and brief reflection on the failures and limits of power...

I listened to a story on NPR coming into work, this morning, that I thought well illustrated the failures and limits of power and firm assertions of authority to solve problems that need collaboration...

The story (which I'm not finding on their webpage, this morning) detailed the power battle between a local Native tribe along the Canadian border and a Canadian corporation that does business north of the border and has likely polluted waters that have run downstream...

The Canadian company says that it wants to work in good faith to clean up the waters after they've studied the issue and has evaluated the risk involved...the tribe wants the EPA to assert authority over the Canadian company and force them to clean up the waters...

The problem is...the EPA doesn't likely have jurisdiction over the Canadian company...even as a Federal court and a Federal Appeals Court assert that they do...assert all you want, the Canadian company seems to have been saying to the tribe and to the courts...there is no jurisdiction...the pollution happens north of the border and the last time they and I looked, that was Canadian territory, not U.S. territory...

The company appears to be in good faith...and no assertions of authority have led to any clean-up...the EPA is doing the sensible thing, right now, which is negotiating and working with the company, where active collaboration will likely yield a far better result than any assertion of authority...

But the tribe just can't get off of it...

No matter how much their strategy has failed...

Jurisdictions are created to limit authority for just this reason, actually...because of the avarice of those who wield authority...

It's kind of funny to me just how so many people enamoured with the law and with power and authority seem to never respect its limits...once they have it, they want to wield it wherever they think they should get their way...

Lord Acton had a phrase for that kind of thing...

Power corrupts...and absolute power corrupts absolutely...

And the whole purpose of democratic authority and governance was to set limits on those who would wield it...

You wouldn't know that from democratic practice over the last 6 years, at least, or so...because everyone seems to think that democracy is a tool for their power-hunger more than principles to limit it...the Nazis thought that too and the Weimar democracy became their tool without a more mature idea of what democracy constitutes...

Thank God for democracy is my thinking over these last 6 miserable years...thank God that there are checks and balances in place for all parties to be accountable to...not because they resolve problems...they don't...but because they limit the ability of those who would wield authority to do so without limits and to persistently ignore how and when they don't solve problems...

It's amazing to me how many people seek out power and authority and ignore and refuse to take responsibility for its use and for its failures...ironic, because the whole point of authority to is promote responsible action...

All too human...and the most important reason to take democratic principles seriously, and not just as sidelines to our big ambitions...

I have work to do:):)...have a great week, everyone:):)...

Love,
Ben