A Rambling Conversation w/ Dooley-- Pt. 1

Buddy Dooley and I have buried the hatchet--for now. He as been motivated to record and transcribe our recent conversations. I'll post them here as Dooley and I talk about things and as he feels duty-bound to send the transcripts my way.

BD: You have strong opinions, don't you?

TS: I do. I'm not cowered by anyone. I'm supposed to have strong opinions. I like to think I have a sense of urgency about things. It's important to clarify things for the record.

BD: That explains your recent book of memoirs...

TS: It does. It's out there now, in case anyone wonders, now or in the future. What did he know? What did he like? What were his experiences? These types of questions are haunting. I expect they will be familial questions in the very least. Everyone should make a record, of course. Even you, Buddy. One writes a memoir to exorcise memories, to attempt to justify existence, and blah, blah...This is old hat.

BD: Do you worry that your opinions may not be substantive?

TS: Well, I know what I don't know. Which is a helluva lot more than I do know. Does that answer your question?

BD: I'll accept it as a starter.

TS: You mean like an appetizer?

BD: Well, yes...You're a political animal, aren't you? You seem to...

TS: Where am I? Alone on an island? Of course, all of us are political animals. Some of us simply are unaware of the fact. Never trust a man without a political opinion. He's either undeveloped or lying. In either case, he's dangerous.

BD: Dangerous, how so?

TS: Well, we already know what damage liars can do. Look around. But I think Thomas Frank was talking about the danger of the uninformed man in his book What's the Matter with Kansas? I don't know if he would agree with that assessment, but for my money that is what he was talking about. A body politic that is to a large degree perfectly happy to suffer hardship and yet maintain its bliss.

BD: Well, if they're not feeling it...

TS: But so many are who are in denial about it. Even in the face of the obvious, the erosion of their quality of life, say. In the face of job loss. In the face of destitution. They are feeling it. They will say they are not, until the bank rolls them up. Until the moving van shows up.

BD: You interrupted me for a second time. I'd like to have a dialogue with you.

TS: I'm sorry, Buddy (long pause). I mean dangerous in the sense that if they persist with myth at the expense of a keener understanding of systems, then their acquiescence threatens democracy. I should say the ideal of democracy. You and I both know democracy is failing.

BD: Well, certainly representative government is. You go on a lot about corporatism. I take it that is a pejorative term for you? And I'm not certain how myth enters the equation here.

TS: Two questions, Buddy. I'll try to sort them out. First, in the stead of democracy we have corporate entities wielding influence. What is happening is a second tier of action and response to government is wrapped up in that influence. For millions of Americans democracy has become a double-step maneuver, which might be a crude way of putting it. The first step or response such people have is to go with the bread man, the corporation. But if the corporation is doing things anathema to the good of the people, conflict erupts between those with a vested interest in their jobs and those who simply want to see improvements...in services, in goods, in the environment, etc. Corporations that make that maneuvering easier for people are of course more responsible, because people actually know what is happening. They know when their jobs are dangerous to society. Look at oil. Look at the Gulf disaster. Of course people knew the potential was there for disaster. The problem was that people were powerless to stop it--the workers who might have blown the whistle, and the environmental types, the corporation's enemies. That is corporatism--a degradation of common sense in the name of profits...

BD: And the second part of the question?

TS: What was it?

BD: You mentioned myth. The Kansas variety.

TS: Oh, yes. Well, the overriding myth of our time, or of a conservative time like we have now for example, is that "values" are constant. People speak blankly about values. Yet values are not as easily constructed as would be moralists suggest. The myth then is that one set of values has...

BD: Value?

TS: Yes, in the absolute sense. So that when the righteous begin to extol the "values" they believe are important it is because those values are moral. But morality is more elastic than that. Values are not finite and morals are with a few exceptions openly debatable. Except to the closed minded.

BD: Well, using the example you just did, the Gulf, whose values should take precedence?

TS: That is a political question, but it is just one of many, which is why all claims that some people are apolitical is bogus. They may not vote, which is another story. Even the non-voter has an opinion. His is that the issue is not important enough to vote on or even think about. Nihilists along with Anarchists tend to not vote.

BD: It does seem at times that voting accomplishes little.

(to be continued)

TS