The “Get Over It” Crowd

9 Responses to The “Get Over It” Crowd

1. MikeR says:

   April 16, 2005 at 12:03 pm

   I very much agree. I think the tendency toward impatience with frailty and weakness and indecision is a natural one, because those things exist in all of us. Conservatives and liberals are really just attempting to deal with a common set of problems in different ways. The thing is, neither way of coping with life’s challenges is very useful on its own.

   Lack of introspection causes people to sleep-walk through life not really understanding what’s happening to them or how they might have a more fulfilling, meaningful life. Excessive introspection paralyzes people and prevents them from getting things accomplished and experiencing many of the joys life has to offer.

   I think the best art finds a middle ground between the two extremes. Art necessarily involves a degree of introspection, because its goal is to reveal truth, and many truths are NOT self-evident. But when an artist goes too far and becomes too self-absorbed and painfully over-analytical, the end result can be just as bad as the output of an unreflective hack. In recent movie terms, on one end you have The Pacifier and on the other you have The Brown Bunny.

   I read Mitch’s essay and you’re right – it is a very good one.
2. DBW says:

   April 16, 2005 at 12:26 pm

   I wish I had more time to properly address this post, but this will have to do.

   I’m not sure you are getting to an accurate core on this issue. What many people(not just conservatives) feel impatient towards is not human frailty or indecision, but the pandering to, and glorification of, that aspect of human character. For myself, I dislike a forced wallowing in human weakness. There is nothing false about Van Gogh’s mental suffering, or its influence on his art. I find a posturing falseness in Springsteen’s Johnny 99. I am not a big Springsteen fan, but I like and enjoy Nebraska. This is one man’s opinion, but I perceive a calculated pose in much of his music. As a personal contrast, I don’t love Joni Mitchell’s politics, but I love her music. For the most part, her music is filled with honest emotion and perspective, even when it has an underlying political or philosophical purpose. I guess I am saying that it is the recognizable appearance of facade that makes some feel impatient or hostile. Particularly, when that facade seems hellbent to influence others to shirk personal responsibility, to ignore reason and be driven by emotion, or to glorify wallowing in despair.

   Great art is great art. Whether created through human frailty or human strength, it is easily identified–and needs no defense to reasonable people. I understand that there are those who lump all music, drama, poetry, art, etc. into one category, and insist that it adhere to their rigid value system. I find it telling that Mitch, with whom I agree on many, many things, feels compelled to explain that he is capable of sensitivity and nuance, and “YET,” is still a Republican. To this I can relate. As a whole, conservatism is viewed through the prism created by those with the rigid value system I mentioned above. To many, it seems impossible that any conservative is capable of really appreciating beauty, as if we are unable to grasp the finer details of Miles Davis, Scriabin, Manet, Nabokov, or whatever. On some level, that narrow perception of conservatives might lead to some of the “impatience” you see. Conservatives are too shallow to truly enjoy Bill Evans’ piano work, but they see some poser wallowing in false, forced emotionality held up as great art. It can become maddening.

   Well, this is a wild rant without my normal reflection, but I hope it is taken as another perspective on “impatience.”
3. red says:

   April 16, 2005 at 12:40 pm

   David –

   You can “wildly rant” on my blog any time you want. :)

   I hear your complaints, and I completely understand where you’re coming from – I know we have spoken about this before. It is not fair to assume that people, just because of their political leaning, etc., can’t “get” art, or understand “nuances”, yadda yadda.

   HOWEVER:

   this is obviously a matter of persepctive – but I see a lot of conservatives who take an impatient “get over it” attitude towards everything. Everything. Mitch is addressing that attitude. It does exist. I see it everywhere.

   Glorifying human frailty is another thing altogether. There is, like you say, a huge distinction. But Mitch isn’t addressing that – and neither am I. Maybe that’s the “core issue” for you, and that’s fine, but that isn’t what I am talking about here.

   It’s a hard-core attitude towards all complexities in life. Look at the conservative talking-heads on television, the knee-jerk conservative columnists … everything boils down to ‘common sense’ (and they think that that means the same thing to everybody) … No matter how complex the problem (obesity, divorce, whatever) – everything is treated impatiently, and as though everybody who has problems like that are idiots.

   This is why liberals are GLEEFUL when conservative public figures admit to having drug addictions or affairs. It is because these these conservatives have anointed themselves as arbiters of morality, so it is gloriously fun to see them crashing down and become part of the messy HUMAN race. These people have cracks in their asses like the rest of us. I remember being THRILLED when Bill Bennett came out and admitted his gambling addiction. After years of listening to his finger-wagging exclusionary moral scolding, it was beautiful to see him admit to a little bit of human frailty.

   So, you can say I’m missing the core issue, but I don’t think so.
4. red says:

   April 16, 2005 at 12:50 pm

   sorry, one more thing DBW:

   You write “to glory wallowing in despair”.

   I submit to you that this is a subjective thing. What, to you, might be “wallowing in despair” may be, to someone else, something entirely different.

   There are those who can’t BEAR to hang out with Holden Caulfield. They can’t STAND him. They think he’s a sniveling whining idiot. “Get over it. So your brother Allie died – so what?? Get the fuck over it!” Then there are others (and I include myself) who look at Holden with compassion, with love … of COURSE he would be freaking out after the death of his beloved sibling. I would freak out myself. There is no “wallowing” there. In MY view.

   There are people, David, who see having ANY emotion at ALL as “wallowing”.

   THIS is the kind of person I can’t stand. THIS is the kind of person who wants to sanitize art and make everything pretty-pretty nice-nice. They can’t bear to see people AMBIVALENT because then – it calls into question the building-blocks of their lives, it calls into question what they think is so obviously “right”. Good art actually admits that there ARE grey areas, and there are times when people DON’T know the right choice to make.

   This drives certain conservatives batshit.

   I’ve met those people, as I am sure you have as well.

   Hard-line liberals have their own issues in this regard – they want art to be politically correct, and serve political agendas. For the most part, this shit is bad art. Because they are trying to educate and enlighten, blah blah …

   But it’s the impatience with ambivalence and frailty that I find more annoying and harmful. Not wallowing, don’t misundersttand me. But the mere fact that someone would stand at a crossroads (let’s say: should I get married, how do I lose weight, how do I forgive my mother…) and actually have some TROUBLE with making a choice … really really doesn’t sit well with some folks. All of civilization will come crashing down if we admit that these issues AREN’T black and white.
5. red says:

   April 16, 2005 at 3:23 pm

   Honest to God, I have GOT to chill OUT with the use of capital letters. I type the way I TALK, which is very emPHAtic, I try to type so that you can HEAR ME… but honestly. I am looking at my own typing right now, and thinking: Good Lord, girl. Please CHILL OUT.
6. Laura (southernxyl) says:

   April 16, 2005 at 8:37 pm

   It’s the Victorian in you. 125 years ago you’d have been underlining all those words and phrases.

   I consider myself fairly conservative, and I too am frequently utterly horrified at some people’s cold-heartedness.

   I even have some compassion for people who consistently make their own problems. Because they’re getting some gratification out of screwing up their own lives, and I think that’s very sad.
7. red says:

   April 17, 2005 at 1:51 am

   Laura …

   True – but then some of the greatest characters in literature and drama are people who make problems for themselves. People who – because they aren’t willing to look within, be honest – live highly complicated lives (think of Blanche Dubois for example) But through watching these people on the stage – we in the audience get to experience a catharsis – we feel for them – and we are better for it. The Greeks knew this better than anybody – it was essential that theatre provide a catharis for an audience.

   I just saw Who’s Afraid of Virginia Woolf. I feel no desire to “judge” those people, or stand above them, or snicker at how little they know themselves. This may be the actress in me – actors shouldn’t look down at the characters they play, and judge them. It’s very bad form.

   Judging fictional characters as … immoral, unworthy of our attention, yadda yadda is very often the conservative stance. And conservatives reading this: please, if the shoe fits, wear it – if it don’t, then DON’T WEAR IT. I share many of your conservative views, but the “get over it” response to human frailty I will not share. Anyway – those people onstage in Virginia Woolf were trapped in devices of their own making. Survival technicques, whatever – victimizing themselves? Hell, yeah. They lived for 20 years in total denial, boozing it up, ruining their lives … this was their way of coping with being unable to conceive a baby. Absolute lunacy. Many conservatives wouldn’t want to spend 2 seconds with those people. Hell, I wouldn’t want to spend 2 seconds with them – in real life, if I met them at a party. But in drama? Whole different story. Give me more. In watching them struggle with life, in watching them thrash about against the ties that bind … I get to grow. I get to see myself in them. I am not above them, I am not better than them … it is they who can teach me.

   Conservatives though (and this is part of Mitch’s point, I think) tend to want characters to have redeeming qualities, or somehow reflect the world as THEY see it. I completely disagree with that view of art. I could not disagree more strongly if I tried. And THIS is why conservatives often get the label of being anti-art. Sometimes that label is unfair, but mark my words: it comes from somewhere real. This is not just a strawman created by liberals. This attitude does exist.

   The “get over it” attitude comes from a complacency about human existence, and an idea that things are, in general, black and white. And so people who thrash about, and struggle, and feel ambivalence over tough choices are annoying to conservatives. Because to them, the choice is already so clear. (Hence, Mitch making fun of the impatient “get over it” response to all the great fictional characters in literature).

   So yeah, some people make their own problems. It might be sad, but it also can make a hell of a great play, or novel.
8. mitch says:

   April 17, 2005 at 1:56 pm

   Great points, all. And thanks for the kind words, Red!

   There’s actually another whole post in this comment thread, Red. David Foster Wallace did a GREAT piece on talk radio in the last issue of the Atlantic; one of his points was that conservatism is based around a view of morals, ethics and the world that is very rigid or very clear, depending on your point of view. It’s a blessing and a curse. It’s certainly a blessing for conservative radio people; most issues are easy to answer. On the other hand, it’s not so great for dealing with the internal contradictions that both make up the best art and lots of peoples’ real lives, at least not if applied unthinkingly. Which far too many people, the “get over it” set, do…

   Yes, there’s definitely another post here.
9. Cake Eater Chronicles says:

   April 18, 2005 at 12:40 pm

   Oh, The Drama

   Courtesy of Sheila, we have a marrrrrrvelous essay from Mitch over at Shot in the Dark about the nature of art and conservatism. {…}a question I run into a lot when I talk about art with conservatives; what are music,…

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