The Worst Is Yet to Come

That's the subtitle of an article in The Atlantic. That may well be - we'll see. The surprising part is that my mother sent me the link to the article. I think my response to her is somewhat entertaining so here it is:

Hi Mom,

I didn't know you were such a political animal! I'm not much of a political animal anymore and probably wouldn't've even read this article if it wasn't you who sent it.

You'll probably find it kinda funny, but the sentence that caught my eye most in the entire article was this one:

"These kinds of views [all political] make it difficult for me and some of my New Year’s [from decades past] guests to speak about anything at all [anymore]."

Really? Political views make it impossible to talk about the weather? About your favorite restaurant? About a cool new jazz song you heard? About your family? About going for a bicycle ride? And a million other things?

One thing I really, really like about barbershop singing is that, via the Barbershop Harmony Society rules, discussing politics (and religion) is forbidden at all official society meetings (which includes rehearsals). Yet somehow, hard as it is to believe, we still find things to talk about! Even stuff other than barbershop music, though that topic does feature prominently. It really is possible to have friendships and positive collegial interactions without ever even knowing each others' preferred ideologies! Who'd have thunk it!

Outside of official rehearsals, political discussions are allowed. One singer was complaining about Trump and racists and fascists and nazis to which I mostly just politely listened. At one point he asked if I would "sing with a Nazi." I said, "Of course. I'll sing with anybody, anytime - any race, any religion, any gender, any ideology. Singing is separate and above all that. Besides, it's not like not singing with this hypothetical nazi would somehow change him (or her) into a non-nazi. Indeed, the opposite is plausible - that he'd see me as a human being even though I'm of jewish ancestry and soften his nazi beliefs because of the singing together. Isolating said hypothetical nazi will do nothing good and probably just make him more extreme."

This singer quit shortly after that and at least partly because any organization that accepted folks like me who would even contemplate hypothetically singing with a nazi was evil (even though he'd readily admit that I wasn't a nazi) and he wanted no part of that. Too bad, because he was a really good singer and his leaving the chorus has noticeably damaged it. If that's my fault, then oops!

To me, the fundamental problem underlying every problem discussed in the article is the inability or unwillingness of people to even talk (or sing) with others if they don't have the same professed ideology.

Yet politics is really not that important. Vote for who you think is best and speak out if you must, but beyond that it's so much less important than almost everything else in life. Ten or twenty years ago I was complaining about some politician or other and a friend asked, "So has this politician really had a major direct impact on your life? I mean other than the mere fact of his existence pisses you off?" It was a good question and the answer was no, it really didn't much affect me. Indeed, my being annoyed about whatever it was negatively impacted me far more than any of the actions or policies of the politician. In fact, none of the presidents or congresses of my lifetime have made any provable substantial difference to me. Have they made a difference to anybody? Of course, they're always winners and losers. But to me, not really much of a difference and far less difference than more immediate events. At that point I decided it was really silly to take political stuff so seriously. I'll do my homework and vote and that's it.

And I'll sing with whoever wants to sing with me!