teselskap

Over the past few days I've been trying to figure out just what this Tea Party protest movement in the US is all about. I've been getting glimpses here and there, but because of a debate on Ravelry I decided to try to track down more information. What I've discovered is that it's a total moving target: there is no identifiable leader or political platform, the message morphs frequently, and the participants tend to scuttle back into their foxholes whenever anyone tries to pin them down on anything. It seems to boil down to rogue aggression, and it's hard not to see an undercurrent of at least class-ism, if not outright racism bubbling under the surface.

The "voices" of the movement appear to be Rush Limbaugh, Sarah Palin, Michelle Bachmann, and this Glenn Beck fellow, who is new to me because he cropped up on the national stage after I left the US (I apparently went to high school with him though, since he graduated at the end of my Freshman year at Sehome High School). In other words, a perfect storm of people who are diametrically opposed to me ideologically.

Recently pollsters have attempted to map the movement (in this case, quite literally) and determine its make up. The New York Times/CBS poll suggests they're richer and better educated (WTF?!) than previously assumed. Not surprisingly, their own website doesn't reveal very much, particularly since you have to register to gain access to anything but the most superficial information.

The best opinion piece I've found is Ron Rosenbaum's from Slate.com. He takes the movement to task for its imprecise (understatement!) use of big words like "tyranny," "fascist," and "progressive" on all those hilarious (but scary, and often misspelled) signs they've become famous for.* I think Rosenbaum's article a must-read for anyone following the current US political scene.

* I just discovered that a counter movement of infiltrators have begun making a sport of displaying equally ridiculous, but far more witty fake signs at Tea Party demonstrations. That's almost enough to make me want to go to a rally!

A Tea Party operative (or missionary, or organizer, or whatever you call them) apparently gave an address at the Norwegian Progress Party (Fremskrittspartiet) national convention last week. So I guess it won't be long until we start seeing misspelled signs expressing random anger at misrepresented targets in Norwegian too. Or not. Surely not even Fremskrittspartiet is that idiotic?

Ideologi

I threatened to write a post on what makes up my own ideological position a few days back, and I seem to have woken up this morning with the beginnings of that post in my head, so here goes. I've been trying to determine to what degree my beliefs (I suppose ideology really boils down to "belief," though maybe "conviction" is a better term?) overlap with the kulturradikalisme that I wrote about earlier, and what I've discovered is that although I share a number of their social critiques and their struggle for individual emancipation, my philosophical point of departure is quite different.

1. Active atheism
I am incredibly lucky to have been raised without religion. It was there in the background obviously, but everything I read and heard and observed about contemporary Christian or Jewish (the only religions I was exposed to as a kid) practices and beliefs seemed obviously pointless and misguided. As a young adult I ran into the awkward position of being in relationships with men who believed in God. I tried very hard to be open to their beliefs, and even spent a great deal of time in one case exposing myself to the guy's religion as much as possible in order to see if there was hope that our two world views could be reconciled. Believe me, there was a time when I was so infatuated that I desperately wanted to believe, but I simply have never experienced anything that even approaches belief in the supernatural or divine. I think that's partly why I go all the way and define myself as an atheist, even though intellectually (or scientifically) speaking I think the most defensible position is agnosticism (since there is no way to prove either the existence or non-existence of the divine without further evidence). Given that such a thing is currently impossible to prove, I find such questions totally irrelevant. If someone actually presents me with credible evidence I would certainly consider it, but I find the chance that this would happen is so minimal that I don't waste any time worrying about it.

2. The social contract
I'm copping that phrase from Rousseau, but what I really mean is just that I have a pretty rigid ethical code, not because I believe in good and evil, but because I want to live in a safe and nurturing society. I'm a rule follower because I think rules keep us from destroying ourselves and each other. I gladly pay taxes for the greater good. I try to keep to the speed limit. I want people in need to receive assistance not through the psychological drama and narcissism of charity, but through a rational and compassionate centralized government. It drives me crazy when people in the US talk about "big government" because as far as I can tell, the intention of democracy is that the government is really indistinguishable from the people--ideally we are our government. Of course most democracies I've seen don't work that way, and the US has been a democratic train wreck for as long as I can remember, but that doesn't stop me from believing in the principles of democracy.

3. Post-humanism
I don't believe human beings are the center of existence. We're just one species in a huge nexus of interdependent organisms. To be honest, on a macro level I think of the last 200 or so years of human history as a huge, rampant cancerous growth on our planet. I think that cancer is incurable. I don't believe in "God given rights" so I don't see any reason to think that my species has any more inherent value than any other. The fact that we are master manipulators of our environment, and that we are able to exploit so many other species in order to increase our chances of survival is interesting, of course, but it doesn't mean anything. Yes, I suppose this means that I'm an "environmentalist" and if I weren't so lazy and comfort loving, I would be living off grid. KE and I have spent a lot of time figuring out ways we can reduce our carbon footprint, but so far we haven't taken any big steps.

4. Chaos and patterns
I think the universe and everything in it is randomly generated (I leave the question of first causes completely open. On one level it could even be Jehovah for all I care). Humans have an uncanny ability to see patterns in the chaos. In the novel Grendel, John Gardner's monster calls human beings "pattern makers." I think that's beautiful and brilliant. We see patterns and tell stories in order to create meaning for ourselves. But ultimately, there are no absolute truths, only stories. That's why I don't find my job as a literary scholar irrelevant or parasitic. I'm fascinated by how and why we construct narratives, and what they can tell us about the state of being human at a particular time and place. All identity is narrated into being.

Gee, I think that's it, at least for this round.

Værsågod, neste

While walking to the subway yesterday I had a moment of knitting inspiration. I have for over a year now struggled with what to make out of the two shades of Jamieson DK (Thistledown and Moorland) that I got from my friend L right before we moved to Norway. After frogging her abandoned project and after one failed attempt to make something else out of them (also frogged), I have been fretting over this for months. Meanwhile the two lovely colors sit on the shelf. Suddenly it dawned on me that my problem is actually the combination of the colors. They're two muted purple-brown-grays (typically difficult-to-describe heathers) that are quite close, and thus should fit with my love of tone-on-tone monocromatism. But to my eye at least, they turn into purple and lavender when combined, which is a bit much for this neutral-to-drab gal.

During my commuter epiphany, I realized that I don't have to use them both in one project. The darker of the two (Moorland) would look spectacular as the base for a sweater with a patterned yoke in a high contrast creamy white. Something like the yoke version of the classic Marius sweater published by Sandnes garn (without the third contrast color). As it happens I have the pattern and the cream colored yarn to go with it:

This pattern calls for a seed stitch edge at neck, wrists and bottom, but I'm thinking this would be the perfect opportunity to do that Swedish twined edging I mentioned a few months back.
I'm now so eager to start that I can hardly bring myself to finish Miss Honeychurch II:


Just another inch or so at the bottom, then the sleeves and neckline to go. I know it will go fast, but I'm not entirely happy with the way this is knitting up. The fabric is a little too loose and translucent for my tastes, and I can't for the life of me figure out why the yoke is so short, especially since I ended up with the correct number of stitches at the end of it. Mysterious. But I am motivated to finish since I think it would be a useful item of clothing to have along on the trip to Eugene and Seattle later this month.

Gosh, I actually sat down to write an ideological post today--one that attempted to articulate the central tenets of my politics (in response to my readings on kulturradikalisme, of course), but that all seemed to disappear once I got on the topic of The Next Sweater. I'll have to mull over the ideology bit a while longer, I think (like the next 30 years?).