Site Presented By
Sunday, Nov 8, 2009
readerabcd
Published Letters: 18
I have a Salon headline feed to my Google Homepage. I read your Palin stories whenever their headlines appear. Sure - I have some concern that you are preaching to the choir, so to speak, but, well, I am the choir and you preach so well.
I'm in my fifties, a baby boomer, and a working mom. As someone who has actually uttered the phrase "women's liberation," I am fascinated by Palin. She really sets my head on fire. Love to hate her.
Gotta go to work now, but will continue to follow your Palin stories. Oh, yes, and if you do manage write a a Palin story that tries really hard to show a good side to her, I'll read that as well. Because, basically, it sickens me to believe that she is as shallow, opportunistic, vengeful, and short-sighted as she appears in every single account of her in every media outlet, not just yours. Even the firecracker qualities her supporters claim to love, are loathsomely reductive. Is there an actual human hiding somewhere behind Palin's strange hair, harsh makeup, and ugly glasses?
Keep us posted.
Admittedly, I should be brushing up on credit default swaps, instead of writing this. But let's relax a little and think about Mrs. Palin, our gun-slinging, baby-toting, future dictator of America. Yes, today's "Mean Girl" article is basically a light rehash of Sarah's callow maneuvering in her own little pond of origin. And yet, I read it avidly. I am picturing what will ensue, if Mrs. Palin brings her very special team skills to Washington. Maybe I've watched too many seasons of "24" - too much roiling Washington intrigue played out against yet another doomsday scenario. Or maybe, I've peered too deeply into the murky waters of local politics where I live. In any case, here's what I have to say to Senator McCain. Look out. You have invited a predator into your home. She will find your weaknesses quickly and use them for her own ends.
Deep into life, and having seen all kinds of folks, I've concluded that we are each born with a temperament somewhere on the spectrum that runs from miserable to satisfied.
And I've observed that the net value (and I don't mean monetary value) of a person has little to do with whether they are melancholic or sanguine. (Randomly grab the biographies of 10 significant people and you'll see that what they accomplished in life has little to do with how cheerful they were.)
My extended family includes individuals who clearly struggle (or struggled) with depression and individuals who have (or had) what my mother used to call the happiness gene. Depressive family members are more vulnerable to set-backs and have less life resiliancy. Family members with the so-called happiness gene, endure set-backs with optimism and resiliancy.
Those of us who struggle with depression, have intrinsic low self-esteem and often struggle to meet the basic requirements for day to day survival. Those of us with the happiness gene have an intrinsic sense of self-worth and seem to accomplish the basics, and then some, with relative ease.
So where do we lay the blame when depression becomes intractable and overwhelming, when it destroys a depressed person - whether by chronic substance abuse, compulsive risky behavior, or outright suicide?
As parents, educators, and health-care providers, we need to love, value and nurture our children - even and especially - our morose, sassy, gloomy, grouchy, and unduly worried children. These children need to be seen, appreciated for their strengths, and understood. And we need to deliberately teach them behavioral tools that they can use to manage their intense and vulnerable temperaments. Good and loving parents have always done this.
About "the delusion that human responsibility lies behind every misery, the conviction that each suffering must have an author, that somebody must be to blame" I would say this.
Where depression runs in a family, it may also be the case (but not always) that family members are much influenced by destructive cultural norms along the lines of "keeping up with the Jones." In addition, there may not be an ounce of common sense about how to actually be kind to others. So, yes, in these families you may see a family style of competitive behavior, recrimminations, and finger pointing. So much the worse for their vulnerable family members.
But when vunerable people are subjected to overly harsh childhoods, let's lay the blame on society at large, rather than individual families. Most families do the best they can with what they have been given and what they have been taught.
Palin's a reminder of how easy it is to manipulate and seduce others. What's required is a sharp, but not overly complex intelligence, and a willingness to do almost anything to get what you want. Combine this personality with the amplifying effect of television, add followers eager to hand themselves over to someone else, and you have an explosive cult of personality.
If historians exist hundreds of years from now, if we still have a few good thinkers dedicated to separating truth from fiction, I fear these discerning intellects will ascribe the collapse of our brilliant, pluralistic culture to the way that television sold form before substance, image before content. And the way so many of us bought what was sold.
It breaks my heart that anyone thinks bravado and unearned confidence are attributes of good character. Don't we know what happens when unskilled, but crazily confident people, hold positions of power and responsibility?
Palin will be sufficiently dangerous rallying her admirers via basic cable.
Much of the initial coverage about Fort Hood turned out to be wrong. Is there anything wrong with that?
The accountability imposed by another country for the CIA's kidnapping and torture reveals much about our own.
Fox News' morning show plays to type, talking about whether Muslims in the Army should face "special debriefings"
The survivor and author is upset about comparisons some on the right are making to genocide
Once seen as a lunatic fringe, reactionary anti-women groups are courting respectability
Salon headlines in your mailbox
