On July 9th, I made a foray into the wilderness that is culture here in parts of East MoCo. In bewailing the New Racism in MoCo, I felt it necessary to mention the fact that visually obvious "street gangs" seem increasingly race-based, entrenching themselves into various neighborhoods, increasing the appearance of ethnic enclaves, perhaps spurring on the formation of new race-based street gangs.
I paused to explain that I'm trying to develop a new blogging style, which makes up for the shortcomings of the "bottom up" time sequence of blogging. Well, most people read blogs because they're looking for "what's happening today", so for most people the current style is just fine. But if you're doing a series, the style has to change. And while I was at it, I had to sing the praises of my Muse. Hey, "she made me do it".
Then I went on with a little background about my own family's history of oppression by ethnic separatism and race/ethnicity-based hatred and crime. This is so that the Astute Reader -- and even readers less than astute -- will understand that I am not without sympathy for the victims of racial hatred. "Been there, done that", as they say, in terms of people trying to cause problems for other folks because the one group doesn't like the other's "kind", or type, or race, or national origins. There are laws against this sort of thing now, in part because we got tired of it and put our foot down and that's that.
Then I just had to make some clarifications regarding the distinction between simile and metaphor so that people will know that while you can call someone an Ass, that doesn't make them actually a Donkey.
I also pointed out that there are few faster routes to madness than the embracing of Superstition, and actually starting to believe ridiculous and utterly unreal stuff.
I have always had a certain fascination with plots.
Plot, in literature, is what how the story plays out. They say that the real drivers of the story are the conflicts between character, and this is indeed what gives a story its depth and a believable humanity. But given that there needs to be characterization, and conflict, plot is how we see the development or exposition of the character, and the progress of that conflict.
The possible conflicts are a rather small class, and the characters possible are also a fairly small class. Yet those two classes can be combined in a number of ways which isn't all that small. Yet some famous writer once remarked "there are only about a dozen or twenty basic human stories, and they repeat themselves endlessly throughout history and literature".
Some have suggested that this tends to make literature and drama pretty predictable, unless you add in events external to the human interactions. A good freak storm sure will liven up a play.
Then again, so will Divine Intervention. Some have suggested that if there were no actual deities, we'd have to invent them just to put them into stories to forestall "heard it before" boredom. Cain versus Abel isn't all that unusual -- just ask any coroner -- until you add in a Supreme Being and Eternal Curses. Add in those plot elements and it becomes downright thought-provoking. And just what, exactly, is this "Mark of Cain"?
I also am fascinated with plots of the other kind.
I liked to read mystery and private-detective books when I was a kid. Who didn't? The one thing that always remained mysterious to me was the whole lifestyle of the "gumshoe", or "private dick", the guy or gal who can tail their wily suspect through a crowd. How could they manage to not be spotted?
Well, as it turns out, the best gumshoes are notoriously average-looking. They're nobody you'd notice. Thus, they are not notably good looking, or notably ugly, or notably muscular or notably thin. They are notably unremarkable.
Having come to this realization, I decided that if I wanted to spot people who could successfully sneak around without being noticed, I would have to learn to remark the unremarkable.
Personally, I can't walk down the street without me seeing people stare at me. I used to think I was a freak of nature or something. It was actually something different.
You know those guys who are ridiculously healthy, in excellent condition, perfect hair and skin, probably moonlight as male models for the local department stores, and they're absolutely and endlessly aware of how incredibly good looking they are and take relentless advantange of it?
Except for the relentless advantage and being endlessly aware of it, so I am told, that used to be me.
At any rate, sneaking around was never an option for me. At least it was out of the question that I could avoid being noticed.
Yet sometimes you can hide in plain sight.
I definitely didn't have "a great personality". In fact, I generally preferred to be off on my own somewhere reading a book.
I am not gregarious, much. Some people will mistakenly think that I dislike people, or will think "oh, he's a loner" as if it were bad to be able to thrive in solitude where others would suffer from loneliness.
Look at it this way: my ancestors came from a place where it was necessary for individuals to be able to spend a long time being alone and silent in order to bring down prey and put meat on the table. For half of the year, the only two things that could be had fresh were game and fish, and most of those got scared away by crowds. Anyone who could spend a few days all alone on the trail of game was someone who could feed their families better than people who started talking to themselves after five minutes of being alone.
That doesn't mean that you don't want to talk to people when they're around. I'm a regular Chatty Cathy in a crowd. Just pull my string to wind me up and let the random verbiage begin.
But if nobody wanted to talk to me, that's fine. I can't hide myself in a crowd... but I can be entirely alone in the midst of one, and that means that without having to focus concentration on the conversation at hand, I can listen to all of the others.
In the field, the lone hunter survives best by studying the behavior of possible game, and of possible predators on either the game or the hunter. If you're a lone antelope in the middle of a herd of wildebeest, you'd better be alert to the wildebeest no less than to possible lions. A lion might cause them all to stampede. Or, being wildebeest, they might just up and decide to stampede for no real reason at all.
Worst of all, they could up and decide that antelopes are a perfectly good reason to stampede... all across the top of the antelope.
People can be like that; they may take offense at the inoffensive, solely for the reason that something is different.
Ben Franklin didn't like Germans, but since William Penn had invited them by the thousands, Mr Franklin was forced to associate with them long enough to form this opinion:
[...] that measures of great Temper are necessary with the Germans: and am not without Apprehensions, that thro' their indiscretion or Ours, or both, great disorders and inconveniences may one day arise among us; Those who come hither are generally of the most ignorant Stupid Sort of their own Nation, and as Ignorance is often attended with Credulity when Knavery would mislead it, and with Suspicion when Honesty would set it right; and as few of the English understand the German Language, and so cannot address them either from the Press or Pulpit, 'tis almost impossible to remove any prejudices they once entertain. Their own Clergy have very little influence over the people; who seem to take an uncommon pleasure in abusing and discharging the Minister on every trivial occasion. Not being used to Liberty, they know not how to make a modest use of it; and as Kolben says of the young Hottentots, that they are not esteemed men till they have shewn their manhood by beating their mothers, so these seem to think themselves not free, till they can feel their liberty in abusing and insulting their Teachers. Thus they are under no restraint of Ecclesiastical Government; They behave, however, submissively enough at present to the Civil Government which I wish they may continue to do: For I remember when they modestly declined intermeddling in our Elections, but now they come in droves, and carry all before them [...]
This sounds inexplicably familiar to me in the modern day.
Nativism in the United States is of hoary lineage; it goes back to before the Revolution and has lasted long past the First Civil War.
The origins of many gangs are in "self defense" and often these self-defense oranizations were reasonable responses to unreasonable pressures. Nativists versus Immigrants is an old story.
Yet all too frequently, the leadership of such "self defense gangs" were people who had been criminals in their former homeland.
Historically, we've had Nativist gangs, German gangs, Irish gangs, Italian gangs, Chinese gangs, Jewish gangs, Catholic gangs, Protestant gangs, you name it.
No cause, or perception of difference -- however great or slight that difference -- has failed to produce at least a few individuals who banded together using that cause (or difference, real or imagined) as a pretext to victimize other people, in an ongoing and highly organized fashion.
However, we fortunately haven't had a whole lot of gangs -- at least not very recently -- operating continuing criminal enterprises based on politics, or ideology.
Is there some sort of natural niche, as it were, being left empty?
Or, in the absence of any directed functional conspiracy, are strange collections of slightly-demented people coalescing in a way to fill that niche?
Or, more likely, has at least one such group coalesced and become increasingly and more openly active, and I just didn't notice?
It's one thing to not be at all bothered when you're alone in a crowd.
It's quite another thing if you fail to notice that you're alone in a crowd, and that crowd is turning ugly...
More to come?
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