James R. Fisher, Jr., Ph.D.
© September 1, 2012
When you ask a child a question, or when a child makes an observation, there is no filter, no protocol, no scripted reservoir of correct and incorrect responses to the query or the observation. The child speaks as the voice and rhythm of the dynamic that constitutes the child is energized to consciously respond. Often, we are surprised, sometimes shocked and even delighted taking credit for the nascent wisdom that seems to be emanating from our congenital roots.
That child will soon learn that what is considered appropriate and what is not, what is enhancing and beneficial to that child and what is not, and what will be awarded and what will be punished. A child is aware of all this before that child’s third birthday because we are resolute that child should be a compliment to our goodness and civility and not an embarrassment.
It is not the child that is the center of our concern, but how people see that child as a reflection of our breeding, our parenting, our desirability, and ourselves. This, too, does not take the child long to perceive because before it enters preschool that child has already determined the lay of the land.
We take this amorphous mass of possibility that is that child and mold it into being an effective dissembler and prevaricator, and to understand getting ahead and getting our way are simply a matter of the skill developed in deceit and manipulation.
The child that learns this game the best is likely to be well groomed, getting good grades in school, an exemplary member of the church and always a joy to those that feel they have bragging rights.
It is not uncommon for that child, once an adult, and having completed an auspicious education at some prestigious university with the right complement of degrees to go into politics.
That child who never learns the game and fights constant harassment to pay attention to grooming, to school, to church, to hanging out with other like minded respectable children, once an adult, unfinished and of doubtful identity having failed many times, commonly pursues the arts.
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I find it amusing, predictably amusing that the Monday morning quarterbacks of the media and the political arena are aghast that actor, director Clint Eastwood, 82, would have the audacity, not of hope, but of guile to speak without a forked tongue, the tongue he received from his mother before he had to fight through the stuffy bag of pretentious society to find the rhythm of his soul. He put that on display Thursday night prior to the acceptance speech of Mitt Romney for the Republican nomination for president.
All those wise heads of media, who have been programmed in the essence of propriety, have come down on the man with a vengeance. How could he do this? Why did it do it? Who is responsible for this breach of decorum?
It has all the markings of that first time that child of three stepped out of line and said or did something that was not predicted, not acceptable and was found offensive by the arbitrary standards of those hovering big people above.
Why was Eastwood not vetted? Why was there no rehearsal? Why was he not scripted to say precisely what those in charge expected him to say? How could he be such an embarrassment to Romney? How, indeed.
Did what Clint Eastwood say hurt or help Mr. Romney? We shall see. What is clear is that the RNC was the equivalent of high church in a time when high church is anachronistic and the clergy atavistic.
Some have accused the actor of “acting his age,” or being senile. Was it a good speech? No. Did it get a big reaction in the hall? Yes. Will it be remembered? Possibly it will be the only thing remembered of this convention.
Was it apostasy? Was it sacrilegious? If political conventions are high church, I guess it was. My sense is that it is the only honest moment that I have seen in this whole entire campaign season, thus far, on either side of the aisle.
It was a breath of fresh air to me in a programmed world that I, like Mr. Eastwood, have grown tired of, as nothing is more ludicrous than to take ourselves too seriously. Thank you, Mr. Eastwood, for making my day.
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