Thursday, April 21, 2011

Jane, You Ignorant Slut

I'm showing my age with the title of today's post.  But that rejoinder from the old "Point-Counterpoint" segment on "Saturday Night Live" works so well in so many situations involving the clueless arrogance of others.  Hell, I've applied it to myself when the need has arisen.  Dan Aykroyd is a genius.

He got Donna Dixon to marry him, didn't he?
 Anyway, on to the subject at hand.  Last week a letter to the editor caught my eye in the Dallas Morning News, my local deadtree news source.  I love reading letters to the editor.  They demonstrate that people are willing to engage in debate about their communities and the world at large.  Often they draw my attention to stories that I missed when they were originally published.  And they prove, over and over again, that even the best fiction writers can't make up more jaw-droppingly fantastic dialogue than you see when people start expressing their honest opinions on life as they believe it to be.

The letter I read last Friday was written by a woman I'll call...Jane.  Jane Javelin, which is not her real name but close enough.  Her letter was part of a continuing editorial page conversation about fiscal responsibility and living within one's means, whether one is an individual trying to make ends meet or the government of the most powerful nation on Earth. 

This a hot topic, of course.  Congress has only just finished demonstrating that it can't carry on the kind of serious, give-and-take budget negotiations that millions of American families routinely conduct every payday.  Granted, the stakes are higher, the dollar amounts astronomically so, and there are a lot more special interests involved than who gets to pick the next Redbox movie.  On the other hand, your family doesn't have Senator John "#NotIntendedToBeAFactualStatement" Kyl holding the process hostage with speeches about baby-meat grinders at Planned Parenthood and their effect on fiscal policy.

The series of letters to which Jane was adding had been discussing the effects of the last few years of stimulus spending, which liberals like to call "the social safety net" and conservatives like to call "the government trough of handouts."  There's a slight disparity of tone between the two characterizations, and of course they're both whitewashed turds of political nothingspeak.  I'm not discussing the merits of either side.  I'm discussing Jane.

Jane took issue with an earlier letter, which scoffed at the notion that conservative money management was the difference between upright American citizens who weathered the recession with their finances intact, and irresponsible slobs who grew fat at the government teat.  That writer had pointed out that millions of people had lost jobs, benefits, and opportunities through no fault of their own, and that conservative money management only went so far when the money in question was non-existent.  He suggested that hard work isn't always enough to overcome unlucky breaks.

Jane scoffed right back, she did.  According to Jane, her husband overcome tough beginnings to start and maintain a successful business.  He managed their finances, he saved for the future, and because of hard work and good budgeting, his family is set for life.  "'Luck' had absolutely nothing to do with my husband's success," wrote Jane. 

Gosh, Jane, you had a husband who financially supported you your entire married life? 

No one in your family ever suffered a serious illness or injury that wasn't covered by insurance? 

Your car never skidded on an icy patch and got totaled, just as you were about to finally pay off your debts?

Your husband's business was never the victim of a break-in, a frivolous lawsuit, an embezzling employee, or unfair competition from a larger, better financed competitor?

Every windfall you ever experienced was competely planned, and every problem was of manageable size and disposition?

Jane, you lucky woman.

You ignorant slut.

You arrogant -

I'll stop.

Now for a more thoughtful rebuttal.

As a woman, I'm appalled by Jane's blindness to the reality that by the grace of God, she found a man who wasn't a slacker or a drug addict AND was willing to do all the work and make all the money.  Many women don't have that privilege (and in the case of being financially supported, don't want it).

This guy was probably a great provider.
 As a full-time working professional, I'm amused at Jane's conviction that hard work and good management are the magic pixie dust of a successful career.  I guess she's never encountered a douchebag who totally didn't deserve the success s/he'd achieved, or a totally deserving person who got slammed by the system.  I'm envious.

As a person who lives on Earth, I'm skeptical that Jane actually inhabits the same planet.  Anyone who can negotiate this world in complete control of all obstacles and setbacks is either the luckiest person in it (which Jane herself denies), or God.  And even He doesn't hang out down here with all the crazies He created. 

"Why can't they all be more like Jane's husband,
the greatest of My creations?"
When you've got a very good life, it's easy to believe that you should get all the credit.  And when your life is pretty damn bad, it's easy to believe that someone else should get all the blame. But it's a trap and a cop-out either way.

Life is such a tangled, complicated bundle of wires. No matter who you are, you're affected by the actions of others, the consequences of events you don't control, the tide of history, and plain old luck, both good and bad. You can attribute what happens to God if that's your thing, or to Fate, or cell-phone radiation, or the Illuminati. Whatever you believe is nothing but your personal attempt to make sense of what happens. We've all gotta do what we gotta do to get by.

So Jane is entitled to believe that her financial security runs in a neat, straight line from (her husband's) hard work.  And I'm entitled to believe that I'm surrounded by a criss-crossing matrix of clear connections and random extension cords.  Her life is a tightwire, mine is a net.  I sincerely hope she never stumbles.

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