My wife and I were down to NYC for a birthday party on Saturday. My wife's cousin's wife turned 70. Lucy Bulliet, whose CV is here. The neatest gift was a painting of Lucy by her husband. Lucy was portrayed as a Hindu goddess, complete with four arms. The feet were a little strange, but the head and the arms were very good. And one of the four hands held a cherry, which went with Lucy's maiden name, Cherry.
Roughly 25 people were at the party and I feel very confident that my wife and I were the only Republicans present. Lucy has a whole Obama collage on the wall of the hallway to the kitchen. That said, this group of Martha's relatives love to mix politics and bridge and food and have a great time. And I love it. However, at this party there was one awkward moment.
There was a book on the living room coffee table about the death of Adolph Hitler, based upon the recently opened Kremlin files. Since my wife just finished a course at UMass Lowell on the Holocaust and had read large sections of Mein Kampf for the course, she had commented on how Herr Hitler was expert at speaking to crowds and how his technique was to keep refining an idea toward its simplest form, in order to sell it. She pointed out how Hitler's Myers Briggs personality type would tend to lead him in this direction. She then noted that she thought that David Axelrod had done that for President Obama during the campaign. At that, one person, a friend of Lucy's husband from back in Illinois said, "We can't talk politics." That was that.
Needless to say, this felt strange. I found myself in the political minority and feeling that I was best off keeping my mouth shut. My wife later went up to this woman and apologized and said that she had not meant to offend.
In a nice gesture, Sal, the son-in-law of my wife's other cousin, came up later and said something to the effect of "We complained for eight years under Bush, you should be free to complain for the next four or eight years." Sal is a good kid (compared to me) from Philly (PhD in Marine Biology), and like me, an out lander. I really appreciated his comment.
And, we all need to keep talking.
TYPO CORRECTION: Don L noted that I typed "when" instead of "went." Corrected.
Regards — Cliff
2 comments:
Sorry to hear that your (inimitable) style was quashed at a social event.
It is unsettling that - as a culture - we seem to be uncomfortable in voicing disagreement in a civil manner with each other. Many good, intelligent folks are unwilling to permit free speech if it differs from their own version; and the nut-cases take disagreement to disagreeable extremes (road rage, shootings, etc.).
Better to revel in the rich tapestry that we contribute our threads to and marvel at the shades of difference.
Fran,
Well said. Some say not to ever talk about politics or religion. But to those who can be civil about it, and keep an open mind, what could be more interesting?
best,
gp
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