So we were talking about alienation in class the other day. It was a standardized testing day, so the kids were pretty much squeezed dry. So I gave ‘em a light little lesson on alienation. We talked about all sorts of ways a person could feel alienated, but what we didn’t talk about was how some folks respond to it.
We tend to think about the word as meaning “shunned,” as if active measures have been taken to keep someone outside, keep someone from feeling welcome, as if they belong. It does mean that, yes: but what makes people want to alienate someone else? Not what makes someone feel alienated, but what makes someone want to alienate another? I’m glad you asked.
Someone rather wise said, “When you’re accustomed to privilege, equality feels like oppression.” For the life of me, I can’t find definitive attribution for that. Anyway, I think we’re playing this out writ large in our nation, and our world, right now. Those who have been unduly privileged (and I count myself very much of their number as a white male who grew up with two loving parents and had a stable, nominally comfortable childhood) are being asked, not even to lose that privilege but to at least examine it, and are responding with almost histrionic rage. The apoplexy with which some of those on the top of the pyramid respond to simple, basic appeals to human decency and fairness is a sight to behold.
I think it stems from alienation. Or rather, the reverse.
The ancient Greeks had some rather serious views on hospitality. Among those views were the ones that dealt with how to treat a guest. Guests were to be pampered, respected, fed, clothed, and in all manner made to feel comfortable. There was a certain self-sacrifice required on the part of a host, but it was well worth the effort to make the guest feel welcome. Xenia, they called it. The host was expected to willingly give up comfort and materials to the guest in order to make him or her feel at home. And this was in a time where scarcity ruled. Antiquity was not known for its abundance--we are now living in a time where more people have more “things” that ever before. The sacrifice required to make a guest feel at home is minimal to the point of insignificance.
Why, then, is it so hard for us as a nation and a people to do so?
I think it’s because we are not secure in our own place. Many Americans feel--rightly or wrongly--that they are losing their own place in the culture. That those at the bottom of the pyramid are no longer willing to stay where they are, and are climbing the steps to the top. The privileged no longer can claim their place merely as a result of their birth.
Even though we are privileged, we feel as if we are oppressed. Beaten down.
Alienated.
Alienated from the world we knew, where a certain race was inherently better than another, where a gender was inherently better than another, where an orientation, religion, dialect...a series of unearned and arbitrary characteristics marked one as “better” than another.
That world is being threatened. Finally. Threatened to be replaced with a kinder world, a world where unearned privilege is first questioned, then removed. A world where equality of opportunity is truly possible.
But that can be threatening to those in the clubhouse. The one with the sign outside that says, “no girls allowed!”
Or even, “no blacks/Hispanics/gays/Muslims/liberals…allowed!”
Alienation is a powerful force. It can drive people to despair, depression, and death.
Or murder.
Not just the murder of another human being, but the murder of an entire culture. The alienated child throwing a temper tantrum at a world he is powerless to affect...this is at once pitiable and dangerous.
One thing is certain: I used to think that the United States had gone through its difficult birth in the Revolutionary War, passed through a difficult puberty in the Civil War, and made it through adolescence in the Civil Rights Era, and that now, America had become a young adult.
I concede I was wrong. America has not grown up. America is still a child. A dangerous, vindictive, enraged child. A child with the capacity to end the world as we know it.
But children grow up.
Be seeing you!
We tend to think about the word as meaning “shunned,” as if active measures have been taken to keep someone outside, keep someone from feeling welcome, as if they belong. It does mean that, yes: but what makes people want to alienate someone else? Not what makes someone feel alienated, but what makes someone want to alienate another? I’m glad you asked.
Someone rather wise said, “When you’re accustomed to privilege, equality feels like oppression.” For the life of me, I can’t find definitive attribution for that. Anyway, I think we’re playing this out writ large in our nation, and our world, right now. Those who have been unduly privileged (and I count myself very much of their number as a white male who grew up with two loving parents and had a stable, nominally comfortable childhood) are being asked, not even to lose that privilege but to at least examine it, and are responding with almost histrionic rage. The apoplexy with which some of those on the top of the pyramid respond to simple, basic appeals to human decency and fairness is a sight to behold.
I think it stems from alienation. Or rather, the reverse.
The ancient Greeks had some rather serious views on hospitality. Among those views were the ones that dealt with how to treat a guest. Guests were to be pampered, respected, fed, clothed, and in all manner made to feel comfortable. There was a certain self-sacrifice required on the part of a host, but it was well worth the effort to make the guest feel welcome. Xenia, they called it. The host was expected to willingly give up comfort and materials to the guest in order to make him or her feel at home. And this was in a time where scarcity ruled. Antiquity was not known for its abundance--we are now living in a time where more people have more “things” that ever before. The sacrifice required to make a guest feel at home is minimal to the point of insignificance.
Why, then, is it so hard for us as a nation and a people to do so?
I think it’s because we are not secure in our own place. Many Americans feel--rightly or wrongly--that they are losing their own place in the culture. That those at the bottom of the pyramid are no longer willing to stay where they are, and are climbing the steps to the top. The privileged no longer can claim their place merely as a result of their birth.
Even though we are privileged, we feel as if we are oppressed. Beaten down.
Alienated.
Alienated from the world we knew, where a certain race was inherently better than another, where a gender was inherently better than another, where an orientation, religion, dialect...a series of unearned and arbitrary characteristics marked one as “better” than another.
That world is being threatened. Finally. Threatened to be replaced with a kinder world, a world where unearned privilege is first questioned, then removed. A world where equality of opportunity is truly possible.
But that can be threatening to those in the clubhouse. The one with the sign outside that says, “no girls allowed!”
Or even, “no blacks/Hispanics/gays/Muslims/liberals…allowed!”
Alienation is a powerful force. It can drive people to despair, depression, and death.
Or murder.
Not just the murder of another human being, but the murder of an entire culture. The alienated child throwing a temper tantrum at a world he is powerless to affect...this is at once pitiable and dangerous.
One thing is certain: I used to think that the United States had gone through its difficult birth in the Revolutionary War, passed through a difficult puberty in the Civil War, and made it through adolescence in the Civil Rights Era, and that now, America had become a young adult.
I concede I was wrong. America has not grown up. America is still a child. A dangerous, vindictive, enraged child. A child with the capacity to end the world as we know it.
But children grow up.
Be seeing you!
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