“Me no I know,” is how Eleni, the Greek’s immigrant mother, said, “I don’t know.”
It was just about a year ago that I embraced the "Me No I Know” spirit and took a year-long sabbatical from talking here. It was the whole sorry discourse surrounding the primaries and election what done me in. So much immaturity. Gleeful mean-spiritedness. Projection run amok. An apparent epidemic of arrested development. And a big wide world of tedious know-it-alls.
Some years ago, I went to a City Arts Commission meeting to speak on behalf of a friend who had done a public sculpture that had somehow come under attack as blatantly – nay, "obscenely!!" - misogynistic. At the time I was coordinator for a college women’s studies program and taught an intensive in public art, so I had some street cred in this area, plus I thought the criticism was just plain strange. Off I went with an academic colleague to offer support at a public hearing. As I sat in the last row watching the…circus parade…of complainants, I actually became disoriented by the craziness. These people – there were four in all, though they purported to represent “tens of thousands”- weren’t there to offer conscious, considered concerns about a serious piece of work. They were caught in some bizarre… thought form?… thought virus?… some contagious thing - and “acting out” as bit players plus diva in some deeply internal – and sad - psychological drama of their wild-eyed ring-leader.
Then, incredibly, my tenured colleague took her place at the mic and joined the parade. Not that she was on their side, she was arguing against them; but she was just making stuff up. PhD = rigor, discipline, intellectual honesty, right? Turns out not so much. The red light of the cable channel camera was winking at her and she commenced performing as if she was someone other than her true self, and stating "facts" which she was fabricating on the spot. Now I was utterly undone. What planet was I on? This is what happens to me when I am immersed in a thing that parades itself as other than it is – I go into an altered state. Such is the curse of being an empath. When my colleague returned to her seat next to me, there was no time for me to ask the obvious (WTF?!), because my name was called. I approached the mic in a cloud of slow-mo fog and...blithered... I think. I'm fairly certain I can never run for office because someone will find that tape and deploy it against me. I had lost my mind along with the rest of them. I remember distinctly moving my head from left to right to make eye contact with each weary commissioner in an attempt to ground myself, to re-establish something like authentic connection in the room. I muttered something about how art gives rise to emotions but it's better to welcome contentious disagreement than to hide works away or diminish public art to such bland pabulum that no one feels a thing ... ending with, "But really, people, how do you do it - sitting here week after week listening to nut bags using you as an audience for their personal make-believe plays?!" - Okay. I didn't say that last part. Not exactly. I hope. I really don't remember.
That evening altered forever my understanding of democracy-in-action.
How much of what passes for citizen engagement is really personal psychology seeking a spotlight… an unheard inner need crying for attention? Based on personal observation, I would have to say well over 50%. Kinda scary – as we confront an historic array of systemic failures. Broken government. Failing education. Inadequate health care. Disastrous financial structures. Impending planetary catastrophe. You know, stuff like that.
The thing is I love the conversation that is the essence of a functioning democracy. But in order for this conversation to be productive, the people who are able to come at it cleanly need to balance out those who can't by being excellent at it. And a year ago – for all the healthy enthusiasm I was seeing, and my confidence that Barack Obama was going to be the next president, and that essential systemic changes were inevitable (if not soon enough for me) - I was, nonetheless, disturbed by the low level of discourse and asking myself a lot of questions. Can we improve the conversation? How large a proportion must we simply relegate to pointless yammer-yammer? And how do we provide adequate counterbalance to that? What will it take to mature America’s democracy? What’s the single most useful and effective contribution I can make as a citizen? How do I make that contribution without succumbing to the dreaded altered-state phenomenon?
Having no solid answers, I decided to embrace not knowing, shut up for a while, and just see if answers might bubble up over time.
So that’s where I’ve been – in the land of Me No I Know.
But I’m baaaaaaaaack.